[This was written on 05/21/2009 to answer Nicole's request for comments on learning photography, in a Fine Art America.com discussion]

Hi Nicole. I’ve been photographing since age 9 and used to teach it at the San Francisco Art Institute.

Obviously there is a huge amount to say about learning photography, but (for me at least) there are some basics that guide my image work.

My (or any other photographer’s way is of course not what you should seek – you must develop your own resources – fitting to your unique nature and your growing personal vision.

It will take some wonderful years to mature as an artist. Don’t rush – you’ll miss those early years later. Experience them fully.

Again obviously there is the tek stuff and /mind/soul/heart stuff. The tek of the camera is almost automatic nowadays and you’ll likely suss it out quickly. Check out the better books. The key there is to understand your equipment, the tek jargon (every medium has that – keeps the unwashed masses at bay) and understand what a (technically) good photo ought to look like, even if it has no soul. Your goal is to produce technically beautiful images (and for FAA, Print-On-Demand, up to 12,000 pretty pixels on the long side).

After you can do that – you must learn to do the camera part (not the subsequent digital image processing) without thought or distraction – while you concentrate 150% of your attention on “seeing” and close to 0% on working your camera.

Most people have learned to only glance. Our world is full of visual pollution and we are constantly bombarded with advertising images – most of us protect ourselves by learning to not see clearly. We look – we don’t see. The artist must above all else see keenly.

So another of your jobs is to constantly practice seeing. Beautiful photos lurk around use everywhere every day. But can we see them? The last thing I’ll write about the using the camera part is again my personal method – needs adapting at best for others and may not work at all for some. It’s a Zen approach and goes something like this (assume I’ve found a beautiful spot in the woods to look for photos – best to learn this in quiet places – later you can do it anywhere).

1. Stop your mind. This takes practice, but anyone can learn. I mean you will spend a few minutes letting the conversation we all run in our minds fade away to nothing, like smoke (along with that latest tune you can’t get out of your head).

2. Once your mind is still and calm, you put your attention into your eyes – just enough elsewhere to keep from stumbling over a root or something. Then you walk around until you “make contact” with something (don’t mean anything weird by that). For me this is usually something about the combinations of light, color, shadow and forms that fall into some pleasing or disturbing composition – from some certain angle. Once you have something going, you insert the camera without disturbing it – this is where being intimate with your equipment pays off.

But not all such situations really feel like “they want to be photographed”, or have some magic to them. Maybe 1 out of 5 or 10. I really work those – different angles (points-of-view), horizontal/vertical format, long lens/short lens, parts in focus and out of focus – whatever it takes to pull the essence out of it and make that visible. And not only is the light sensor exposed. More importantly the photographer is exposed. At that point something called “visualization” happens. You see right now how that final future photo resulting from this situation is going to look. For some photographers they see it EXACTLY. Me, I see more a small group of possibilities. The other thing that happens when you are exposed is that your (what to call it? soul? heart? spirit? personal artistic vision?). What ever it is, it has been slipping into the act – helping guide you to the shot and now it’s quite strong (if the shot is good).

3. Now you’re in Photoshop on your computer. Your job is to recapture that essence you had for a while out in the field and work to nurture and strengthen it in the digital image. You also have to ruthlessly whack away everything which does not support that essence. This is were many fine photos are lost – especially to the student. It’s so easy to fool yourself about what you wanted. To say to yourself, “Hey! I’m pretty good – this really is what I visualized.” Except it wasn’t and the more you work on it the less life it has in it. That wasn’t your authentic personal vision talking – it was your ego.

Here is how the student gets passed this difficult part:
You must be brutally honest with yourself. You must not expect great things all at once – that leads to disappointment for no reason at all. Like sketching, martial arts, or any other practice, you do it over and over – often and more often. After a while you get better and you get better at understanding how to get still better. It happens, if you stick with it.

A good way to make the fastest progress possible is to use equipment that lets you see your camera results instantly. I used to teach with Polaroid instant film. Now we have digital cameras. But you need one where you can see your image pretty large and clear.

The weak way to learn is to make your exposures and visualizations, then process them hours or days later. The strong way is to really look at them keenly right after you make them. Ask yourself, “Is this image true to what I saw and visualized?” “How can I improve it?” Then do that. Do it right there, right then – before you can fool yourself.

When you get good at that, you can go anywhere and make good photos – even while talking with your people subjects or otherwise distracted (at one level).

The last thing I want to write about the digital processing part is another of my personal things. It might sound weird at first and it is another that takes a lot of practice. I know when an image is worth putting my time into. That’s because I’ve gotten good enough at seeing that I can see when an image has a tiny spark of life in it. Then I try all the techniques (if it works it’s a technique – if not it’s a trick) I know to nurture that spark. If it gets strong enough and I look and listen well enough, it will “tell me how it wants to be expressed”. If I can do that – I’ve got a winner.

Now all this sounds very mystical, I’m sure. But that’s only because you can’t talk about the visual. Our medium is not words and when you try to express it in words you have to twist them in funny ways. If our medium were words, we’d be writers. Since we are photographers, we have to use metaphors to point roughly in the direction of our meanings.

Hope it Helps )

Remember – the camera has to point both inwards and outwards…

_jim coe
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You may want to check out my ebook, ‘Art Head Start’ it’s all about art basics and design and composition – art school stuff. Also, what light and color actually are and how they work in the world and in the human visual system. Visual Grammar and Visual Communication, etc. Also how to analyze images (using Photoshop tricks) in various ways (chiaroscuro, color scheme, eyepath, etc.). Besides the traditional art school learning, it’s combined with basic digital art info, combined with basic physics of light and color and some of the advice like above. Good for beginner’s, if I do say so myself, lol. 150 pages and 180 of my custom illustrations.

My web site’s sales page for my ‘Art Head Start’ ebook is:

One of my best friends is Ken Milburn. He’s written over 26 excellent books on Photoshop and Digital Photography.  You can check out his books and art (and the web site I built for him) at: www.kenmilburn.com. Amazon has his fine books.

I’d recommend that even if you use the much less expensive non-pro version of Photoshop (‘Photoshop Elements’) that you get a pro Photoshop book. ’Photoshop Elements’ does use the same tools as found in the professional version, but not all of them.

      _jim coe