Photography 101: Read the Manual Edition

Hi Everyone! Happy Friday!

So I've got a nice camera (a Nikon 3100), have had it for a couple years and all I do with it is point and shoot. And this year, I really want to learn to use it, and not just from a technical perspective, but also from an artistic perspective...I see in my head how I want my pictures to turn out, and the reality of how they do come out does not match my vision as closely as I'd like, you know?

And I figured maybe some of you out there are in the same boat, and would be interested in the information I dig up. So I'm going to start doing the occasional (maybe a couple times a month?) photography post. If this is not your thing...have a nice weekend and I'll see you Monday.

So the logical (and also kind of boring) place to start in my mind is to read the manual, which is available online for pretty much any camera, I would imagine. Am I the only one who hates manuals and just expects everything to be intuitive? Or am I just extra lazy? Anyway, I'm working my way through the manual and will report back if it did me any good. My tip for reading the manual is read it with your camera in hand so you can try what you are reading about...otherwise, for me anyway, without that tactile input the information just goes in one ear and out the other.

Future topics I plan to write about:

• Tips for taking better kid portraits
• How to light photographs inside (I love natural light, hate flash)
• Getting a shallow depth of field (you know, where the subject is clear and the background is blurred....love that look)
• How to do video (because I think my camera shoots video...and it'd be nice to have some video of the kids aside from the ocasional random iPhone clip)
• This is more a photoshop thing, but how to take an object of of a picture and place it on a white background
• Shooting events (such as birthday parties...you know, what kind of things make for memorable and fun pictures?)
• How to shoot/capture the personality of rooms in a house
• Etc., kind of all over the map as you can see...

Anything YOU would be particularly interested in learning about?

Happy weekend everyone! Thanks for spending some time here this week! :)

XOXO