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Welcome to lesson two! The next two lessons are going to focus on camera basics. First off, we're going to talk about aperture - also called f-stop - and shutter speed. Those two things alone put me off for a very long time when I was a beginner and considering learning more about photography. All the years I spent growing up while I was young, I had a camera in my hands. I have boxes full of photographs of school events, slumber parties, the poodle I had growing up and all of my friends acting goofy. I figure some of that will make good blackmail material later on in life, but I digress… The point is that I was born with a love for taking pictures, but all of the crazy technical sounding stuff was very scary to me. If that's where you are, I'm here to tell you that you have nothing to be scared of. It takes a while to get the feel of how to know exactly what you're doing, but the basic concepts are quite easy, and I'll give you some tools you can use to help you along until it all comes naturally to you.

The Nuts and Bolts of off-camera flash - Part 1, Basics

"The trick in outdoor flash photography is that you need to balance your strobe light with the available light. So basically you will be working with (at least) 2 exposures: your flash exposure, and the camera's exposure. "

"Move beyond auto mode and gain control of your photographs with step-by-step guidance from Santa Fe Photographic Workshops instructor Rick Allred. Master your camera's features and join Rick in the field as he reveals how to find flattering light and shoot successfully in shade, harsh sunlight and challenging low light. Learn to use shutter speed and depth of field to maximize detail, minimize distractions and create the best photos possible."

Mastering the Art Now here comes the fun part. Personally I believe that the artistic skills of a photographer cannot be taught. Those are skills that you have to hone. You can get twenty different people to take a picture of one thing and you will get twenty different photographs. What I can teach is the basics.

create anything you can imagine - Learn the basic skills and/or refine your existing skills using these tutorials. Be inspired.

"I remember starting out as a new photographer and being TERRIFIED of Manual Mode! Trust me, It isn't as scary as it seems. Just follow this pattern below and practice, practice, practice!! Force yourself to shoot in manual mode EVERY TIME YOU TAKE A PICTURE! You will eventually get the hang of it and, when you see the difference in your photos, you will NEVER LOOK BACK! "

"Have you ever finished a shoot thinking that your images are perfectly sharp on your LCD screen, only to find that, once they are on your monitor, they aren't quite as sharp as you thought they were? Here are a few tips to help you achieve sharper images."

"As we all know, photographing children can be very challenging. It is tough enough just to keep them in sharp focus. Who in their right mind would complicate the task even further by adding pets and flash lighting to the mix? You should!  Adding the right amount of flash at the correct angle can turn an ordinary snapshot into a work of art."

"One of the most frequent questions I have received in the last month has been about back button focus and how to use it on Canon and Nikon DSLR cameras.  In this article you'll learn what back button focusing is, and how to back button focus for Canon and Nikon cameras."

"Step 1 - What Is Aperture? The best way to understand setting your aperture is to think of it as the pupil of an eye.  The wider it gets, the more light it lets in. Together, the aperture settings, shutter speed and ISO produce an exposure. The diameter of the aperture size changes, allowing more or less light onto the sensor. This depends on the situation and the scene being photographed. Creative uses of different aperture sizes and their consequences are tackled in Step 2. Put simply, when talking about light and exposure, wider apertures allow more light and narrower ones allow less."