My Three Photography Rules

LOOK AT THE LIGHT.

Get up early and stay out late! That simple (I wish!).

Is it HARD light (dark shadows) or SOFT light (no shadows)? Is it COOL LIGHT (like this one)? Ahh, you know, in the BLUE-ISH color spectrum), or WARM LIGHT? Like just the opposite looking, yeah, like in the YELLOW-ish, or ORANGE-ish looking spectrum?

And yes! If you know me, you know I set my WHITE-BALANCE to CLOUDY, and just leave it there! Yeah, that gives all your images a slightly "warmer" looking feel to it. Well, unless I really, really see that I need to adjust it, that is ... Yes, there have been times, but like I have said many, many times, "CLOUDY is MY NORM"! Period. Like CLOUDY, CLOUDY, CLOUDY!

Try it, you just might like it!

Every camera, every time (almost!). And yes, that easy! Simply go into your settings and change your WHITE BALANCE to CLOUDY. That easy. And then, if you like the results, just leave it, until that one or two times you think it doesn't "work", and go from there! Remember, there are different types of light bulbs out there ... And I know one type that doesn't work well with the CLOUDY setting at all, and yeah, those are those, "industrial", MERCURY VAPOR, light things, like at the "new" MLK Statue,right there in our Nation's Capital for example (trust me, I found out the hard way!), it wasn't pretty!

But that's about it, other than that, yeah, CLOUDY works fine for me!

All the time ... Except when it doesn't, but that's an easy fix! No worries.

And then, yeah, RULE NUMBER TWO:

GET CLOSER.

Pretty simple really ... Just move in, zoom in, and then crop, crop, crop, if you have to! Anyway you can think of works for me! Again, just GET CLOSER! Period. It really is that simple, but yeah, not always that simple to do while actually out there shooting!

Yeah.

That is why zoos have fences, and all those bars in place!

And, let's be honest, some subjects are, well, dangerous, and you really shouldn't GET CLOSER to them! That is why I now have much LONGER LENSES, and yes! That is even why I like shooting with the "smaller" DX sized sensors in most of my Nikon DSLR cameras!

See, they "CROP" the image before you even bring the camera up to your eye! My Nikon D500 turns my Nikkor 200-500mm lens into a wild, Nikkor "300-750mm" lens as soon as I mount the lens to the camera! Poof! Just like that!

Same lens, just a 1.5 times CLOSER view!

MATH! Go figure!

Here is how I figured it all out for the NIKON DX sensor cameras anyways (other brand cameras have a 1.6 X factor, or even a 1.7 X crop factor, depending on the make and model) ...

But for the 1.5X Nikon DX sensor: Half of 200mm is 100mm, right? Take that (100), and add it to the original 200mm, and you get what?

300mm.

And half of that 500mm is 250mm, right?

Add that to the original 500mm, and yeah, you come up with 750mm.

Good.

That is how my Nikkor 200-500mm lens "becomes" a Nikkor 300-750mm equivalent lens, just like that!

MATH/PHOTOGRAPHY MAGIC.

Yeah, see, the SENSOR (that captures the light) is SMALLER than a "FULL FRAME" size sensor, so yeah, the light only "hits" the smaller, center part, of the sensor in the camera! My Nikon D500's "DX" sensor is 1.5 times SMALLER than the, like I said, FULL FRAME (FX) sized "Pro Model" Nikon D3 camera that I own, which yeah, has the larger, FX sensor, or the same size as "35mm film" we shot with back in the old, film days!

Which, yeah, came from the ORIGINAL size "movie film" they came up with, you know, back in the really, REALLY old days! Yeah, like the old silent movies from a long, long time ago!

Like older than me!

Who knew?

And yes! It drove me nuts there for awhile, trust me! Feel lucky if you have no idea what I'm talking about! You missed out on "THE BIG CHANGE OVER" from film to digital back in the day!

Rejoice.

Oh yeah, The Hickory Camera Club referred to it as "Digital Voodoo", when it first came out!

It was really that bad!

Relax.

That was like twenty years ago ... Something like that! In fact, it just hit me! Yeah, 2005. I remember it like it was yesterday! That was when I FINALLY made the change!

But I digress ...

And finally, yeah, RULE NUMBER THREE!

TAKE LOTS OF PICTURES ...

And MORE pictures!

Just SHOOT, SHOOT, SHOOT!

Sort them all out later!

I don't know about you, but yeah, once these Snow Geese BLAST OFF like this (like, INSTANTLY), yeah, I just hold the button down, and let 'er rip! Need I remind you that, yeah, my "old" Nikon D500, which I took these with, "only shoots" like what?

TEN FRAMES per second?

Which today, seems like nothing, but back in the day, oh yeah, that was HIGH SPEED, baby! BIG TIME!

Still is for me.

So yeah, I had a LOT of images to sort through when I got home from New Mexico this winter, that is for sure! These last THREE images were all part of the same BLAST OFF, and yeah, I had plenty "just like 'em" to choose from, which, yeah, is exactly the point I'm trying to make here!

I went back and checked ... I counted twenty-six.

From that one BLAST OFF! And that doesn't count any that I might have deleted before I got back home!

Yes, I tend to do that each night when going over them ... Old habit.

But yeah, I tend to "overshoot" in times like this!

I bet you do too.

I hope!

That is why I drive out there to see them in the first place, you know, again, and again, and again!

So yeah, RULE NUMBER THREE: Take LOTS of pictures, means, well, TAKE A LOT OF PICTURES! Period.

Good luck with that one!

And the first two rules as well!

Enjoy.

I love it, I'm not going to lie!

SHOOT, SHOOT, SHOOT!

Can't say or write that enough!

Get out there! Anywhere, and see what you can come up with!

Just SHOOT, SHOOT, SHOOT!

There you go!

MY THREE RULES!

I came up with them back in the 1980s, when I first started teaching photography to American soldiers at Fort Gordon, down there in Georgia, at The Arts and Crafts Center right on the Army base. And no, I'm not sure what they call it now ... To me, it will always be Fort Gordon, period. Just like Fort Bragg ...And Camp Lejeune ... And any other military base I lived on "back in the day"! Remember, I lived on them in the 1960s (my father), the 1970s (me), the 1980s (my former wife), and yes, right up to the the early 1990s, when I finally moved to North Carolina!

And even spent some time down at Fort Jackson, right down there, just outside Columbia, South Carolina, you know, during the early 2000s ...

My Three Rules worked back then, and at Fort Bragg, and then over in Bremerhaven, Germany, where I taught my very first college class! That was in like, late 1987, if I remember correctly, something like that ... Been awhile!

And yes!

They also worked through all those years (20+) at CALDWELL COMMUNITY COLLEGE and TECHNICAL INSTITUTE, right here in Hudson, North Carolina.

So yeah, just follow MY THREE RULES, and yes! You too can become a better photographer.

Any camera, any subject.

Simple as that!

LOOK AT THE LIGHT

GET CLOSER

TAKE LOTS OF PICTURES

BAM!

Done.

Enjoy.

I gotta go for a walk! And yes! I'm going to take my camera with me this time (I must admit, I don't all the time, but don't tell anybody!).

Go ahead, give it a try!

You never know.