Alyza pt. 1 - Composition, Kind Of

I shot professionally for 5 years before I felt comfortable enough to say that I was a professional photographer. I’m sure my clients felt better with their decision of choosing me to photograph them when I started saying I was a professional.

I have given lots of people advice on how to shoot to get certain looks and in specific scenarios. I can talk about photography and setting for hours on end and explain to you everything I know about cameras and lighting. But one thing I have never been good at is teaching.

So when Alyza decided to learn photography, of course she came to me to teach her. Because of distance, we had to make the best out of the times that we actually went out to shoot, whether it was for 30 minutes or 2 hours, we had to make everything count.

Even thought I have seen countless videos of people teaching photography, I’ve been through the process and I’ve seen people go through that same process of learning, I still spent hours the night before going through videos and jotting down ideas and a timeline process of what to teach her first.

Well it all went out the window as soon as we parked the car and I began to teach her how to change camera lenses. I was at a loss of words and kept switching from taking care of your camera and gears, to what certain controls do.

I could tell she was confused as fuck when she tried to switch lenses and failing at the 3rd time. I think me holding my hands on the camera while she changed the lens just complicated things more. Plus we were standing, so the fear of dropping the lens was present.

Teachers have my respect.

So I made her use just 2 lenses. I adjust the camera and white balance so the camera would produce a nice image straight out of the camera without any editing. These cameras aren’t really meant to do that since who ever uses Mirrorless cameras are using them so they can shoot in RAW and manipulate the image in the exact way they want to. She wasn’t going to be doing this for a long time, so the images had to come out great out of the camera.

What helped me out the most was that she is using a Sony a6000. The exact same camera that I used when I first started out photography. Coupled with the kit lens and the zoom 75-210mm, it’s a great way to start off. The only thing missing is a 50mm f1.8 leans so she can really see the difference between good glass and a regular iPhone photo.

So I lent her the 85mm lens. I shot with her zoom lens most of the time.

I went super easy and basic and let her camera handle everything. I figured if she just got comfortable holding the camera, rotating it and zooming first, then we could start introducing more controls later on.

So composition was the goal here.

I explained to her the rule of thirds, how to frame things in the middle and on the side of the photo. Then I told her to find a different perspective for the 3rd shot.

We walked around and she took 3 photos of everything that caught her attention.

It brought me back to when I first started shooting. I would also take 3 photos, but it was a bit different. I was experimenting with composition and exposure too. She was shooting flowers, leaves, and cobwebs, all things that I would spend endless hours taking photos of myself.

Most of the photos she took, I took as well with my camera. I shadowed her for the most part.

I explained to her that because it was cloudy, exposure wasn’t really going be an issue because everything was going to be flat. I’m not sure she understood that but it’s good for her to have these photos as reference for other times when she comes back to this location and takes photos with harsh lighting.

We walked until her battery died.

After we went to get some ice cream and I lent her my SD Card reader for her iPhone so she could transfer her photos.

I also transferred them to my phone and explained to her which ones were better and we both talked about which ones we liked the most.

I think it was a great first step.