Lessons
Class Introduction
17:26 2Welcome to Photography
13:08 3Camera Types Overview
02:00 4Viewing Systems
28:43 5Viewing Systems Q&A
08:45 6Lens Systems
32:06 7Shutter Systems
13:17 8Shutter Speeds
10:47Choosing a Shutter Speed
31:30 10Shutter Speeds for Handholding
08:36 11Shutter Speed Pop Quiz
09:06 12Camera Settings
25:35 13General Camera Q&A
14:38 14Sensor Sizes: The Basics
15:33 15Sensor Sizes: Compared
19:10 16Pixels
20:13 17ISO
21:13 18Sensor Q&A
13:34 19Focal Length: Overview
11:09 20Focal Length: Angle of View
15:09 21Wide Angle Lenses
08:48 22Telephoto Lenses
25:23 23Angle of View Q&A
09:29 24Fish Eye Lenses
10:39 25Tilt & Shift Lenses
23:42 26Subject Zone
17:19 27Lens Speed
09:56 28Aperture Basics
08:46 29Depth of Field
21:49 30Aperture Pop Quiz
13:23 31Lens Quality
18:30 32Photo Equipment Life Cycle
03:57 33Light Meter Basics
09:25 34Histogram
15:25 35Histogram Pop Quiz and Q&A
10:58 36Dynamic Range
06:03 37Exposure Modes
15:58 38Manual Exposure
09:38 39Sunny 16 Rule
05:54 40Exposure Bracketing
10:18 41Exposure Values
27:21 42Exposure Pop Quiz
26:43 43Focus Overview
16:15 44Focusing Systems
05:15 45Autofocus Controls
11:56 46Focus Points
07:35 47Autofocusing on Subjects
20:19 48Manual Focus
07:52 49Digital Focusing Assistance
03:40 50Focus Options: DSLR and Mirrorless
04:58 51Shutter Speeds for Sharpness and DoF
05:20 52Depth of Field Pop Quiz
12:14 53Depth of Field Camera Features
04:54 54Lens Sharpness
09:58 55Camera Movement
05:20 56Handheld and Tripod Focusing
04:32 57Advanced Techniques
07:12 58Hyperfocal Distance
06:50 59Hyperfocal Quiz and Focusing Formula
04:36 60Micro adjust and AF Fine Tune
05:34 61Focus Stacking and Post Sharpening
06:00 62Focus Problem Pop Quiz
18:07 63The Gadget Bag: Camera Accessories
25:30 64The Gadget Bag: Lens Accessories
12:46 65The Gadget Bag: Neutral Density Filter
20:43 66The Gadget Bag: Lens Hood and Teleconverters
08:55 67The Gadget Bag: Lens Adapters
05:43 68The Gadget Bag: Lens Cleaning Supplies
04:34 69The Gadget Bag: Macro Lenses and Accessories
15:57 70The Gadget Bag: Flash and Lighting
05:08 71The Gadget Bag: Tripods and Accessories
18:50 72The Gadget Bag: Custom Cases
11:20 7310 Thoughts on Being a Photographer
07:37 74Direct Sunlight
25:04 75Indirect Sunlight
18:49 76Sunrise and Sunset
18:39 77Cloud Light
14:48 78Golden Hour
09:50 79Light Pop Quiz
07:53 80Light Management
14:00 81Artificial Light
13:56 82Speedlights
16:02 83Off-Camera Flash
27:38 84Advanced Flash Techniques
09:49 85Editing Overview
08:24 86Editing Set-up
08:06 87Importing Images
16:45 88Best Use of Files and Folders
20:54 89Culling
20:56 90Develop: Fixing in Lightroom
18:13 91Develop: Treating Your Images
10:53 92Develop: Optimizing in Lightroom
14:51 93Art of Editing Q&A
06:01 94Composition Overview
06:53 95Photographic Intrusions
10:10 96Mystery and Working the Scene
16:18 97Point of View
09:11 98Better Backgrounds
16:02 99Unique Perspective
11:02 100Angle of View
15:06 101Subject Placement
41:14 102Subject Placement Q&A
05:18 103Panorama
07:39 104Multishot Techniques
13:57 105Timelapse
16:13 106Human Vision vs The Camera
20:07 107Visual Perception
08:35 108Visual Balance Test
22:56 109Visual Drama
12:25 110Elements of Design
28:57 111The Photographic Process
12:28 112Working the Shot
27:38 113The Moment
04:42 114One Hour Photo - Colby Brown
1:04:32 115One Hour Photo - John Keatley
1:03:05 116One Hour Photo - Art Wolfe
59:01 117One Hour Photo - Rocco Ancora
1:01:20 118One Hour Photo - Mike Hagen
1:01:20 119One Hour Photo - Lisa Carney
1:00:52 120One Hour Photo - Ian Shive
1:08:00 121One Hour Photo - Sandra Coan
1:10:29 122One Hour Photo - Daniel Gregory
1:06:07 123One Hour Photo - Scott Robert Lim
1:05:41Lesson Info
Photographic Intrusions
So, in the composition section we'll be talking about point of view, kind of where you are to shoot your photographs, we'll be talking about what lens to use, because sometimes people wonder, well I've got these two lenses, which lens should I use? And, we've talked a little bit about that back in the lens section, but now more from a composition view. And then framing, and then we'll talk a little bit about multi-shot techniques, because sometimes it's hard to get the exact image that you want with one click of the shutter, and there's a whole bunch of different techniques for doing that. So that'll be kind of a fun, slightly different end to this. So, one thing to think about is border patrol, thinking about what's going on on the edges of your frame. One of my favorite photos of a great blue heron; this is not the actual photo that I took, alright? This is a cropped version, slightly cropped. When it actually took off, I didn't quite get it lined up right, and there were some little...
grasses down below that were out of focus that were in the foreground, and that is an intrusion on the edge that really doesn't help this photograph out, and yes, I will crop a photo like this and enlarge it if necessary, and so being aware of any little thing along the edge. Look at this little thing right down here at the bottom left, does that really need to be there? No. Is that helping the photograph out? And all we need to do, is just bring it down just a little bit, and we fix that problem. And so really be conscience. And sometimes, you don't really notice that when you're in the viewfinder, you're so concentrated right here, that's all you're looking at, and you gotta take that time to look around that edge to see what's going on. This, this folks... (feet shuffling) photo bomb. (audience laughing) And so, we want to crop this out of there, just like that. (audience laughing) Be careful of those things. Okay, so, this is what I would consider a fairly clean shot. Okay? Now what did it really look like up in this environment, how did I find this nice clean shot? Well, a shot a little video, just to show what it looks like a little bit aways. And so there's all this clutter, all these people, and I'm using that wing to really hide all that clutter. And so, it's creative positioning of yourself, so that you can block clutter with your actual subject. Okay, look at this, and once again, start judging me. Start judging this photograph. What do you not like in this photograph? There are some things in here that I'm not real fond of. For instance, down here, there's this kind of stub sticking out of the ground. And that just, it doesn't sell real well, it just doesn't look really good. This little tree branch over here, we've got a photo bomb over here by a tree, alright? And then you've got these telephone poles back here, which is like, this looks like it's a really natural area, why do we have telephone poles in here. And now let's go to the video, and by moving the camera about a foot and a half, bringing it down a little bit, moving it over just a little bit to the left, we end up with a much better version of essentially that same image. And all I did, was I took the camera from about here, and I just kinda moved it down to right about there. And so you gotta be really picky about these things, and your non-photographer friends are gonna think you're nuts and fussy, but you're doing the right thing. You're cleaning it up, you're making it look as good as it possibly can, because the difference between these two photos is huge. Just these little intrusions, these little distractions, take away from the whole story. John, I have a question for you, vertical vs. horizontal. I actually heard from a photo pro that you should mostly shoot horizontal because that how our eyes see, that's more 'professional way' to take pictures. Do you agree? I would say definitely not. I would say that there's an element of truth in that, that we do see with two eyes, and we do see in a horizontal formant, but I think when it comes down to publications and the way we look at photos, and even just with the story we're trying to tell, what do you think is the most popular subject of photographs? I'm gonna ask anybody in the audience here. What do you think, as far as photographing, what is photographed more than anything else in the world? And I have no idea if this is true or not, I'm just totally making this up right now, but, who thinks they know the most common subject of photographs? Do we have any volunteers in the audience? [Female With Laptop] Grab a mic. Grab a mic. What is the most popular subject? [Male Audience Member] People. People. Are people vertical or horizontal, most of the time? (laughing) Well I only sleep about eight hours a day, so most of the time I'm vertical. And so, whether we're doing full body shots, or head and shoulder shots, people shots are often time gonna be vertical. Sports shots, portrait shots, all of those very often are vertical type shots. And so that's a great time to be shooting vertical. I do a lot of nature and landscape photography, and, the concept is is that it's this big wide area right here, but often times that's all very far away. If we have foreground and background, which will be a section that we have, then we're shooting verticals. And so I'm not saying you should shoot more verticals than horizontals, it's just, it should be as comfortable to you as shooting horizontals. In fact, I'm gonna give away a secret, okay, so if any of the camera manufacturers are listening they can just have this one. If they hired me to build a camera, here is a camera that I would want to build, that nobody, well Mamiya kinda built. But here's what I would like to have, is I would like to have a camera that is permanently held in this same position, and it would have a dial on it and it would rotate the sensor from vertical to horizontal. So that the camera is equally comfortable, and all the buttons are in exactly the same spot, and we just flip a dial or press a button and it flips the sensor to vertical, and all the read outs, everything in there is exactly the same. So that it is as comfortable to shoot vertical as it is horizontal. I think that would be a really cool idea. Now Mamiya made a medium format camera that had a rotating back that did that, that was kinda cool. So that's the closest thing I've ever seen, but I haven't seen it on any of the more smaller, compact cameras. [Female With Laptop] Thank you. Alright. Thinking about the frame. What is in the frame, and we want the good stuff, alright? We need to be very discriminatory. There's an interesting correlation between painters and photographers, because we kinda end up with a similar final product. It's a two-dimensional, rectangular piece, that represents things that we see. And how to painters start? They pull out a blank sheet of paper, and they add everything they want. What do photographers do? They look at the world that has everything, and they start narrowing it down to just the elements that they want to have. And so, it's a very different problem, because we're trying to get rid of stuff, and painters are just adding very carefully, I'm very jealous of painters, because they get to have exactly what they want, and they can put things exactly here and so forth, but that's actually what I love most about photography, is the challenge of going out there and saying, how to I make visual sense of this particular situation. And what I'm trying to do, is I'm trying to find just the good stuff. And so, what's the good stuff, the pattern in this case. And what's not good, these kinda blank areas, and these are slightly different than intrusions, which is why I kinda put them in a different section, you know, they're there, but it's not consistent with the main story that I'm trying to tell. And so, get in on the good stuff. And this is why that 70-200, that short telephoto lens, is so very valuable. And so, got some nice detail here, but this little corner is betraying us up here. The upper right hand corner betrays this photograph, and breaks the pattern, and now we have a more seamless pattern without those distractions over on the edges. And so one of the simplest solutions, just to start with, and there's kinda different levels, it's like, from zero you want to be able to do this, and then, once you're able to do that, then you take the next step, which adds a slightly different element, and so this is kinda the first step, is frame your subjects up relatively tight. Not too tight, we don't want to have their heads right up against the edge, but get rid of all the other extra junk around the side. And, some people, they get so excited when they're taking their photo, they're framed up really, really loosely, and they end up having to go in and crop them later. Try to get it cropped right exactly in the camera. And so, we've got just a little bit of space, as we say, we don't want to have it too close to the edge, but use that entire frame the best that you can, and so these are just examples of using the frame as fully as we can, as that subject will allow us. The story of the two girls that I photographed, that didn't want to have their photograph, they were completely happy, and 15 minutes before this, they would not have anyone take a photo of them. But it was somehow finding that way to communicate with them and they finally got on board with it. So as I say, you've gotta be careful about framing too tight, we don't want to do this, this does not look good. We want to be able to see our entire subject.
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Ratings and Reviews
a Creativelive Student
Love love all John Greengo classes! Wish to have had him decades ago with this info, but no internet then!! John is the greatest photography teacher I have seen out there, and I watch a lot of Creative Live classes and folks on YouTube too. John is so detailed and there are a ton of ah ha moments for me and I know lots of others. I think I own 4 John Greengo classes so far and want to add this one and Travel Photography!! I just drop everything to watch John on Creative Live. I wish sometime soon he would teach a Lightroom class and his knowledge on photography post editing.!!! That would probably take a LOT OF TIME but I know John would explain it soooooo good, like he does all his Photography classes!! Thank you Creative Live for having such a wonderful instructor with John Greengo!! Make more classes John, for just love them and soak it up! There is soooo much to learn and sometimes just so overwhelming. Is there anyway you might do a Motivation class!!?? Like do this button for this day, and try this technique for a week, or post this subject for this week, etc. Motivation and inspiration, and playing around with what you teach, needed so much and would be so fun.!! Just saying??? Awaiting gadgets class now, while waiting for lunch break to be over. All the filters and gadgets, oh my. Thank you thank you for all you teach John, You are truly a wonderful wonderful instructor and I would highly recommend folks listening and buying your classes.
Eve
I don't think that adjectives like beautiful, fantastic or excellent can describe the course and classes with John Greengo well enough. I've just bought my first camera and I am a total amateur but I fell in love with photography while watching the classes with John. It is fun, clear, understandable, entertaining, informative and and and. He is not only a fabulous photographer but a great teacher as well. Easy to follow, clear explanations and fantastic visuals. The only disadvantage I can list here that he is sooooo good that keeps me from going out to shoot as I am just glued to the screen. :-) Don't miss it and well worth the money invested! Thank you John!
Vlad Chiriacescu
Wow! John is THE best teacher I have ever had the pleasure of learning from, and this is the most comprehensive, eloquent and fun course I have ever taken (online or off). If you're even / / interested in photography, take this course as soon as possible! You might find out that taking great photos requires much more work than you're willing to invest, or you might get so excited learning from John that you'll start taking your camera with you EVERYWHERE. At the very least, you'll learn the fundamental inner workings and techniques that WILL help you get a better photo. Worried about the cost? Well, I've taken courses that are twice as expensive that offer less than maybe a tenth of the value. You'll be much better off investing in this course than a new camera or a new lens. I cannot reccomend John and this course enough!