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
Visual Perception
So visual perception, when you look at something, what draws your attention one thing more than another? What do you think about if you have everything to look at? What are you picking out as most important? So think about, you're walking into a brand new scene, and you've got everything to look at. What draws your attention? What draws your interest? Well, there's certain things that people are interested in, but there's certain things that they automatically go for. Now, a photograph in my opinion is either trying to tell a story or sometimes it's a little more simple than that and it's just a statement. You just wanna say something about it. And so when it's a story, people are trying to understand what the story is. They wanna figure out what's going on in the photograph. And if it's a statement, they just simply wanna identify what exactly are you trying to say in this particular scenario. So here is a test for you, and so I'm gonna ask you some questions, and so we're gonna need ...
some... I want you to pay attention here, and so this is like one of those police things. I'm gonna show you something very quickly, and I want you to tell me what you saw, okay? Now this first photo, you will see for one second. Alright, and so, here we go! Three, two, one. Now try to remember everything about that photograph that you can, okay? Now, we're gonna look at another photograph for a half second. And remember everything about this one. Here we go. Three, two, one. Alright, you only get a half second on that one. Now the final one, you get one-tenth of a second. Really, lock in and pay attention on this, 'cause there is... You just wanna take a good look at it. Remember as much about this photograph as you can. We're going in three, two, one. [Male Audience Member] Wow. (audience member laughs) Okay. [Woman Audience Member] Mm-mm. You picked this up pretty quickly. Now you can see and understand a lot of things. Did anyone pick up what was going on in this one here? Were you able to pick up some cyclists or an alligator or something like that? And you only had a tenth of a second. One-tenth of a second to look at the photograph, but you're still able to pick up on a number of things that's going on. And what I'm trying to get across is that people don't need to look at a photograph for very long to figure out what's going on. They are moving quickly. The speed of light and the way we see happens very, very quickly. And so you don't have much time to hold their attention in a photograph and so if it's complicated, if it's cluttered, if it's confusing, you're failing in what you're trying to do in the story or the statement that you're trying to make. And so, the first step for most photographers is clean things up. Organize yourself and figure out what you're trying to say in this visual statement. Because if it's simple, it's concise, it's clean, you're gonna have a successful photo. Now, it's kind of a basic level of success. It's nice, it works, and it's good. But there is another level beyond this. And this is where we kind of have to circle back a little bit to the clutter, but we have to be very, very careful as to how much clutter we add back in to this. And so if we add things that are detailed and fascinating and surprising about that photograph, then it can have wild success. And so a lot of times what I try to do is I try to clean up all the junk in my photograph and get it down to its simplest form, and then okay, what other small element can I add that truly adds to this one subject in there? And so it's like you've got to push out really hard, and then you've got to back off just a little bit. Once again, this is just my opinion. This is just the way it works in my brain. So what draws our attention? Now, showing you a quick photo, there are things that your brain just kind of instantly locks onto, that it is looking for that we are biologically built to try pay quick attention to. And so one of things, we've talked about it before, is movement. I was walking along a lake edge, and I saw this and I thought that was just the coolest little thing. Just that movement of that is a very fascinating, mesmerizing, okay maybe you need to be smoking something to enjoy this one as well (laughs) but I think it's really, really cool. But if you take a still photograph of it, it's just not nearly as interesting. I mean, it's not anywhere near as interesting. We are drawn to things that move, that draws our fascination. And so movement doesn't work in still photographs, so we've got to cross that one of the list. The size of a subject, and so if we wanna have an impact, we need to have it have size in there. If it's too small in the photograph, it's not gonna have enough impact. We often look for what's unique about the scene. And so I have no doubt that your eyes went to this tree on the top of the hill, far before it went to any of these other trees. Because it is the one item that really stood apart from everything else and literally stands above all else. So we're looking for that one element that is different than everything else. Our eyes go to what's brightest in the photograph. Just naturally, our eyes are drawn to bright elements. And so that works well when that's the core subject that we're trying to shoot. It's harder when our subject is really dark. Sometimes it works, because you're trying to hide the subject. Depends on the situation. Shapes that we are familiar with, especially the human shape, draws our attention. We wanna see what those people are doing. We love color. Colorful situations are intrinsically interesting. It's hard to look at an area of blurriness. Look up here in the blue building at the top of the blue building and just stay looking up there. It's hard to look up there. It's hard to keep your eyes up there. It just doesn't feel good. Your eyes wanna keep coming back to the car that's nice and sharp. Chances are that your eyes kinda get tired and then they wanna drift around but then they're drawn right back down to that sharpness. We like contrast, nice sharp edges, those deep blacks, lines. Saw this before. We're drawn to things that are unusual. If something just seems awkward. That photograph that we saw for one-tenth of a second that had the alligator or crocodile, I forget which one it was, walking across the little pathway. That's something unusual that you don't normally see. And so anything that's sort of unusual, it's gonna catch your eye. Now you may or may not like people. (laughs) But pretty much everyone likes looking at a photograph of people, and they can't help themselves but looking at photographs of people. Intrinsically interesting to see different people, facial expressions, what are they doing? What is it like to be where they are? We like animals. We're gonna look at the animals far more than we are the trees, through the bushes or the leaves or anything else in that photograph. The animal will draw our attention. Whether it's animals or people, we're looking at those faces. Are they smiling? What sort of gestures can we figure out from what they're doing, can we tell about them? And when it comes to the faces, we look at the eyes. We wanna see the eyes, and that's one of the reasons why you really wanna be careful about focusing on portraits. That you get those eyes in focus. Because that's where our eyes come back to. It's hard to look at this photo for very... Try not to look at the eyes. Now that I've told you not to look at the eyes (laughs) don't look at the eyes. Look at other things in the photograph. And it's hard to stay away from them. It's like it's a magnet for your eye.
Class Materials
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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!