7 Photography Tips for the Beginner

1. Read the owner's manual. This one might win an award for obviousness, but it really is important. The owner's manual is an easy-to-understand way to familiarize yourself with everything your camera is capable of.

2. Do not stick with the Auto settings. This will of course require you to have read the owner's manual first. The idea is to not only know all the settings, but also use them for every picture you take. Auto of course saves time, and usually works well, but in some cases you can really see the difference if you adjust the settings first.

3. Optical zoom good. Digital zoom bad. The idea is simple. Optical zoom is what happens as a result of your camera's lens moving towards the object. And it's good. Digital zoom, however, is (umm, err, eh...) a digital thing. The badness of it lies in the fact that it leaves your picture looking grainy, and drastically reduces the quality, which becomes very obvious on a larger screen/print.

4. Keep reviewing for later. Not only does this save battery and time, it also ensures you don't delete a picture that looks bad only on a little screen, and not a bigger one, where you'll end up seeing it way more frequently.

5. Carry around your camera everywhere. With extra memory cards and battery pack/s. That's two tips rolled into one, but they're both very obvious too. Always try to be prepared for a good shot by keeping memory cards/films and battery packs plus your camera handy at all times, so you never have to miss a great shot, or make do with your cell phone's camera.
MAKE SURE you don't keep it away from yourself, though. (Lesson learnt the hard way.)

6. Transfer pictures often to your computer. Makes it easy to review, delete and edit pictures by reducing the number you have to deal with in one go, and also frees up memory on your card. And minimizes your loss in case your camera gets lost/stolen.

7. Capture from as many different angles as possible--try every new idea you can think of. This usually generates great pictures out of everyday subjects.

Bonus: Shoot in the RAW format, rather than JPEG, if your camera will let you. It might be inconvenient when you start, but really helps with post-production. I'm still learning more on this, so I recommend you look it up.

Share your own in the comments!

Winter Wonders!

As North India shivers its way through a cold wave, and some unfortunate people succumb to it, I sit here talking about the wonders of winter... Heartless? Maybe I am.
But no matter what, I'm loving the fog outside. Or maybe not exactly outside; because it's actually trying its best to come barging right into my hostel room. On the way I walked right through a thick foggy curry.
And even within the hostel, which normally carries the aura of a safe and enclosed open space, I can hardly see the breathing souls more than a few inches away! And what to say about the aura--it's just... Well, fogged up!
Here are two interesting facts:
1. While most of us hardly have a directly visible square inch of skin even indoors, there are a few out on the terrace, busy on the phone. (I don't know how to react.)
2. The entire day was clouded/foggy, and the only times the sun was visible, it took everyone a moment to realize it's not the moon that got yellower and farther--IT'S THE SUN! And the weather forecast for the entire week was that it'll be sunny, with single digit positive temperatures (Celcius) and highs around 20 degrees. I can now tell why looking up the weather hasn't really caught on in India. Or maybe this is the reason the forecast doesn't come after enough research. And then again... Oh well.

Welcoming 2010

Happy new year, everyone!

It's a great feeling to welcome a new year--a representation of a new dawn, new beginning, new hope... and the rest of the clichés. I genuinely hope that 2010 brings for everyone, joy, success and satisfaction.

2009 has definitely been the best year of my life. It's been a wonderful concoction of happiness, wonderful people who brought wonderful experiences, and lessons, of course. Kind of like a few drops of a bitter drink that make you grateful for every crystal of sugar that would otherwise just sit around on the kitchen counter. (What am I saying? :-/)

Anyway the point is just that I hope we all have a great year ahead. Wishing that everyone can take baby steps towards living their best lives. :)

One-word Inspiration

Think. Dream. Be. Do. Act. Laugh. Create. Rise. Shine. Smile. Ideate. Begin. Energize. Ask. Engage. Appreciate. Compliment. Inspire. Read. Write. Listen. Innovate. Rejuvenate. Love. Hug.

"The Creativ3 Bee" Email Newsletter [ANN]

[EDIT: I just sent out # 1 and it got spammed. Please check your spam emails and mark it as not spam! This is so bad.]
Hey everyone!

I'm starting a fortnightly email newsletter called The Creativ3 Bee. (That was abrupt!)

What I intend is for this to be a community learning, sharing, inspiration and happiness project.

In case you're wondering where in the world this came from:
During the first few days of this idea, I was telling my sister how sometimes inspiration just won't strike (in the context of writing) and that it is not very often that the creativity bee stings. So what I hope is that the ideas I share help us all find the bee-sting. :)

To subscribe, you can hit me back either here or on thecreativ3bee@gmail.com or on twitter.com/thecreativ3bee. Privacy issues and value for your time will be taken care of well. :)
Hope to get a lot of hits! I will get back to you soon with the content details.

The image is courtesy of flickr user aussiegall (who has some of the awesomest pictures ever). It is under a Creative Commons licence, and will be the logo for TCB until I make one myself.