TAKING PHOTOS OF WHAT YOU REALLY SEE

Capture the Moment

Volume 1: Observe, Aim & Capture.

Capture the Moment

This book is about:

How we perceive all those moments that happen around us

How to be ready to capture those moments

How best to process an image that looks like that moment.

It is for those who wish to love their photographs more, and how to give your photos impact whilst keeping it as simple as possible..
1

(No one reads the)

Introduction

I cannot answer which is better, a constantly contented life or

one full of highs and lows. We make what we can of it. We
must take what we are given. We dont however, have to
philosophise all the bloody time.

I sat in the bar, slack-jawed.

Opposite me, a long lost friend from school. We last met in 72.
Over 40 years had passed and we had been reunited for a little
over 2 hours.

He had asked me the usual Where have you been all my

life? question, always a mistake. I had compacted, edited,
censored and otherwise strangled my life's history into two
hours of rises, falls and unfortunate events. He was even
daft enough to ask questions.
Once done and dusted, I relaxed into listening mode ready to
hear a similar tale and looking forward to imbibing enough
real ale to dumb the senses.
Well, lets see. He started, I left school, went straight into
teaching college where I met my future wife. We married, had
two wonderful daughters and now we have retired into a life
of gentle bliss. (I added the last bit just to introduce some
excitement.)

One thing I can say is that, apart from once when queueing in
Disneyland, I have never been bored. I have never had the
time to do everything I have wanted to in life, but it has
certainly been full and looks to continue to be so.

That was it. The perfect life, from my somewhat chagrined

point of view.

I have lived in interesting times...

I do, however, have regrets, and one of those regrets, right up
the front there, is the lack of time to do things other than my
vocation.

Not even enough of a story to justify more than a sip of ale.

At that moment I saw the unfairness of life, thus my slack jaw.

Since the age of 6 years old, my

life has been like a projectile
heading, obstinately towards
being a veterinarian and, once
that
target
was
finally
achieved,
the
resultant
explosion has been both lifefulfilling and life-destroying. It
filled almost every crack of my
life, insinuating itself into both
waking and sleeping hours,
leaving little time for anything
else. Yes, a family, yes, friends,
yes, fun and yes, fulfilling
but no time for anything else.

This book, if you remember, is about photography, so what has

all this self-pitying babble got to do with that? Well, look, this
is the introduction.
No
one
reads
introductions, so that
means that I can
write what I want. It
is relevant though. It
means that I know
how busy lives can
be and how those
lives would be made
richer by getting a
little bit more into
photography.

My perception of times past is somewhat strange. My memory

tells me that, at the age of 25, after years of struggling through
university (and boy, did I struggle) I was in the kitchen at a
party held at our house. Not, in itself, unusual.

There are, however,

ways and means of making photography easier AND more
fulfilling. I regret not knowing then what I now know,
although, to be fair, much of it relates to modern tech which
simply wasnt available then. Even so, there was much I
should have known about, if only I wasnt so absorbed with
my career.

After pouring a drink, I turned around and realised that I was

40 years old, freshly divorced and finally comprehending that
there must be more to life than working 24/7.

Now I am reaping the rewards of semi-retirement. I now have

time for my favourite thing, photography oops, my family, er...
then photography...

One of many things that had fallen by the wayside was my

love of photography. Looking back at my collection of photos
there are huge gaps where I clearly did not have the time to
take them. Big mistake. There were other mistakes too (and not
just with photography).

I am not alone. Many of you out there will be up the same

creek but with no paddle. My hope is that this book will help
you learn to love your photography more.

I am hoping that this book will help you develop your own,
personal, techniques and maybe to avoid having to enrol in a
veterinary course to do so.
This book is a short-cut.
However, if you really want to be a vet as well, dont let me
put you off

My career and training in veterinary medicine has given me a

great insight into the animal world, and bolstered my
observational powers. I have also studied evolution,
comparative anatomy and physiology, wildlife etc. all of which
have made me more aware with my photography.
Thus, having moved gradually on from my box Brownie
camera, I have come to photography my own way with my
own quirks.

Part 1: OBSERVE.

CHAPTER 1

What You See is NOT What You Get

There are enormous differences between a photograph and the image that we see.
Understanding this cannot only change the way that you take and process photographs, but can also
fundamentally change the way you look at the world.
The camera cannot replace our skills of observation, we must grasp that skill and use it.

WHAT YOU SEE IS NOT WHAT YOU GET

We have evolved eyes that are just good enough for us. Eagles (as
an example) have different needs and their eyes have evolved to be
just good enough for those purposes, incidentally, just good
enough in this case means being able to see details 2-3 times better
than we can.

The Camera vs the Eye

My appreciation of vision has increased hugely over the last few

years. As my vision deteriorated due to bits of opaque grunge
floating around in the back of my eyes, I had to resort to (please
dont read this if you are squeamish) having the jelly (vitreous
humour) in both eyes removed with a vacuum cleaner (or similar
utensil), and later both lenses replaced. 4 operations that have
given me, after a long break, nearly perfect vision once more.

There is a great deal to learn about photography, and it can take

many years to master its tool, the camera. It is, however, just a tool.
It is not a replacement for our eyes. It does not work in the same
way as our sensory system and its representation of reality is not
the same as that which we perceive.

Each operation went something like this;

Nurse Ah, Monsieur Eede, ow are you today? (Please read in
French accent.)

Most of us assume that we see the world around us in much the

same way that a camera does. This is absolutely not the case. Our
eyes have evolved over millions of years to a point which may
have many similarities to a camera (which, incidentally, evolved
much more quickly), but how we assimilate the data that arrives
from the eyes is completely different to that of a sensor and
associated processor in the camera.

Me Ah, OK, please dont touch my eyes.

Nurse OK Monsieur Eede, we need to put some drops in first
Me OK, but please dont touch my eyes
Nurse On y va
Me Arrrggghhh!

Our eyes may seem perfect (if you are lucky enough to have 20/20
vision) but every part of our vision system can be bettered in other
animals.

Four bouncers arrive, one for each flailing limb.

Nurse There you go, no too bad was it?
7

Me <whimper>

4. finally our brains have enlarged to retain and compute all this
data but only by making birth necessarily both too early and too
difficult, thus in itself leading to high death rates in both mother
and child.

Nurse Now all we need to do is ram this enormous needle into

the back of your eye without anaesthetic
This is why I now appreciate my vision more than most.

These are big prices to pay but we have what we have. Let us
understand those differences and use them to our advantage.

The image that we see (or, more precisely, what we think we see) is
a trade-off between:
1. the detail, as much as possible
2. we need the ability to function at different levels of light,
3. we need to differentiate between ripe food and gone-off food,
(well, this was important for our ancestors, we have
supermarkets that do it for us now).
4. The necessity to spot predators (hmm, supermarkets are no help
here) and
5. All this must not take up too much space in our brains.
That is a hard ask, and it has been achieved by compromise:
1. The detail is good, but only in the very centre of our field of
vision,

What information is needed to make a photo?

2. our eyes can adapt to different light levels but this may take
time,

There are several areas to look at here. Ill take a chapter for each to
try to keep things clear.

3. we can see differences between ripe and gone-off, but we have

lost much of our sense of smell, (no thanks to smelly
supermarkets) and

First, however, Id like to take a small detour into a subject that I,

for one, find fascinating; how the eye evolved...

CHAPTER 2

How our eyes came to be

A short history of the eye to help understand how we see and why we see in this way.

Although we may be very distantly related to plant life, (yes, we

really are) we diversified from them very long ago. Some of us
may think that there are humans alive today better described as
vegetables, but no, we may share much DNA, but fear not, sitting
all day in front of the TV wont turn you into a cabbage, although
the latter may be more useful.
Whereas plants developed the ability to harness the sun early on
by photosynthesis, we animals reacted to the sun in a different
way.
Very early on, probably somewhere around 3 billion years ago,
give or take a couple of hours, cells that developed the ability to
respond to sunlight out-survived those that did not. That primitive
response was not, obviously, an eye, but the proteins involved, and
the DNA responsible for them, are fundamental to our eyes today.
It was probably Retinal, a form of Vitamin A, that first gave cells
the ability to sense light. This, combining with a protein called
opsin led to rhodopsin, a molecule key to light sensitivity to this
day.
Once multicellular organisms evolved, this rhodopsin was
incorporated into isolated groups of cells which allowed for some
kind of directional sense.
These groups of cells gradually evolved into sensory organs of
more and more detail and use. This evolution is shown in the
following picture of the development of eyes from a patch of
photosensitive cells.

Dealing day to day with animals of many different species, it is

notable that all of them have eyes which look and function in
similar but also often different ways.

10

 Fish, for instance, have no eyelids nor do they produce tears.

Their corneas are relatively flat as they do not refract light and
therefore do not act as a lens as it does with us.

Most mammals have retractor bulbi muscles which pull they eye
back to protect it. Primates (including us) have lost that ability.
A system of double lenses was
evolved very long ago, but
unfortunately after we split from that
line of ancestors. This would have
eliminated
spherical
aberration
(astigmatism).

Some animals have a tapetum. This

is a reflective layer behind the
retina that give cats eyes their
bright colour when seen in a beam
of light. Crocodiles, fruit bats, cats,
dogs and many other animals have
these, but not primates.

Our eyes may be complex, but not as

complex as many birds or even
turtles. The picture we receive from
our eyes is far inferior to those of
many other species, but our large
brains do help to compensate. About
one third of our brain is given over to
processing our visual input. This
allows us to analysis what we see in
much more detail than most other
species.

Reptiles and birds process much of

the image they see in their retinas,
not in the brain as with us
mammals.
Third eyelids are present in most
species, but not primates.
Predators have eyes placed at the
front of their heads to maximise 3D
vision, whereas their prey tend to have eyes on the side of their
heads to maximise their field of view.

It is this analysis allows us to process moving images in full colour,

colour that exists only in our brains, not in the retina.

Many animals have evolved five basic visual pigments, but

mammals in general have lost most of these. Most mammals are
dichromats (can sense two colour ranges) whereas higher
primates like us have three colour ranges. The famous mantis
shrimp actually has sixteen visual pigments! Imagine what the
world must look like to them!

Thus, when we think of how we see the world around us, spare a
thought for all those millions of generations before us that have led
to this point, in this time, on this planet, allowing you to interpret
what you see. Dont waste it.
On the other hand, watching the occasional episode of Game of
Thrones is acceptable...

11

More info on the history of our eyes...

Further Reading:
For a very thorough
explanation of the
evolution of the eye,
along with some really
great pictures, try out
Evolutions Witness -
How Eyes Evolved by
Ivan R. Schwab

CHAPTER 3

Range of View

Our range of detailed view is very narrow.

If not, our brains would soon be full to overflowing.
A wide Panorama like this cannot be seen in one glance, we have to look all over it to see the detail.

13

Let me first try to discard one common misconception. When we

look around us, we do not see it all as one clear picture. The truth
is that the bulk of the image that you see is constructed in your
head by guesswork.

They can kick directly behind them (unlike cattle) with both feet at
the same time.
Cattle cannot kick directly backwards, they tend to kick around to
one side.

This may sound insane, but it is not, and it is easy to prove. If

indeed we did see things as a complete picture, the memory space
taken up in our brain would soon be exhausted (although this may
go some way to explain some peoples aberrant behaviours...).
When you look at something, you only clearly see the very centre
of your field of view. Your eye darts around the scene, taking in
information that your mind uses to make up the complete picture.
On the other hand, perception of motion is better in our peripheral
vision, resulting in vision being better in the near dark away from
the centre of the eye.
For a while, as a student, I spent some time in the Sates working
with veterinarians there. Amongst all of the crazy things I did
there, I helped out doing some delicate rear-end stuff with a
buffalo. Doing delicate things in a conscious buffalo is far from
easy. As well as making me the only one of my peers to have their
arm up a buffalos back-side, I also learned of the peripheral visual
acuity that they posses. By this I mean that they appear to have
eyes in the backs of their head.

Not so with buffalo.

As I painfully discovered.
In my nether regions

They are, of course, on the side of their head. Because their eyes
have not concentrated on detail only in the centre of their files of
view, but all over, albeit in almost black and white, they can
pinpoint objects accurately, even if directly behind them.

I did the same thing with zebra as well as other animals, which has
maybe given me a strange fascination with back ends...

As I was.

14

Our eyes do not behave in this way. Looking a buffalo in the eye
could mean standing anywhere near it. With us it means standing
directly infront.
The camera does not behave in this way either, otherwise
photography would not be so popular! The detail is the same all
over (depending on focus) as is the colour.

Testing your field of accurate view:

Sit comfortably and stare at a fixed point in the middle
distance. Do not stray from this point. Get someone to pick
a random card from a pack, then gradually bring it around
at about arms length into your field of view. State when you
can see the card, when you can see the colour of the card,
and when you can see the number and suite.
You may be surprised...

15

Some 80% of our total sensory input is through the eye. Compare
that to, say, dogs where the most important input for them is smell.
Imagine what our cameras would be like if the sensor responded
mostly to smell! On second thoughts, I dont think I will.

This close attention to bottoms has to stop. We better move on

rapidly
16

CHAPTER 4

Contrast

How we see relative amounts of light and dark

17

The first area to look at is dynamic range. This is not some kind of
advertising feature, nor is it a mutant superpower. It simply means
that, when looking at a view, there is typically a range of darkness
and lightness that we can clearly see. You look at a light area - you
see all the details there. You then look at a dark area - your eye
immediately adapts to see the detail there also. It takes the eye
some time to adapt to really bright and really dark areas, but for
the normal view - it is instantaneous.

X-ray film had to be developed in different chemicals for different

periods of time. To help do this, the dark room (read cellar) could
be lit with a safe light. This, in theory, would allow us to see the
cassettes and film without causing exposure of the film. This
theory worked only if the safe light worked.
Over 50% of the time it didnt.
This meant opening the cassette, placing film in different chemicals
in the right order, and then replacing the film, in total darkness.

The camera, on the other hand, cannot do that. Thus your typical
photo ends up with areas too bright or parts too dark. In these
areas the detail is washed out or just black. Nothing like what you
see in your head.

Total.
Darkness.
In a cellar with loads of other junk strewn around for the unwary.

This hugely important sensory system is sensitive to only a very

small portion (between 0.4 and 0.8 x10-6m) of the available
wavebands (from xrays at 10-13m to radio waves with a
wavelength of many kilometres).

At times like that I wished I had sonar detection abilities...

On the other hand, bright sunlight gives us plenty of photons to
use.

This has important consequences. As light gets dimmer less

photosensors in our retina are stimulated and our vision
consequently gets poorer. Nocturnal animals usually have
relatively bigger eyes to compensate for this.
I have always felt short changed by this narrow range of light
perception, having spent many hours in the dark (pun intended).
Working 24/7 meant seeing patients in the wee small hours with
no help at hand. Taking radiographs at night whilst attempting to
restrain an uncooperative patient was amusing enough in itself,
but developing the film afterwards was an exercise in blind
manipulation.

18

In bright moonlight we can still see, although we know that it is a

lot dimmer than sunlight. In truth, moonlight is about a million
times less bright than sunlight! Overcast starlight is ten thousand
times dimmer again! And yet between these extremes, we can see!
We have a range of about 1010 or 10,000,000,000! That is mighty
impressive.
Range of brightness

HOW THE EYE ADAPTS

As we encounter different ranges of brightness, as in dawn, night,

full daylight, our eyes adapt to the new intensity level.
The rapid part of that adaptation is with our iris. As the iris
contracts or expands, the amount entering the eye decreases or
increases, thus keeping the relative luminance of an object in the
same range. The iris can change light sensitivity 10-fold.
Outside of this range the eye can still adapt, albeit more slowly.
This requires chemical changes in the retina which take
significantly longer. Once those changes have taken place, we use
the same process with our irises to get that same 10-fold range.
The information passed on to the brain is more or less independent
of overall light levels, the adjustment is all done within the eye.
HOW THE CAMERA ADAPTS

We can change the light getting through the lens (the equivalent of
the iris/pupil) by adjusting the aperture.
We can adjust the sensitivity of the sensor by adjusting the ISO.
This is equivalent to the chemical adaptation of the retina of the
eye.
Both these will be discussed in more detail later, but for now lets
look at the limitations of the cameras systems.

19

TINTERN ABBEY:

This is a photo of an old ruin (no, it is not a selfie). Ive used all the
normal settings with no post-processing.

To see the sky more clearly I saw it, we need to underexpose the
photo thus: (dont worry about how to do that for now, Ill explain
all that nerdy stuff later)

It bears some resemblance to the picture in my head, but much of

the detail that I saw has gone.

Well, the sky looks somewhat better, and some more of the detail
on the abbey is showing, but the foreground is just black - no
detail.

Although the main subject was the abbey, the sky was also
important with its well defined fluffy clouds.
It also had interesting foreground structures to offset the abbey.
These were in the shade whereas the abbey was in full sun.

20

With a normal single shot in the standard photo format (jpeg) the
camera would have processed the first image along the lines that
you set the camera up with, or as the manufacturer wanted if you
use the auto mode.

If we underexpose to get the foreground we get this:

Now the foreground ruins are more clear, as are the hills in the
background, but the abbey is washed out, and the sky is simply
white.

21

The first three photos of different exposures were in a very basic

format called RAW (more on that later). These files tend to contain
a lot more information than you can see straight from the camera.

Finally, we can combine these three photos (something called

HDR) and get this which, for me, is what I actually saw...

Therefore, if we take the mid-exposure photo and tweak the light

and darks areas, we can end up with this:

CONCLUSION

Ill describe some quick methods of doing this in Part 3.

Contrast, the difference between light and dark, is the aspect that
grabs your attention in what you see. Its huge range is thus
important also in our photography, arguably more so than colour.
It draws the attention of the eye. It can change a dull photo into
something memorable.
We use the contrast in tone with black and white photography, and
also in colour, thus to the next chapter.

22

CHAPTER 5

Colour

Perception of colour can be very personal. What one person likes, another loathes.
More than that, how one person interprets a colour, another may see something completely different.

23

Having spent much of our evolutionary history in the dark, where

colour differentiation was much less important than light
sensitivity, our ancestors started to venture out in daylight. Our
retinas had to change, and change they did.

As a result, we are less easily fooled by camouflage, and we can see

which are the best fruits to pick - are they ripe or rotten? This
allowed our ancestors a great advantage over their two-colour
competitors.

Being in the dark made us safer, as long as we could see. That

meant that distinguishing between light and dark was thus more
important than differentiating colours, a hopeless task in the dark
anyway.

Added to this our great squidgy computer in our head, we can

differentiate the same colours no matter what the lighting. For
example, a lemon is yellow in daylight and artificial light, even
though the wavelength given off and sensed by the retina is
completely different!

Our ancestors evolved a third colour pigment to better see colour

clues around us. This was actually not to difficult an evolutionary
step as the new cone differs only very slightly from one of the
existing cones, and its sensitivity to different wavelengths overlaps
a great deal.

It also allows us to see much more vividly. Make use of this

advantage passed on to you by your ancestors!
The range of colour we see lies between 400-700nm. This includes
all colours from violet to red. Many species including most birds
fish and many arthropods, can see ultraviolet (down to 320nm).
Others can see further into the red zone, especially insects which
can see colours in flowers undreamt of.

24

Our rods and cones filter out different wavelengths. Strangely we

have no special receptors for red! It is sensed more as an absence
than a presence, we sense colours dependant on the relative
stimulation of the three cone types. Those animals without three
cones can still see in colour, just without the same range as us.
Thus it is not true that dogs and cats see in black and white,
although it is true that colour is less important to them. Whatever
the colour of poops, they will eat it...
Our colour vision range is relatively small. The blue end of the
spectrum is not clear to us, tending to be washed out.
Differentiating colour is clearly important to us. We have moved
on from choosing our fruit to much more advanced uses, such as
deciding whether to jump the traffic lights.

They are the same colour. Our brain interprets them as being
different because of the degree of shade. Put the two colours next
to each other and you can see:

When I started as a veterinarian, colour choice was important as I

was then assistant to someone who worked out of a garage behind
his house and had a choice of tablets ranging from red through to
yellow. What was in them he didnt seem to know.
We have progressed from there havent we? Well, maybe with the
exception of the homeopaths amongst us
Because our brain interprets the signals coming from our eye, we
can be easily fooled. This Rubiks Cube is a classic example of how
that can happen. The central colour on the visible faces of the
above cube appear to us as completely different colours, the top
being brown, the one in the shade being orange.

25

This is how we can be fooled by photographs. In real life, our brain

differentiates colours in different lighting conditions. In this way,
we can see, for example, a lemons colour as the same in good and
poor light, despite the fact that the wavelength of light reflected
from the lemon is completely different in each case.

CONCLUSION
We are lucky as a species to have three colour sensors. Although
more would have been good, three are enough to differentiate a
wide range of colours to use with our photography. Colour is
important in all we see. We can pick out dominant colours and use
them in our photography.
So far we have been concentrating on the abilities of one eye.
Normally we have two! The combined use of those two eyes give
us our depth of perception...

26

CHAPTER 6

Perspective

Having two eyes plonked on the front of our heads gives us the ability to see in 3D.
Our cameras cannot do this, so we have to use tricks to give our photos some depth.

27

Seeing in three dimensions requires not only two eyes, but also a
brain that can handle all the information.
When we look at a photograph, we effortlessly identify people and
objectsre-creating a three-dimensional scene in our mind from
the two-dimensional image. As easy as that task seems, scientists
have long puzzled over exactly how our brain does it; even the
most powerful computers still struggle to pick 3-D objects out of 2D images. Until now, most research has focused on the simpler
neural representation of 2-D patterns, but it is now known that
some neurones are also tuned to 3-D details.
We can also judge depth using only one eye. We pick up clues due
to relative size, lines that converge in the distance, details being
clearer in closer objects, the ways objects overlap and way our eye
focuses on objects of different distances.
All these things are important when we look at photos, and are the
tool used in many optical illusions.
On a two-dimensional photo, we must strive to give the
impression of depth. More of this later.

28

CHAPTER 7

Perspective copy

Having two eyes plonked on the front of our heads gives us the ability to see in 3D.
Our cameras cannot do this, so we have to use tricks to give our photos some depth.

29

Seeing in three dimensions requires not only two eyes, but also a
brain that can handle all the information.
When we look at a photograph, we effortlessly identify people and
objectsre-creating a three-dimensional scene in our mind from
the two-dimensional image. As easy as that task seems, scientists
have long puzzled over exactly how our brain does it; even the
most powerful computers still struggle to pick 3-D objects out of 2D images. Until now, most research has focused on the simpler
neural representation of 2-D patterns, but it is now known that
some neurones are also tuned to 3-D details.
We can also judge depth using only one eye. We pick up clues due
to relative size, lines that converge in the distance, details being
clearer in closer objects, the ways objects overlap and way our eye
focuses on objects of different distances.
All these things are important when we look at photos, and are the
tool used in many optical illusions.
On a two-dimensional photo, we must strive to give the
impression of depth. More of this later.

30

CHAPTER 8

Detail

Resolution

31

We can see a lot of detail with our eyes, but some birds, especially
raptors, can outdo us with a resolution 2-3 times better than ours.

32

CHAPTER 9

Memory

Aliquam turpis tellus. Id malesuada lectus. Suspendisse potenti. Etiam felis nisl, cursus bibendum
tempus nec. Aliquam at turpis tellus. Id malesuada lectus. Suspendisse potenti. Etiam felis nisl, cursus
bibendum tempus nec, aliquet ac magna. Pellentesque a tellus orci. Pellentesque tellus tortor, sagittis
ut cursus vitae, adipiscing id neque.
33

Memory

Snugglepuss: Nine.

The final important difference is with how we remember what we

see. A cameras memory is unchanging (hopefully). Our memory is
mutable, it changes. To remember a scene, bits of memory are
accessed from all over your brain to make a whole. This is
unreliable. Witness statements from crime scenes are notoriously
unreliable. Clients memory is something to wonder at.

(The last bit was me looking at the cats teeth...)

So, when it comes to photographs, we have an interesting
dilemma. How much do we change the photo? Is it as you
remember it? Is it as others remember it?
If you decide to make significant changes to an image (like
removing irksome Uncle George from a group photo) then you
must show no-one the original photo. Doing so makes the changes
obvious, showing the finished product; no-one should notice.
People cannot see what isnt there.

Picture the scene in a veterinary clinic. One pampered cat, two

doting owners. One simple question.

The worst thing that you can do is show your beloved wife/
daughter/girlfriend etc a photo youve taken BEFORE
photoshopping out the spots and wrinkles. Honestly, theyll have
no idea that you have doctored the photo if you dont tell them
instead, they may ask you to get rid of some spot or other that you
have missed!
Anyway, your final image should be as you saw it, (female
portraits excepting) in your head, with your eyes, mutated by your
memory. If someone says it looks too real (if that were even
possible), simply tell then that it is what you saw (unless, of
course, the subject was female...)
Its fine, by the way, to increase the features (er, wrinkles) on men.
Who said that it was fair?

Me: How old is poor little Snugglepuss?

Him: Er... I dunno, A couple of years? What do you think Edith?
Her: Well, I remember going round to Aunt Doris house just after
little Harold was born, and he must be about 4 by now, so ...

34

35

CHAPTER 10

Interpreting the world around us

Having struggled through this somewhat academic exercise, what conclusions can we draw as to how
we see the world around us can affect our photography?

36

Every picture tells a different story and thus every picture needs
tweaking in a different way. To overcome this, camera
manufacturers provide you with many in-camera adjustments to
try to make the final photo match the scene. If this isnt processing
then what is?!?

Another effect is on your enjoyment of holidays. For normal

mortals, holidays are to be enjoyed and then, when finished, sadly
missed. For photographers that use the techniques in this book,
coming back from holidays is not tinged with sadness, but tinged
with the anticipation of looking at all those photos and spending
time working on them! Holidays become even longer, and
memories of them even stronger.

Now this is all well and good, but say youve gone through the
laborious (and often erroneous) process of setting your camera up
for a shot of your pet rabbit, then you want to take a picture of the
buzzard swooping down to snatch it away for breakfast, and then
you want a panoramic photo as the buzzard flies away to the
distant sunset - how are you going to achieve all that? (Let alone
how are you going to tell your kids that their bunny has given a
helping hand to feeding nature?

Open You Eyes!

Well, using all these bloody settings is not (in my humble opinion)
the answer.
Look, my current favourite camera (more on this later) has 28
knobs and dials plus a menu the length of a Tolstoy novel. How
am I supposed to fiddle with all that between the cuddly rabbit bit
and the final departure scene?
Well, frankly, theres no bloody way. Im going to screw up and
end up with no proof to show my infant accusers.
So, the first step in taking photos is to look around you, use the
power in your eyes given to you by three and a half billion years of
evolution, observe the detail in everything, spot the interesting
shot - then click.
Observe, Target & Edit. Simple

37

CHAPTER 11

Dont Panic!

38

For years I could see no point in doing this, now I truly wish I had,
if only for the reason that I could now go back and re-edit those
photos using what I have since learned. That opportunity is lost
forever...

Dont Panic!

Im not saying that using a decent DSLR camera is easy, but there
are several ways to make it very much easier.
If you shoot in RAW, the photos you get wont look that brilliant
straight from the camera, because youve instructed the camera to
leave them alone. Its you that will have to do this at a later date
when you have the time.
Importantly, if you know what you are doing, it is FUN!

Long-term effects of shooting in RAW

Shooting in RAW, as explained above, means that you have to find
time to concentrate on your photos not just when you take the
picture, but later on as well. This can double the fun you have with
photography. Using such methods as HDR (yep, another acronym,
this time it means High Dynamic Range) you can transform a
photo into what your brain remembered - and more. Because of all
the details these techniques bring out, you will find yourself
looking out more for these details in real life., After time, you will
start to realise that you really do see in HDR!

There are ways and means around this problem, and that is really
what this book is about.
Although all the knobs and dials are in someway necessary to
someone, they are not all necessary for you. There are many of
them that you can safely ignore. In the section on camera settings I
will explain what I think is necessary, what is not needed, and the
bits that you might one day need but will probably have bought a
new camera by then!
The one main lesson in all of this is that you should shoot photos
in RAW (nah, dont remove your underwear, Im talking about the
RAW format).

39

CHAPTER 12

What you want

Can be what you get...

40

TAKE THE PHOTO

THAT YOU WANT!

Just joking. Although you do see a serious amount of animals

bottoms on safari...

We all have our own ideas of what makes a good photo. These can
vary wildly. When you start into the world of photography, the
temptation is to copy the ideas of others. This is fine, but only up
to a point. Look at what others do and see what techniques they
use. Then decide what you like and try to achieve your own wish,
so that you end up with photos that YOU love, not (necessarily)
what your neighbour down the street likes.
Much of this book is there for you to follow techniques and master
them. That does not mean I am trying to produce clones of my
work. Take what I say and do, then distort it as you wish, to make
a photo that you can put up on your wall or in your book.
If others like it - fine, but first and foremost, you must love it.
If you love taking photos of animals, do so, but try to make it
unique to yourself in some way.
If you want to take photos of birds, do so, but find a way of
making your photos something other than a simple collection of
stuffed avians; make them interesting.

Now that we know what we want, we now have to learn how to

get it.

If you love old buildings, study their detail and individuality then
capture them on film.

You need to learn where to aim, all subjects have a target to aim
for, although they are usually not as obvious as the one above...

If you love landscapes, photograph them, but make them

interesting.

Of course, having a camera would also help...

If you love photographing animals bottoms, see a psychiatrist.

41

Part 2: TARGET

xlii

Part 3: EDIT

xliii

The Rules of Photography

The 7 Golden Rules
of Photography
1. Always keep your camera with
you
2. Keep taking photos of everything
3. Make the most of interesting
light
4. Obey the rule of thirds
5. Go for simplicity when
composing your subject
6. Don't be frightened by technology
7.Use your computer to find
pictures within pictures
Val Newton

xliv