Practice is very important in our daily life when we want to excel in doing something.
Even in our daily work or martial art training, practice in the technique to get the best result is crucial.
Let's say you want to learn a jumping spinning kick which was one of my favorite in my Tae Kwon Do days. Your stance, focus and execution must be perfect or else your kick will not be effective in knocking down your opponent. First you have to master the basic stance and kick....PRACTICE.
Practice until you can execute the kick with perfection and only then you can jump and kick.
The same goes with photography.
First you have to master the crucial camera function and know which button to push in what situation such as when you have to use Aperture Priority and which f/numbers gives you your desired deep of field(DOF).
But not to forget the shutter speed and when to use the Shutter Priority also.
How to do that?
PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE. Keep on shooting, if can do it daily.
Then you may ask, how about photography?
Others may have a different ideas on this but this is what I do.
In Tae Kwon Do, I visualise an opponent while executing my kicks.
In photography, visualise in your mind that you are painting the image that you see on a canvas.
Compose it, frame it and release the shutter.
(This does not mean you do not need the Basic of Photography knowledge, you have to learn that for sure.)
Not good enough? Shoot again until you get it right.
SHOOT and SHOOT and SHOOT.
Practice, Practice, Practice.
You may need to shoot thousand of times to get your desired result. The process of shooting will lead you to be a better shooter and a better communicator.
Where to shoot?
I would say hit the STREET as that is the best classroom with free models, ever changing interesting characters and different scenery.
What to shoot?
Any subject that attract you or a storytelling image or image touch you inside. Street has a lot of those images.
Most important defence: YOUR BIG SMILE. It's difficult to punch a smiling opponent.
That's one of the reason I lost some of my fights in my younger days as I normally bring down my guard when I see a smiling opponent.
Here are some of my shots using
AF-S Nikkor 50mm F/1.8G and Tamron SP AF 17-50mm f/2.8 XR Di II VC LD Aspherical (IF) .
The first two images were taken using Tamron 17-500mm f/2.8 VC in order to captured a wider area.
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Movement effect using Slow shutter speed. |