Before I get started, I want to thank Ana for offering me the opportunity to guest blog. I’ve been following 1001 Scribbles for some time now and really enjoy the eclecticism and insight that’s routinely available here.

The focus of “Thursday Tips” will be photography. The tips offered will largely be for enthusiasts who consider themselves beginners who want to take their photography to “the next level,” but hopefully some of this will be applicable to more advanced photographers as well. A word of warning—I’m primarily a landscape photographer, so my perspective and examples will draw heavily from that genre. However, most of what I relate can be applied to many—if not most—other types of photography. To learn a bit more about me and see the kinds of things I shoot, please visit my blog and/or my Web site.

With that out of the way, let’s get to today’s tip. If you want to take your photography up a notch, take your camera off the program/auto setting! If you really want to go crazy—jump into the deep end of the pool, metaphorically speaking—flip on over to full-blown manual. (I realize that not every camera out there allows the user to change the shooting mode; every SLR—at least every one I’m aware of—does, as do most (if not all) mirrorless cameras and some advanced point-and-shoots. If you don’t have a camera that allows you to do take full control, but are interested in moving ahead with photography, I’d urge you to look into getting one.)

Please don’t misunderstand what I’m saying—it’s not that a good photograph can’t be taken in auto mode, nor am I stating that there are no situations for which the program setting is appropriate.

Why then, you may ask, is it important to shoot in a mode other than full-blown automatic? Photography, as an art form, is a creative endeavor and a large part of the creative process is making decisions about how the camera functions. In program mode, the camera is making these decisions for you. The camera is making exposure choices; it is setting the ISO, the shutter speed and the aperture for you. It is also—as a result of setting the aperture—establishing depth of field (the establishment of the range of acceptable focus). By allowing the camera to make these decisions you’re essentially surrendering a large part of the creative locus to a system of computer algorithms.

Exposure is about rendering light. It is—arguably—the single most important aspect of photography. How a scene is exposed will play a huge role in conveying the emotion of that scene. It’s impossible to overemphasize the degree to which this is how you—as an artist—express yourself via the photographic medium. Surrender that to the camera? Not on your life! How does the camera know how you want to handle exposure? It doesn’t. Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean that an image shot on the program setting won’t be satisfactorily exposed. But if the lighting is tricky, or if the dynamic range of the camera’s digital sensor (or film, if you’re still shooting film) is exceeded, allowing the camera to make exposure decisions is a dangerous thing. The camera doesn’t know what you want to do—take that decision back into your own hands!

The same goes for depth of field. The camera doesn’t know how much or how little of the scene you want in focus. It has to guess, and, in truth, it has no idea. Again, what’s in focus and what isn’t is a substantial part of the creative side of photography. Remember—you are the artist. You should be the one making all of the creative decisions.

For a variety of reasons, it would have been extremely difficult to produce any of the photographs accompanying this entry with the camera on the auto/program setting. In any case, it wouldn’t have been worth the trouble to do so. All of them were accomplished in full manual mode (using a spot meter exposure method and manual focus). The better you understand the technical aspects of photography, the more easily you’ll be able to choose the best method to achieve your desired results.

One of the great ironies of the Age of Digital Photography is that it has never been easier to learn the technical fundamentals of the discipline, yet a smaller percentage of people engaged in photography appear to have even a modest grasp of the technical basics than ever before. Back in the era when film was ubiquitous, concepts such as exposure and depth of field were comparatively difficult to absorb, primarily because it took so long to receive feedback following a shoot. (The film had to be shot and then developed; it was days, if not weeks, before the results could be seen and compared.) Today, feedback is virtually instantaneous. The exposure and depth of field differences resulting from varied settings can be seen immediately and the lessons internalized in a matter of a few hours. I’ve often said that, if you give me a novice photographer with an interest and willingness to learn I’ll have them fully understanding photography’s technical underpinnings in a single afternoon. Novices with the willingness to learn can probably teach themselves nearly everything they need to know in a weekend.

Start the process of taking full creative control of your photography. The first step to learning the fundamentals is to move away from the program setting. You won’t regret it.