Too much of my life I didn’t do something I wanted to do because I didn’t know how to do it on the first attempt. I’ve spent most of my life believing learning like others was beyond my ability. So what did I do? I’d read (NOT studied) about the things I wanted to learn. I’d take classes. But I’d avoid actually doing any practice on my own. The truth is, I’ve had a long standing belief that I couldn’t learn something without someone else nearby helping me.

What I’m referring to now is photography lighting. I really want to learn it. I bought Zach Arias’ One Light DVD tutorial last July. I watched it briefly right after I received the DVD. I knew so little about my camera and everything else; I couldn’t follow along and got frustrated. I took the DVD out and told myself I’d watch it later. I didn’t watch the DVD later, even though I carried the DVD in my computer bag, always intending to watch it when away, out of town. But I never did watch it. I didn’t watch it again, until, last week, the day before I drove to Syl’s Off Camera Flash Lighting Seminar.

Then again today, after I was relaxed from the 1.5 hour long massage, I watched Zach’s One Light DVD again. I’m getting it. More and more is beginning to make sense, a little. I see I really need to learn, like the back of my hand, how to use and understand aperture, shutter speed, ISO, flash power settings and flash to subject distances. I need to know these things so I don’t have to think so hard about how to get an exposure that works. This is the bad news and the good news. Faith without works is dead.

I noticed during Syl’s lighting seminar last week how helpful having watched Zach’s DVD the day before was in terms of my being able to follow along, because I was more familiar with the names of all the equipment involved in lighting. I get lost when I’m being taught if I don’t understand something. I can’t hear or learn anything after I freak because I don’t understand the terminology or concept. There is no catching up.

Interestingly, today, when watching Zach’s DVD again, I noticed how much more I comprehended the concepts Zach was teaching since having learned more about the lighting process during Syl’s lighting seminar.
Somehow I have had this belief that I should get something without having to do the work.

An interesting aside (to me)……..Since I got Adobe Photoshop CS4 last year I have not been able to use the burn/dodge tool on a photo. I for the life of me couldn’t get it to work like all the tutorials I was watching. I got frustrated and turned off CS4. I’d revisit trying to figure out why my copy of CS4 wasn’t working like it was supposed to based on all the tutorials I kept watching, hoping one of the tutorials would talk about the one thing I was overlooking that prevented my dodge/burn tools from working like they are supposed to work. I was defeated and just stopping using CS4. Until yesterday. Yesterday the mystery was solved when I realized that my Wacom Tablet mouse (when I right clicked) would not work when I used the mouse. I tried the pen and guess what, I now can start using Adobe Photoshop CS4 again.

All this above was written to prove just how delighted I was with myself, when today, I ventured into the scary world of actually setting my Canon 40D up with the Canon 580EX II flash on the new Really Right Stuff’s WPF-1,Wedding Pro Flash Bracket. I set both camera and flash on MANUAL too. My god all the camera functions are totally different in manual mode. I did it. I took the first step. I was willing to not know and I didn’t even get a migraine. This is the beginning…..the beginning of really trying to learn photography. I’m very proud of myself and not too embarrassed to let you know how very little I know.

Here I am playing with my gear. The five different photos are me changing the aperture. (Trying to figure out how to open up and set up the Wedding Bracket was hilarious. I had to go to Really Right Stuff’s website and watch the tutorial, again!)

ISO 250, 1/60 at f/13, subject distance 2.0mm, 1/1 flash power

ISO 250, 1/60 at f/8, subject distance 2.90mm, 1/1 flash power

ISO 250, 1/60 at f/6.3, subject distance 2.0mm, 1/1 flash power

Hamming it up. ISO 250, 1/60 at f/6.3, subject distance 2.0mm, 1/1 flash power

ISO 250, 1/60 at f/5.6, subject distance 2.0mm, 1/1 flash power

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