Click Happy Challenge 1 – Mandi Lynn, your tutor & The Course “Housekeeping” Copy

Mandi

Hi I'm Mandi Lynn, your tutor

I'll be your photo mentor for the course.

I've worked as a professional photographer for the past 12 years but before that I was a holistic women's health nurse. I am self-taught meaning that I never went to university to learn photography but I do study it constantly and 12 years on I still learn something new every day. I'll let you in on little secret. In the beginning, I stank at it. Seriously. Blurry images that I didn't mean to be blury, dark figures in the front of a bright background when I wasn't trying to make a silouette. But I stuck at it and I was a sponge learning everything I could from anyone who would teach me. In 2017, I won New Zealand's Creative Photographer of the Year so I must have been doing something right with my homeschooling. Personally, I tend to create images that are a bit different like this green man photo. But you will have your own unique style and interest in imagery so I'm not going to be sharing much more of my stuff unless it is to prove a point. I would prefer to use your imagery in all of its variation and interest.

So what I plan on doing with you is teaching you over the next 10 days (and more with Clickhappy+) what it took me a year to wrap my head around before I reached out for help. Now I know it may sound difficult, but I have had kids in my live class learn it in 2 hours. I have had to adapt it to teaching online and I am going to do my best to make sure that you can learn just as well without me there physically showing you.

 

 

GreenMan_MandiLynn

What you need to sort out before you start the course if you want to learn manual settings (you can do the challenges without learning manual settings but will be missing an opportunity to dramatically improve your photography game)

If you are taking the course with a Digital camera of some sort.

  • Learn where the controls are on your particular camera for the following things
    • ISO -
      • how sensitive the sensor is to light
      • the lower the number the less sensitive
      • higher the number more sensitive - use in low light
    • Aperature
      • (F-stop f4.) - how wide open the shutter goes
    • Shutter Speed
      • ( 1/2- 1/3200) - how fast the shutter opens and closes
    • Focus control -
      • usually, a little thing that looks like a hashtag and when you move a dial while pressing that button a little red light moves around and shows you what area the lens will focus on...but this can change with the brand so figure out what works for your camera.
  • How do I find this out - 4 sources?
    • Youtube - google your camera make and model and manual settings
    • If you are a hands-on learner, and have the opportunity to, go to a camera shop and ask them to show you where all of the buttons are.
      • bonus points for filming their instruction on a phone for reference for later.
      • don't worry if you didn't buy the camera from them, most camera shop guys enjoy showing off their technical knowledge and will be happy to help out a new photographer.
    • Your manual -
      • I know...I don't think I have ever looked at one before...but honestly that is what they are there for.
    • Messing around with the camera enough until you find all the buttons -
      • this is why it took me so long to get this stuff...I would recommend the other three ways for efficiency and to drop the frustration level in the beginning.

If you are using your phone for the challenges and you want to understand the advanced settings that are available for your camera I would recommend the following apps.

  • If money is no object and you want the most control for both photo and video -
    • Filmic Pro - intuitive and massive control even to the cinematic level.
  • Less expensive-
    • Lightroom - Free and gives you many manual controls  - just switch to pro mode when photographing.
    • Picnic - gives you manual control of pretty much everything except aperture which I haven't found one that does it yet for iPhone, if you do though let me know and I will add it here.
  • For post production-
    • Lightroom - I can't live without this app
    • Hipstamatic - fun filters and stuff
  • Not a fan of these-
    • Shutter - doesn't give you much control
    • Tadaa
    • SLR RAW
    • cap/IO