HHC Blog

Photographer

I try to learn something new every day; learning makes me happy! Lately, I’ve spent a lot of time on some websites and I learned a lot from them. Today I want to share these wonderful web sites with you.

Noise

Remember I complained about some of my photos are quite grainy and it turned out auto-ISO has set ISO very high like 3200, or even 6400? Since I discovered that, I have set maximum ISO for auto-ISO to 200. To my surprise, even with ISO 200, I still get several grainy photos. What have I done wrong? It’s quite upsetting, let me tell you. Then, I read “Photo Noise Reduction Tutorial”.

This article helps me because: (1) it explains “noise” very well and explains in a way that I can understand. I was particularly glad that having gains on my pictures may not be my fault! (2) It discusses several ways to reduce noise. I tried one of them on my photos. Magic! I am happy.

Street Photographing

I don’t remember how I discovered Melbourne-Street-Photography (from one of you, but I don’t remember who). Anyway, on Oct. 2, he wrote about Eric Kim’s “Free Open Source Street Photography Course”. What a great course!

Yes, I followed the link because it was free. But after reading it for a while, I didn’t think I would mind paying for it. 😉 (Don’t take my words too seriously, Eric.) Not all free stuffs are good stuffs, but Eric’s course is definitely worth checking out. After watching a couple of Eric’s videos, I gained a deeper understanding of street photographing. It’s not just walking down the street and point and shoot. (I know. I know. Several of you have told me that already. I guess the difference is that Eric shows me what kind of things make street photograph interesting, so I have better ideas what I want to look for. I am as smart as I want to be.)

Thanks you, Melbourne-Street-Photography!

Speaking of Melbourne-Street-Photography, I have also spent a lot of time there and learned a lot. It has several posts titled “Vivian Maier – Composition Tips”. They are so interesting that I can’t stop reading. It used to be I know what I like or dislike. After taking Otto’s workshop, I know what I like or dislike and why (in general), but I am still not sure if I have missed any points. These posts really help me.

Photo Essay/Project

At Otto’s e-workshop, Finding Your Photographic Voice, he talked about photo essay. I asked him if he has any good example, and one of the links he gave me is Bodies-of-Work.

After reading it, I understood what makes a good project. Thanks, Otto.

So, I was busy reading – that’s why I didn’t participate a lot of photo challenges recently. Learning makes me happy. I am happy.