good day to everybody. i'm Mike from Pangasinan and a newbie in this forum. i'm learning much from those topics i've been reading here these past few days.

That was a very well expressed first post Michael... Don't worry, you'll definitely learn alot from this community... Goodluck on running the family business :)

BTW. Sepia really is an artform in itself... Hope your father can still express his own style now in digital... Must be fascinating to see his works :)

thanks sir, i hope someday i'll have the opportunity to attend seminars and workshop so that i can enhance more of my work, furthermore to personally meet all these guys out here especially those who are well known photographers who take wedding shots seriously and very artistic. your work of style has given us higher level of motivation to pursue this photography.

Hi Michael,

We are glad to have you here. Yes, we have many seasoned photographers on this forum and many are unselfish wedding specialists who don't mind helping out newcomers to the industry.

Don't think your father cannot teach you much in photography. I bet you he is a wealth of information.

Thanks for joining again.

Don't think your father cannot teach you much in photography. I bet you he is a wealth of information.


True. Very much true. :)

i hope too, that some of wedding specialist here can help me step by step in continuing to upgrade my knowledge in photography and also we could still continue our service here in our place as long as we're still active.

but to tell you frankly, eventhough we're outdated of some of the latest in photography like studio lightings, albums, editings, etc. we can still manage to give our client a little satisfaction of our work.

:) It's good that you are aware of this... Yup, the equipment really does help... but these are just tools that can and are easily outdated... Mostly it's the photographer... Don't let yourself be outdated. :Grin:

Michael,

You have a good foundation to build on. The wealth of experience he can teach you is invaluable. You ability to do manual focus, use manual settings, compose properly are some things I noticed many that never experienced the "good old days" lack. The advent of AF, matrix/evaluative metering, IS/VR/OS and a host of other technologies, the newbies of today lack the basics that others had to go through when these technologies were not available. Sort of having plumbing and not knowing how it is to fetch water. Or having calculators when 30 years ago, a simple calculator is P900 (maybe equivalent to 12,000-15,000. And they are not even scientific or have memory nor are they programmable.

The caveats in the digital world, however, are many. One of the things I had to learn was to SHOOT MORE. Because film was expensive then, you limit yourself to 5-10 rolls per wedding. But with digital, you can literally shoot till your shutter fail. That means you can really shoot 5,000-10,000 actuations if you want to. Crazy but true.

But you do have to learn to shoot more. Before, you are mostly concerned with formals because film was expensive. Learn to shoot informal shots, and learn to experiment, to risk a bit. But your formal training is now an asset to you. You know how to pose the subjects, how to light them, etc.

Another adjustment in digital is workflow. Your training with your father, cemented your basic skills. But your post processing must also improve (unless you are willing to subcontract them). No more chemicals or dark rooms though. Which means the computer now is your "dark room" and you can really do lots of stuff you can't really do easily with manual exposure in the dark room.

There are other stuff you will need to adjust. But I guess, you just have to ask. I'm sure, many here will be more than happy to help you.:)

-Mel

thanks sir earl & mel, i'm aware of a basic lighting in studio, my father told what a "flat" lighting looks like, the manual focusing and setting, and even developing and printing manually a B/W film. i've got a color lab experienced too during film days at Masinag in antipolo for 3mos.

If I were you, Michael, I wouldn't throw out that 120. Learn from the digital cameras and apply your knowledge to the 120. Most of the techniques and know how is the same.. but the image quality you can produce from a properly exposed 120 can be much better than most dSLRs.

Joining groups and attending seminars help.. but will never teach you as much as your own experience in trial and error. The more you shoot, the more you try, the more you learn. Just remember one fundamental point. Its the person behind the camera that makes the pictures..

thanks sir david, that was a very good point! yeah i think i've been learning from my error. i still have the camera, i kept it as a remembrance from where we started, others are rolleiflex cameras and some old nikon and canon. unfortunately the Mamiya that my father brought to a repairman in pampanga, has sold it to other person. the reason he told us is he taught we're not interested anymore, for it took more than a year before my father re-visited his shop.

The 30++ years of experience is something most of us don't have.

I often wonder how can one person maintain the passion over time - say 30+ years. We are all lucky, we have internet now so it's easy to connect to other people even abroad. We are now in sync with technology. It's now updating ourselves as often as possible.

:)

The 30++ years of experience is something most of us don't have.

I often wonder how can one person maintain the passion over time - say 30+ years. We are all lucky, we have internet now so it's easy to connect to other people even abroad. We are now in sync with technology. It's now updating ourselves as often as possible.

:)

Yeah baby!:D It has been and always will be about information and what we do with it...

In my opinion, you will only benefit a little from photography seminars. I'm sure that you already have a good foundation on the basics of photography and all you need to do is to develop your own style. You are one lucky guy, having a such a father, and I'm pretty sure that a regular chit-chat with your father will be more beneficial than photography seminars.

You could, instead, attend seminars in photoshop or image manipulation techniques. :)

yeah i think i need to attend workshop bout photoshop too. i'm using Corel Draw for my layouts and a bit satisfied of it, but learning photoshop too will be a big advantage for me.