Sunday, February 27, 2011

Help is just an e-mail away.

Over the years, I've always been asked technical photography questions by friends and family.  When it was all film, the questions were about how to use the camera since the processing and printing were done by labs.  Now, in the digital age, there are more tools at hand and more decisions to be made that have returned more control over the final image to the photographer.  Happily, the jpeg file format seems to be firmly entrenched and widely if not universally adopted by all the various camera manufacturers and software makers.  There are numerous image editing programs available for purchase or download. 

I've noticed a trend toward less and less instructional material being included as standard practice by the camera makers.  Perhaps to save cost or assuming the consumer knows what all the icons mean the average instruction manual these days seems to be more pictures than words.  This can be very frustrating when you can't figure out how to work your camera or software.  So, we take to the internet for help and are faced with the same frustrations.  The camera maker's help site is just as lacking as the manual.   The 1,847,322 potential answer to your search question quickly lead you astray and you're back to just setting your camera on auto and doing minimal image editing.

There are unlimited ways to creatively modify or improve your pictures using photo editing programs.  If you want to go beyond taking snapshots, you'll have to know what tools and knowledge are needed.  Your camera and computer may have everything you need but what good are the tools if you don't know how to use them?

I'm here to help.  I have taught workshops in the past and will continue when the opportunity arises. But I want you to know that I do one to one consulting as well.  I'll meet with you and help you work through camera issues, general photography questions, and provide tutoring on using image editing software.  I do charge a reasonable fee for this service.  Please email me at bwlab@yahoo.com for more information.