[BCUG Info] Requests for Articles/ Discusions/ Tutorials

[[Geoff Slocock]]

I have written stuff for this forum area where it makes a lot of economical sense to write stuff just the once and then link back to it. This can sometimes make writing posts very fast.

Another thing that happens with this forum area is that I think members check it out for articles that might help them; and do this in preference to asking a question. Sometimes this can be a pity, too, because questions asked and answered are something of the life of the forum.

Learning about photography is probably more about experience than learning theory; and the theory that is learnt needs to be used and experimented with, if it is to be understood well. So I certainly do not want to encourage the writing of tutorials for this that and everything. Moreover googling and researching points is quite an essential skill, in its own right; and tips and tricks can be acquired from all over the web.

I do think there are some urban myths that need to dispelled, however. These are the list of such myths as I have found them.

1. I do not need to do anything to my photographs after taking them, because my camera does everything.
2. My camera lets me frame the shot, why should I then want to crop the image.
3. I trust my camera's auto-exposure and do not want to get any better than what it offers.
4. I do not believe the camera's sensor is not really good enough to catch all of the tones that the human eye sees; I paid a lot of money for it and the manufacturer must know what he is doing.

Of course if folk really believe all this then this site is probably not for them. A lot of the helpful on forum responses do get involved with trying to tie down the muddle created by manufacturer's advertising, the culture we do live amongst of being able to enjoy instant results. There is also a reluctance to believe that photography is a craft and tendency to think that quickly applied rules of thumb might work. There are photography schools and gurus all over the web who set themselves up with what they say are secrets or magic tips for quickly learning about photography. But the learning that is actually involved requires a very considerable ability to judge each particular shot on its own merits, and bundling a shot into one of a category is a relatively crude way in which to learn, although of course that may bring on improvements in the first instances.

This then is part of the reason why I think the photography articles that go in here should be genuine discussions and written by several authors. There isn't much benefit to be had, I think, for dumbing down, because it can lead to misconceptions that tend somewhat to stick in people's minds. Also, I do not trust myself so much to be an authority figure in this area.

So the guideline are:

• No authoritative-sounding magic tips that allegedly work in all instances. Always think of the exceptions to the rule and acknowledge these exceptions.
• Do not do detailed tutorials on relatively specialist subjects such as studio lighting. This area needs to be kept to the elements of photography.
• Always welcome further comment and respond to it, too.

I don't think I can or could write all of the articles. I will however help with the tidying up; for example there may be a new prefix that could be useful. I can set up new prefixes, so just let me know if this seems to be called for.

The other thing we can do in this thread is submit requests. And, whereas we may not appear to fulfil particular requests, we will try to address at least underlying areas of requests in some sort of pithy way; so we may respond in several ways and in different topic areas.. So parts of requests will often get written up. Remember, here, we do not want this area growing into any sort of huge compendium.

[[Geoff Slocock]]

RAW processing is highly specialised work. But it does allow you to work up toward some highly finished results.

It will be taxing work to write briefly in this area on this subject. Also the methods I use are not the same as others. This sort of individualism of technique is rather inevitable, too.

OK, I used to feel that my efforts were not up to "standard"; but Having a Dream will generally lead to higher standards. But what you prize will not so often be what others prize, so again the results that you get are due to your explorations and the methods that you choose to get skilful at applying.

But I can try to distil what seem to be some generalisations.