Strongly suggest taking a workshop or two. American Photo offers them (
www.mentorseries.com), there's an offshoot of theirs, D-65 (
www.d-65.com). They are not as expensive as some of the big names in workshops - Maine Photographic Workshops, International Center for Photography, Santa Fe. They also tend to run a lot of them over weekends, and in cities around the US. They both seem to get really great photographers (Bob Krist, Seth Resnick, Steve McCurry) who are also really good teachers. They both pack your days, from before sunrise to near midnight - great value, although plan a day to recover after. You get good access to your instructors, good "set ups" - models, special access to unusual places - for shooting WITH your instructor.
They also offer longer ones, in exotic locations, and I've not done any, although people I know who have gone have raved about how much they learned.
Attendees will range from working pros looking for a creative kick in the butt to people who just bought a consumer digicam. In fact, the best image, bar none, at the last workshop I was at was produced by someone who was dragged to the workshop, and had a newly bought Canon G2. One of the pros lent her one of his Canon 1DS with lenses for the day afterwards.
Most of them will include sharing your images, and those of people around you, both images you like, and ones you hate. And by teaching you how to talk about what you got, versus what you intended, and how to critique others' images, you learn how to see images, and create what you saw in your mind's eye.
I've done a few like these, and they're worth every penny. I've done more formal classes at a couple well known schools, and felt that the slower pace and academic surrounding made for less learning. The good workshops also encourage you to try for images and fail - push you out of your comfort zone. A friend of mine who shoots breathtakingly beautiful graphical type images but no people was banned from taking images of anything but people. I was banned from shooting people, because the portfolio I brought had nothign but people in it. We both learned a bunch.
And the 5700 is perfectly adequate. I did a digital workshop recently where the majority of cameras were D1x and 1DS, and I shot with my 5700. Most people wouldn't believe that's what I was using, the quality of the image was so good.
I love Nikon so I went with the 5700 and really like it. My
question is what do you guys do to get so good at photography and
knowing what the camera can actually do? At some point I would
love to post some photos to get your comments but with the stuff I
see here, my photos will stay safely on my hard drive. Anyhow,
I'll keep reading and any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.
Louise
