Photography 101: You Can Do It (Or, The Exposure Triangle Made Simple)

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The exposure triangle made simple.  I got so excited when I bought my Nikon D3200.  I was beyond excited if I’m honest ~ I couldn’t wait to learn how to use my camera and begin to take better photographs of my boys….until I read the manual that came with the camera.

I realise that had I read this manual before February 2010, I might have had a shot at understanding the words and diagrams before me without feeling wound up and like I wanted to scream.  I could have spent a beautiful Saturday and lazy Sunday pawing over the pages, clicking dials and pressing buttons to my heart’s content.  I would have studied, I would have learned.

However, here in 2013, I rarely get five minutes to myself (I’m feeding Baby Dragon right now) and if I do, it’s around 10pm when Baby Dragon is asleep across my lap, my legs are cramped, the lights are off and I’m alternating between staring at the blinding light of the computer screen and then squinting in the darkness at my camera which is being held by my aching arms above my sleeping bundle as I try desperately to figure out which button is which.

Never mind that I can’t move to focus on anything or use the camera without a flash (which would wake Lyoto from his recent light sleeps in any case).

I’ve bought books ~ brilliant books ~ that I can’t seem to get past page five on.  I felt so deflated since I’d love to improve and my photography before we leave for Florida in October this year.  Frustratingly, f stops, shutter speeds, ISO…they were all flying high over my head.

Until two days ago.  Two days ago I found the most captivating photographs of a family on the internet and started to read their family blog (because I love torturing myself looking at pretty photos) only to discover that the writer, Nancy, is a genius at turning the complicated physics stuff of photography into something I could actually understand within minutes.  She’s brilliant (and very lovely too).  Light bulbs actually flashed in my head, pennies dropped by the bucketful….I got it!  I finally got it.  The exposure triangle all makes perfect sense now.  I’m by no means a competent photographer yet, but in my head, it all makes sense now.

If you’ve been shooting in automatic with your DSLR, pop over to Nancy and have a read.  I promise you won’t be sorry!