LocalNavy433 Photography

Hello and how the hell are you?  If this is your first time here thanks for stopping by.  In this blog we are going to talk about what it’s like to have a dream come true.  This dream started for me about 20 years ago.  You see when I was an ironworker I was teaching apprentices how to do the job that I was doing.  The tips and tricks of trade on how to stay safe and make it home at the end of the day.  While in the Navy as a 2nd class petty officer I was teaching the newer airmen and women the rules in the shop as they first got there.  Then as a school bus driver I was teaching the kids right from wrong while on the bus.  You see I have always been teaching something to someone on different levels in my life.  

I love teaching skills to people and over the last three years I felt that I was able to teach photography to others.  I am not the type of teacher that teaches by just talking to the person. I am a hands on type of teacher and that comes from the days working iron.  You see back then in order to teach the younger apprentices it was all hands on while on the job.  So I would tell the kids what to do and then help them achieve that goal.  This to me is the best form of teaching because you get instruction on what the task is then you go hands on and just do it with me standing there to insure that it is right.  

I tried to take this approach with mentoring a few people in photography but the problem was they all lived in different states so all I could do was talk to them over the phone.  The good part about that is with photography you are taking photos which means they could take the photo and send it to me and I would go over where they could do better or how they did one specific thing right.  This was awesome for me as I was still able to help them grow and get better at their craft.  The teaching that I was doing was just talking shop with the people and that drives me to do more with my own photography.  

I really enjoyed watching them grow as photographers and teaching them the little tips and tricks really mad me feel whole as a person.  You see I don’t just enjoy shooting because you can only do so much and as a human I want to share my knowledge with others.  I mean I don’t have all the answers but I have a good set of tools to help people grow.  I am not the normal teacher I try to put things into a perspective that they will understand.  That is a gift that I have developed over the years of working with individuals that have different ways of thinking.  The best way to teach someone something that is difficult is to make it stupid simple.  That is the key to learn anything if you break it down to the easiest way of doing it you learn it faster in my opinion.  

For example one of the hardest things to learn as a beginner photographer is depth of field and the easiest way to explain it is the smaller the f-stop the shallower the depth of field is going to be.  The larger the f-stop the more is in focus.  So it all comes down to the plain of focus and if you look at how wide a door is when you are shooting at say f 2.8 there is only going to be that narrow plain of field in focus.  Now if you are using say f 8 the plain of focus is larger like the width of the table you are sitting at.  You see how it is easier to understand with that example because you can physically see the difference in the width of the door and the width of the table.  

This is the type of examples of how I teach and break down the hard parts of photography.  Another example would be how to understand a camera and how it works.  The human eye is just a camera and lens if you really think about it. The iris is the Aperture or the f-stop if you will.  When your eye is in a dark place it will open the iris wide open to let in more light just like if you use a lower f-stop to gather in more light.  Now the shutter is the eyelids which if you sit right there an open up your eye and not blink two things are going to happen you will have dry eyes from having them left open for so long but they will also hurt a little from letting in so much light.  They work just like the shutter if you want to capture fast action you have a fast shutter and if you want to capture movement you leave the shutter open for a longer time.  The iso is just the sensitivity to the light. 

Now walk outside and look right at the sun.  It’s going to hurt your eyes which means that you are getting to much light on them.  On the camera if you have plenty of light you use iso 100 if you are shooting in pitch black night you will turn that up to iso 3200 to get a photo.  You are increasing the sensitivity to the sensor.    These are just a few examples on how I teach a person how to use his or her camera to get the most out of it.  I also preach that you will need to practice and practice each and every day if you want to get better. 

So that was a long winded explanation for me to say that my dream came true as I had my first student that wanted to truly learn photography from me.  I was able to sit with this student for six hours straight and just talk about the fundamentals of photography and then put them into practice.  I really enjoyed teaching what I know about the craft that I love.  Watching the students mind get blown away with just how easy photography can be at times really just made my heart sing with joy.  At one point that I was thanking the student for allowing me to teach them that I almost cried I was so happy to see my dream coming to life.  

I am going to be trying to get more clients to teach my skills of photography to others.  I really enjoy seeing those moments when it clicks yes pun intended haha.  You will never reach your dreams if you never truly try to achieve them.  I have been trying to reach this goal in my photographic career for the last three years.  I know my craft and want to share what I know to help others to reach his or her goals.  Enjoy from St Johns y’all