Lesson 1- IMAGINATION, Your Most Important Piece Of Kit.

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The Lonely Crow

"What is the most important thing you need to have, to become a good photographer", I have seen people ask this question so many times, most of the times enthusiastic beginners. And I too

have wondered about this very same question on more than one occasion. What could it be, the camera (maybe you need an expensive camera, one which is bulky and dangerous looking and which shouts "photographer" all the way), maybe its the lenses (surely a 2000 dollar AF/IS zoom lense will make one a better photographer) or maybe its extensive knowledge of photo editing software like Adobe Photoshop or LightRoom. I have seen people who aspire to learn photography start off with buying an expensive camera kit (with add-on lenses and even with an add on flash) and then wondering why the photos they take don't look atleast half as good as those taken by a 3 year old.

But after some time I realized the answer to the question. The most important thing you need to be a good photographer, is something that almost all of us are blessed with naturally. Its IMAGINATION. Yes, that's the one thing that is most important, the one thing that will make you capable of taking breathtaking pictures even with a disposable camera .

The first step should be the ability to imagine a viewfinder in front of you so that you see "a scene" before even taking your camera out. Once you start to see the way a camera will see a scene that means that 50% of the task is over and only the task of getting that scene on to the image remains.


Ofcourse, a good camera and a set of lenses will help, and ofcourse knowing Photoshop will help you spice up your photos (we will talk about both of them in a later lesson), but like a pen to a writer, they are only tools.


So, let your imagination run free and never be afraid to snap up those scenes, you will be surprised by how good they later turn out to be,

Royston Lifelong Learning Centre Architectural Photography

Royston lifelong learning centre is yet another building designed by P+HS architects. The building is a wonderful community resource offering a Library, meeting rooms, a community cafe, a crèche and learning facilities. Royston lifelong learning centre also has a Biomass heat plant.

It is a wonderful light and airy building with some interesting space. The curved side of the building has window looking out into a small garden and breaks up the rectangular floor plan nicely.

I enjoy http://www.dougjacksonphotography.co.uk/architectural_photographer.htmarchitectural photography and particularly photographing new and interesting buildings. For this building I utilised both natural and artificial light offer the client a broad selection of images. Architectural photography is about discovering a building for yourself and trying to capture the nature of it for your client.

To catch up with all the news at P+HS architect have a look at thier blog:

http://blog.pandhs.co.uk/

To see further examples of my architectural photography see: http://www.dougjacksonphotography.co.uk/arctutectural.html

Architectural Model Photography

Some samples of a commission I undertook to photograph an architect's model. For those of you with an interest in photography light the model with my Stellar Xtreme 300w AC/DC Flash System (as reviewed here  http://dougjacksonphotography.blogspot.com/2009/06/blog-post.html  with two large soft-boxes and a black background.