Your Japanese word of the week is...

"benkyou" 勉強. In noun form, it means "study". In verb form, it means....... well...... "to study". But it can also mean "to learn". And I thought I'd show you a couple of the things I've learned about photography since I've now had my new camera for a bit more than a month now. Feel free to disagree =P...

1. It's 80% Driver, 20% Car

And it totally applies to photography. I can honestly say that out of all the pictures I took with my new SLR, only about 25% are because of something the Sony can do that my regular point-and-shoot can't.

And I really mean that. No manner of insane ISO settings or blazing fast shutter speeds can help if the picture is of no interest. Or framed improperly. Or even post-processed poorly.

Buying a new camera, I found out, stimulated my photo album purely because it stimulated me to go out and take MORE pictures. The novelty of having a new toy helped me see the world in different ways and this is the biggest factor. I mean, people are buying more and more SLR's everyday and most of them would never have thought about walking down the street snapping everything they saw until they bought that new camera.

Both these pictures I took with my point-and-shoot Pentax that's so noisy at ISO400 (its max) that it looks like it's raining sparkles. But still, a few seconds of touching up (in Windows Photo Gallery, no less) and they're not too bad. Well, aside from distorting the Landmark Tower to look like it's bending..... but hey, the camera was handed down to me and the lens can't be changed, so not much I can do about that =P heh.....

Of course, that's not to discount my Sony. I love that I can zoom in and out quickly. I love the fast auto-focus. I love the manual controls and the range of those controls. I love the ability to switch lenses. I even love the clacking of the mirror.

But I learned that the camera was not what generated my photos...

2. Don't Stick Everything In The Middle

Perhaps you may have heard of the rule of thirds. It basically suggests that during composition, dividing the image into nine equal parts (divide it into thirds vertically and thirds horizontally) and sticking the interesting things at the 4 intersections of the lines or somehow along the lines will be a good starting point for making an image that's interesting.

For example, the centre-line of good ol' Kinkaku-ji up there is near the right-hand vertical line. The water line also rests along the bottom horizontal third. The sky takes up the top third of the picture.

But of course, rules are meant to be broken and there certainly are excellent photos that don't follow that rule.

The interesting thing is that my Pentax can overlay the grid onto its live-view screen....... and my Sony can't haha.....

3. I've Seen That Before...

Here's a question. Which picture do you like more?

This?

... or this?

It wouldn't be a stretch to say that the best pictures are of rare things. Or common things in a rare situation/environment. Or a rare perspective. In other words, it has to be visually interesting.

Everyone knows what things look like from a normal eye level. Which is essentially how I took that first picture- standing upright (in the rain) on the edge of the standard walking route around Kinkaku-ji.

The second picture I took from a small side path, crouching and leaning at a rather straining angle (still in the rain). But I think the second angle changes the building from a background distraction into something more interesting. I also think few people lie on the ground to peruse what is otherwise a ski-jump of a tree. Or a sinking battleship with its bow plunging into the abyss. So that's not how most normal people see it..... probably because no sane person crouches like a duck everywhere they go....

It's sort of about trying to see things in a way that they aren't normally seen, whether that be from a new angle, a new position, or a new juxtaposition.

These two shots I took from Tokyo Auto Salon differ only very slightly, but I find the one from a lower, less commonly seen angle much more interesting especially because it emphasizes the car's low-slung stance.

By the way, this is a Mazda RX500, a 240kmh 1970's concept car with the Wankel rotary engine the company popularized. It sat around for 30 years before they restored it lest this part of Mazda's history disappears.

3. A Dab Here, A Touch There

I read somewhere that a good picture should have a meaning; that it should be capturing some moment to be remembered or some statement to be made. I'm not really sure if that's always true since lots of people are taking shots of water dripping off leaves and I like running around snapping pictures of crankshafts and balloons. And some of them turn out great.

But it does help to make a more interesting picture if it tries to say something. You might recognize this picture from my Kyoto post. I wanted to show just how many people were perplexed by the rock garden at Ryoan-ji...

To that end, I editted it so there are less distractions. I cropped out all the stuff in the top and then I took all the colour out because I just found the red hat and all the other people to be visually complicating. It even turned out that it helped to make that lady in pink stand out even more.

And though she looks like she's pointing, she's not really. She's just reaching for the guidebook her husband's holding...... oh well haha....

And even aside from bringing out exactly what you want from the picture, post-processing them helps to draw out the colours and whatever else you want to do with the image (depending on how powerful a program you're using). It's like make-up for your photography...

4. Shoot Everything!

The last, and most important, thing I learned is simply to take lots of photos. I toss about 40% of the pictures I take even before I transfer them onto my computer. Then I throw out probably another half of them.

But some of the pictures I liked were spur of the moment shots that had nothing to do with rules of this or angling that. It was just something I saw and I liked, so I pushed the button. Like this one...

The best part is that all this is subjective. I like these pictures but you may feel otherwise. And that's fine......

Of course, being the hypocrit that I am, I failed to take a picture of the Ferrari F430 Scuderia I saw two weeks ago.

Or the Bentley Continental Flying Spur one week ago (yes, another one).

Or the Aston Martin V8 Vantage... and the Mercedes CL63 AMG... and the Lancia Delta Integrale that I saw tonight.

I (poorly attempt to) substitute those with this green S2000...