Forwards or Backwards

Learning Photography

A complete photography course, in ten parts, in order.

It starts from what a photograph physically is and finishes with a processed file ready to print — and it assumes nothing in between. If you have just bought a camera and cannot work out what the dial does, start at part one and work through. If you already shoot and want to know why your background is not blurry, part five will tell you.

Every part is built the same way: the mechanism first, then what it means in practice, then what to actually do. Figures are sourced and dated on screen. The camera diagrams are drawn rather than photographed, so every control is labelled as it is explained.

WHAT THE COURSE COVERS

1 - WHAT A PHOTOGRAPH IS Light as something that can be counted. The camera obscura and why a small hole makes an image at all. Niépce, Daguerre and Fox Talbot, and the jump from a latent image in silver to a charge well in silicon. What actually happens at the moment of exposure.

2 - THE EXPOSURE TRIANGLE Aperture, shutter speed and ISO as one system rather than three settings. The stop as the unit that makes them comparable — why f-numbers climb in that odd sequence. Metering and what a meter assumes. Exposure compensation. Reading a histogram. Reciprocity, and where it fails.

3 - EVERY KIND OF CAMERA Disposable, compact, bridge, SLR, DSLR, mirrorless, medium format and phone. What each is for and what it gives up. Sensor size and crop factor done properly — what it changes about field of view, depth of field and noise, which are three different answers. Why the mirror went.

4 - EVERY CONTROL ON THE CAMERA Which button does what. Mode dial, command wheels, exposure compensation, metering modes, focus modes and areas, drive modes, bracketing, the menu tree, custom buttons and the information displays.

5 - LENSES, AND HOW FOCUS WORKS Prime and zoom. Focal length and field of view. Maximum aperture and what it costs. Elements, groups and coatings. Stabilisation, macro, tilt-shift. The aberrations every lens is a compromise against. Then autofocus — phase, contrast and hybrid — focus modes, back-button focus, manual focus and hyperfocal distance. Depth of field, bokeh and compression.

6 - LIGHTING Golden hour and blue hour, and why the light changes rather than just dims. Hard light and soft light, and the one thing that actually makes light soft. Direction: front, side, back and rim. Colour temperature, white balance and mixed lighting. Then flash — speedlights and studio heads, guide numbers, sync speed, modifiers, and the inverse-square law.

7 - COMPOSITION AND SEEING The rule of thirds, leading lines, framing, negative space, symmetry and pattern — and when to break each. Balance, visual weight and where the eye goes. Simplifying a busy scene.

8 - PHOTOGRAPHING THE WORLD The practical part. Portrait, landscape, street, wildlife, macro, night and astro, sport, architecture and events — what each demands of the settings, the lens and the photographer.

9 - FILM Silver halide and the latent image. Formats from 35mm to large format. Grain, and why it is not noise. Processing stage by stage — C-41, E-6 and black and white, with their chemistry, temperatures and timings. The darkroom, the enlarger and the print. Push and pull processing.

10 - DIGITAL, FROM SENSOR TO FINISHED PICTURE The photosite, the colour filter array, read noise and dynamic range. Base ISO. Raw against JPEG, and exactly what the second one throws away. Getting pictures off the camera — card formats, readers, USB and tethered capture. Then the catalogue, a sane editing order, colour management, sharpening and export.

10 films · In the channel's own order.