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Photography blog
My photography blog
Let’s start at the beginning. Since I came back from my trip to Southeast Asia, I had the idea of starting a photography blog. I had already started writing on a blog to share and capture my travel experience and my passion for photography in 2013. However, I didn’t start right away, for lack of time, motivation, courage, I don’t know.
Indeed, learning photography has been a real passion for many years and since I bought my first digital DSLR camera, a Canon 500D, in 2012. Obviously, passionate about travels and adventures, I had mostly bought this first camera to take travel photos and try to take the best photos of what I might find along the road. My passion kept growing and the past year in Southeast Asia was eye opening. I really enjoyed taking pictures in many different travel situations.
I never thought becoming a professional photographer, I just really wanted to progress, to know how to shoot, to take a perfect shot, to understand the manual mode, the long exposure or to be able to do post-treatment of my photos.
I had never taken a photography course or a photography class, except for a bit of advice I found on the net to understand all the technical terms as barbarous as focal, shutter speed, hyper focused, and so on….
In June 2017, I decided to create a website that brings together my two passions: travel and photography. The Blog Les Deux Pieds Dehors finally came to be! I must admit that the beginning was a little complicated, focusing more on the travel part of the site than on the photography part. And then, step-by-step, I came around to it, I started shyly, I must say in this world where there are already many things online. I often asked myself the question at the beginning: how do I create a photography blog that has meaning while knowing that there are already a very large number of photography techniques and tips online? In the end, you just have to take a step forward and tell yourself that it doesn’t matter if it already exists, I want to share my passion in the domain and try to teach photography to all beginners in simplest possible way.
It’s a little disconcerting when you start out. I thought I should start with the basics of photography, in short, try to give my advice so to understand and learn the subject on our own. I would advise someone who wants to start in photography blogging to take inspiration from existing sites but not to focus too much on them. If you start looking at everything that has been written in the domain of landscape photography, macrophotography, or wildlife photography, you may get scared and not get out there. The most important thing is to write, share your writing and your passion, even if you don’t write like Shakespeare. That’s exactly what I’m doing.
If you have the ambition to make your photography or travel blog grow and see where it takes you, you’re going to have to take the bull by the horns, if I may say so, and roll up your sleeves. Why is that? Because to be able to rank at the top of Google on terms as general as depth of field, backlight, street photo, bokeh or exposure time, you will have to work and master SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Honestly, without it, the chances of you going up to the top of page 1 on Google on landscape photography or how to choose your polarizing filter, are very low….
Anyway, enough talk, I’m rambling. Now let’s get to the heart of the matter, my photography blog, what it contains and how I’ve composed it so far. During the big update of my blog in March 2018, I wanted to redesign the site as to reorganize things better, both on the photography part and travel. For the photography part, I split the blog in two:
- The essentials to learn photography
- Choose and use your camera gear
I present below in more detail what you will find in each section.
Thank you for following me and reading this short text and I hope you will enjoy reading my photography posts. See you soon and above all, do not hesitate to leave a comment at the bottom of posts if you want more details or if you notice an error / inaccuracy.
Do you want to learn photography ?
The first part is simply about the basics of photography. If you don’t know anything about photography and want to become an amateur photographer (or even more), this is where you start. I agree that this is not the most exciting part, but I am still confident that since you will have no other choice than to understand and learn the technical terms of photography which will push you to improve. This is my logic. How do you want to be able to take good pictures if you don’t already know how to use your DSLR camera? If you don’t know the terms white balance, diaphragm or shutter speed? If you don’t know how to focus with a focus point and your autofocus, etc. I see a lot of people who got a DSLR for Christmas or for their birthday always shooting in automatic mode, even after several years, just hoping to make beautiful pictures simply because it is a DSLR. Frankly, it’s not that simple in the world of photography.
This first part will therefore be a compilation of photo tips to learn all the basic technical terms and definitions in photography. For instance, understanding how exposure works with its three associated parameters is essential before going any further. I initially had trouble writing technical photography definitions because it was important to find a balance between explaining things in a simple way and going into too much detail. In general, people looking for advice on the Internet are beginners. Pro’s and those who already know the domains will not read photography blogs, that’s for sure. So I try my best to post articles on the basics and all the technical terms that come to mind. For the moment, I have had only good feedback or almost and honestly I am quite satisfied with the result. This section is not yet complete but will continue to grow as the blog progresses.
The second part of this large section on learning photography is called “photography tips and techniques“. It logically follows the first part focusing on the basics. We go into a little more detail here and the point is to focus more in this section on giving practical photography advice on the different areas and situations for shooting. In order to understand the content of the different articles here, you can refer to the basics of photography that I was talking about above.
This is not the part that explains the different photography equipment or accessories. There is another section of the blog that is devoted to this. This part is rather the situations or styles of photos that I will try to depict. To mention only a few examples already available on the blog:
- How to take a night shot?
- How to take the most beautiful photos while on the road?
- The essentials for mastering long exposure
- How to take beautiful pictures of waterfalls?
- My best tips for a successful safari photo shoot
- How to take great landscape photos?
Anyway, you get the idea, right? A lot of subjects I don’t go into detail on simply because I don’t necessarily have enough familiarity: light painting, studio portrait, black and white image, food photography, wedding photography, etc. As it stands, I can’t write about it resulting from my lack of knowledge on these subjects. I am thinking about getting professional photographers from each area to give advice to my readers. So to be continued…
Choosing your camera gear
Camera gear
The first section is called digital “photography equipment“. Are you going to ask me why digital? Simply because I was born into the digital world and the argentic is not something I know about. This section is not yet, at the time of writing, very extensive but it expand. Here, we will talk about everything related to camera bodies and lenses, essentially the DSLR camera that I know very well. As I don’t have a mirror less camera, I don’t necessarily want to write about it quite yet. For example, this part constituted of articles such as:
- Which is the best camera to choose for travel?
- Find the best DSLR for you.
- Which wide angle to choose and how?
- Which lens should I choose for a trip? Which gear to choose for a safari?
In short, it is everything that is related directly or indirectly to your camera and the associated lenses. I will try as best I can to update the posts as new releases come out. I started with the choice of bodies and wide angles, but I’m still missing a lot of articles that are being written like the choice of a telephoto lens? Choose a fixed focal length or a zoom? Why is a 50mm ideal for many situations, etc.?
The second part of this important section on camera gear is called “camera accessories“. This is the area where I am the most comfortable talking about photography on the blog. Everything related to camera accessories. So, no, I don’t have a perfect command of all the accessories, we can all agree, but I really enjoy writing about everything to do with photo filters and so on. It is one of the accessories I use most in everyday life and even when traveling. I prefer to spend time behind my DSLR (digital single-lens reflex for intimates) using filters than in post-production, behind my computer….
As a result, you will find a lot of articles on the different photo filters: ND filter, GND filter, polarizing filter. I explain each time what they are used for, how to choose them and how to use them. I also talk about photo tripods and other things….
Now, I haven’t quite told my whole life story but you now know a little more about what you will find in the photography sections throughout the blog.
Sylvain
List of camera equipment
Lists of photo equipment
Three years after starting this landing page on photography, we are expanding our website once again by offering a new category of equipment listing. So what are you going to find in this part? So far, we’ve only started to focus on camera lens listings, both for DSLR and mirrorless cameras. Not everything is there yet as it takes a huge amount of time to dig, search, verify the information and page layout, but we sincerely hope that you will be able to find help on these pages and that they may be useful.
This category should continue to grow in the future with listings of cameras and photo accessories. See you soon then!