A note to those of you who want to learn things—some time soon.

My advice is to do it now. Often, that’s the only way to get things done: do them right now. Not “some other time”, since that never arrives. Tomorrow is always just out of reach.

Learning photography is easy. There are many ways to do it. They involve books and training (see http://learning.photography), but they all also involve doing it.

Like the relationship between depth of field (“how blurry is the background) and distance to your object. The essence is to try it without varying anything else. For example, look at the background. Is the whiteboard fuzzy or sharp?

35mm lens, f/2.8:

35mm lens, f/2.8:

35mm lens, f/2.8:

All I did was vary the distance. The board gets blurrier as I move forward. (The smile gets bigger, as well, did you notice? Nothing like poking a camera into someone’s face to get a smile—or to get beaten up).

So f/2.8 can give you a very blurry background, or a blurry background, or a sharp background, as long as you change the distance. You could also try leaving the distance the same but varying the lens focal length (by zooming in) or the aperture (remembering to adjust ISO to keep exposure the same).

The key is: do it. Don’t just think about it. Grab your camera (now!) and learn the relationship between aperture, ISO, shutter, focal length, and distance.

The same is true of the learning thing. If you had been thinking of booking some private learning time, or of buying my books, do it now, so your next shoot (even if it is for March Break) will be better. You know my number.

And to finish: one more tip. If you always have your camera at hand, you lose nothing. Like the cat yawning, this morning: