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Photography Starter Guide and Checklist booklet surrounded by photography tips, sample images, and learning worksheets

Want to learn photography but have no clue where to begin and what to learn next??!

Steal my Photography Learning Blueprint and get the clarity, checklist and step by step game plan to help you get photos you love - quickly!

YES! GIMME THAT FREE GUIDE!

Audrey Murray 7/28/15 Audrey Murray 7/28/15

How to Care for your DSLR & Lenses

After investing all that money on your amazing new camera and lenses, it makes sense to spend a little time on DSLR maintenance to make sure that they stay in tip top condition. This is mainly so that you continue to get the best image quality and extend the life of your equipment, but it also helps should you want to sell on some of your equipment at any time. I've sold a couple of lenses now and I've gotten a pretty good price for them: lenses in particular hold their value well if you look after them. I have a bit of a routine that I have with cleaning and maintaining - this is what I do....

Audrey Murray 7/22/15 Audrey Murray 7/22/15

A Guide to Back Button Focus

If you find yourself struggling to get tack sharp photos of moving subjects, then i have a little tip for you here today that might just help!

It's called back button focus - and it's another way of focusing that is particularly good for action shots.

Now, I have to warn you ,it's pretty confusing to begin with, and you will probably hate it at first. I also don't recommend this until you are comfortable with focus in general, just because it can be too many things to think about at once! But if you are a bit more experienced, you might want to give this a go.

Here's the lowdown on back button focus.

Audrey Murray 7/21/15 Audrey Murray 7/21/15

6 Ways to Shoot in Cluttered Locations

Whilst my home isn't exactly an rubbish tip, it's a normal family home with lots of clutter from day to day life. Many times I find myself wishing I had a home that was a bit more camera friendly (imagine, large windows, white walls, crisp clean furniture, with no lego pieces in sight and no drawing on the walls....) but you just have to learn to work with what you've got! Although for sure I sometimes love to incorporate our usual home life into my images - when I'm documenting - for other image types I usually crave simplicity, so I try to find areas that give me that "clean" uncluttered look.

The best way to show you that is to show you some images, and pullbacks on where I have taken them.

Audrey Murray 7/14/15 Audrey Murray 7/14/15

Being Ready to Capture Everyday Moments

Even before I started a Project 365, most days I would pick up my camera – not necessarily to get a great shot, but simply to snap the candid moments that happened throughout the day. I've lost count of the number of times I missed a "kodak moment" because I was either fumbling with my settings, trying to find a memory card, or wondering where the heck I'd left my camera bag!

That's why I now have a little bit of a system in place that helps me be prepared and ready to capture anything that pops up. Once you get into the groove of doing this, you'll find that you can quickly pick up your camera and snap away at any time!

Audrey Murray 7/9/15 Audrey Murray 7/9/15

How to use Triangles for Photography Composition

One way to make your compositions more interesting is to try to create triangles within your composition - they help divide the frame, guide the eye, and just add visual interest. Although it sounds hard, these are actually very easy to find once you remember to look for them!

Here are some examples:

Audrey Murray 7/8/15 Audrey Murray 7/8/15

How to Use a Gray Card

I've spoken before about using a grey card to either set your white balance or exposure, and today I thought I'd go one step further and explain the steps you take to do that! First off, a gray card is just a piece of card that represents 18% gray - in other words the middle gray that your camera tries to expose for (See this post on understanding your light meter for more information on that) Before I got my Expodisc, I used this one - CPM Delta 1 8 inch x 10 inch Gray Card which costs around $10 - but you can get lots of different ones which are pretty inexpensive. (I don't have it but this Pocket-sized one looks good for being a bit more portable). It doesn't really matter which one you choose, as long as they are non-reflective.

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How to Choose Your Settings in Manual Mode

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10 Things You Wish You Knew About Shooting In Manual Mode

It's been quite a few years now since I made the switch from Aperture Priority Mode to shooting in Manual Mode, and it was one of the BEST things I ever did to improve my photography skills.

It was like a whole new world opened up to me, and I started TRULY understanding exposure, and in turn, getting the images that I wanted.

Of course, there was a lot to learn, and there are some things I wish I had known before I started!

So, here are 10 things about shooting in Manual Mode that you might just wish you knew…

4 Reasons You Should Be Editing Your Photos (and how to do it)

If there is one thing that comes up again and again when we talk about photography, it's EDITING - the steps you take AFTER you have pressed the shutter and uploaded your images. It's a whole other world of things to learn and master and as such it can be quite overwhelming for new photographers.

Because it's yet another thing you need to add to your "to learn" list, it can be tempting not to bother doing it, or slap a action / preset on and call it a day. However, editing your images is an important part of the photography process and one that I believe you should at least start to learn as soon as possible.

In this post I'm going to share exactly WHY you should edit your images, what programs you can use, and the order in which you should learn everything in.

Ooooh, that sounds like a lot to get through! Best get started then :)

11 Things All New Photographers Should Know

I’ve made more mistakes that I can count over my 11 years in photography, and I definitely took longer to get where I wanted to be because of them!

I’m going to hazard a guess that actually, you’re a lot like me back then - you want to get great photos, and you want them NOW.

101 Things to Photograph (with examples & exercises!)

Today, I’m sharing 101 things to photograph when you feel you’ve got absolutely nothing in front of you you can take a picture of!

This post was inspired by one of my Auto to Awesome students, who wrote to me saying she didn’t feel she had anything “good” around her to take photos of.

And she’s most definitely not alone - we’ve ALL had that feeling like there is absolutely nothing around us to photograph (or that we’ve just photographed it all already) so we need to get ourselves off to an exciting location, or visit a new place just in order to find something.

The truth is, there is always something to photograph, both at home, or in your local area. It doesn’t matter where you live, what your house is like, or whether you live in a built up location like a city or near a park; there WILL be countless things worth taking a photo of….you just have to open your eyes to them!

Example Photos With Camera Settings (& Why I chose them!)

Have you ever looked at photos from other photographers and wished that they would share their camera settings as well?

I know that I certainly did!

Which is why today I'm going to share with you some example, photos, along with the aperture, shutter speed, and ISO settings that I use, but most importantly, why I chose them.

8 Child Photography Poses For Stunning Kid Photography!

Want some child photography poses that are quick, easy and downright cute? Then I have 8 pose ideas for you, along with example photos for each one, that are tried and tested and will give you great photos of kids.

You can use these poses on your OWN kids, or if you’re business, you can use these for ideas during a paid kids photoshoot too.

You can also vary these standard poses greatly, so you’ll never run out of ideas again!

As usual, we have two ways to enjoy this - either watch the video below, or scroll down to read the blog post and see all the child photography poses in action!