Baby Steps

The classes I'm taking are generally of the basic variety. We're talking classmates who still haven't bought a camera, or know what Photoshop actually does. But my thought was "rebuild the foundation, and maybe pick up the odd thing here or there you haven't thought of." Sort of like going back and reading "winning poker is aggressive poker" and playing $1 SnG's because you can't get past the $10 barrier.

This is the week where the learning starts. A class largely spent making doodles on the back page of my notebook or helping those around me find the mode dial on their camera (it's the big one on top) yielded a few small tips and thoughts that I should have thought a long time ago.

We live in an age of information. A few keystrokes is all it takes to find answers, opinions, and data. The problem is, the context gets lost among the repetition of hearsay and elitist attitudes. Something that was true five years ago is still repeated as gospel despite technological changes. People with no hands-on experience quote other people with no hands-on experience. Subjective opinions are thrown out the window. If you aren't doing it all from first principals, you're doing it wrong.

A non-anonymous opinion is refreshing. Someone who can say "I do it this way, you do it how you want, but here are some examples" is welcome. My own malformed attitudes are already changing, and the results are encouraging. In the process, I'm relearning what I thought I already knew, and dropping those hang-ups leaves room for new observations.

So for now, a change in colour space, a change in applications, and a change in metering are already paying dividends. Maybe I'll actually get good at this thing eventually.