Still Alive

Dear Readers,

First and foremost, I am still alive and will keep on posting. Keeping this blog was just a little hobby that really turned into wonderful passion as it blended my other passion - Photography. All your wonderful emails and correspondences have been very encouraging. And my promise to you is to resume my lessons.

In the recent months, my life have been a whirlwind of wonderful events - both personally and professionally. (You're currently reading a blog from the new Senior Photographer for Fila.) However, that took a lot of time away from keeping up with blogging. As one toiling away, from the inside it's hard to see what others are seeing from the outside. For me, it was really frustrating to keep a scheduled updates and lesson plan. I really thought about giving up, until I started receiving "thank you" emails from readers. I even ran into a complete stranger at a camera store and he recognized my face from my blog. It was truly wonderful that I got meet my readers, and encouraging emails really help!

So, it's back to the drawing board. Along with my lessons, I will start posting more of these random posts about my thoughts. Keeping the page fresh even if there are no new lessons. Like resources or videos that I find particularly useful.

And lastly, I will start hosting photography meetups group at meetup.com. It will start in NYC. I feel everyone benefits more from shooting and learning in person. Oh yeah, and it's free.

Until then, please stay safe. And happy shooting.

Yours,

Charlie Wang
Photographer

Photography Classes' Notes - How to Become a Photographer (The Series)

Welcome to How to Become a Photographer the Series.

I got this idea from John Lee Dumas from Entrepreneur On Fire podcasts. The idea was the last question that's part of his lightning round, when he asked his interviewee how they would start all over again in a new world, and that they have their skills, some cash and laptop. I modified the questions a little for photographers and started this series.

Photography Classes' Notes - To TFP or Not TFP, That's The Question.

Hello, everyone.

When you start to get better and better at photography, you will start to see the term TF* start to pop up here and there as an offer to you. Should you take this offer? What is TFP and TFCD anyway? Well sit tight, in today's post I will debunk some ideas floating around on the interweb about TFP, and why and why not you should take this offer.

TFP stands for "Time for Print". Traditionally it's a barter system between a photographer and model, where the photographer create prints for both parties' portfolio in trade for the model's time.

Photography Classes' Lesson 4 - Camera Control (part 1)

Camera Control (part 1)

This lesson took much longer than I had anticipated, so I am going to break it down to several mini-posts.

Getting started with handling your camera

To take beautiful photographs with your digital camera is to understand the basic functions of your camera. However, you're a creative person and all these technical nuances are stopping you from being the creative photographer you want to be. Right about now, the digital dSLR camera must look more complicated than it needs to be, but let me reassure you that this is by design for the future photographer you will be. The photographer who will require the quick dedicated buttons to respond to every situation. Functions that I will touch upon in this post.

Photography Classes' Notes - Unglamorous Life of a Photographer

For many new aspiring photographers going off to college this September, I like to give a friendly reminder the life of a career photographer is not as glamorous as those you read or watch about. Not even close! So before you go in thinking that the lifestyle is going to be fabulous, consider yourself warned. If you're going to school that is... or learn online from the world’s top pro photographers!

Now that being said, welcome to the world of photography! I'm excited that you'll be on this journey as I have many, many moons ago. I compile a list of things that might help your journey. So here goes...

Photography Classes' Notes - 5 Lenses You Must Have for Canon EOS 7D (Guest Post)

5 Lenses You Must Have for Canon EOS 7D
Guest Post by Raphael Chieza

If you've got a Canon EOS 7D, you've either got the body only version or one of the 3 lens kits with either the EF-S 15-85mm lens, the EF-S 18-135mm lens or the EF 28-135mm lens. They are all decent options but you have to be honest that kit lenses are just not on the same par as most of the lenses you have to purchase separately. I will make one exception with that being the 24-105mm L lens that is sold with the Canon 5D Mark II but let's digress. Our pick for the 5 lenses you must have is balanced between quality and budget. Look to the end of you want to know what to get regardless of price.

Photography Classes' Notes - Photoshop, Photography, and Passion

While Lightroom and Elements are designed for Photographers. Photoshop opens doors for you to the creative industry. 

Digital Photography and Adobe Photoshop today come hand-in-hand. There are no questions about it. When you're getting serious in photography, you will need to get serious about Photoshop. That means you also need a computer that's powerful enough to handle the program in addition to a Wacom tablet. There are other choices, such as Gimp.org and poorly made tablets, but if you plan on getting serious about photography to make a career out of it. Then, you will need to start practicing with Photoshop with a Wacom tablet as these tools are industry gold standard.

Photography Classes' Notes - Photography Contest and Thick Skin.

Hello everyone! Today I want to talk about the importance of photography contest and how it helps you as a photographer.

The photo contest I recently entered was the PDN "Object of Desire" 2013 contest. I submitted my baby's photo I took when my family was on our way to a wedding. I usually do not see her in a nice dress, so I took some snaps of her. When I got home, I saw the PDN photo contest calling for submissions and I submitted this photo below as my entry for the category of "beloved". I saw the judging process of the contest, and I thought "why not?".

Photography Classes - Video: Fashion Photoshoot Behind-The-Scene Time Lapse

Hello Everyone.

I'm excited to show you a behind the scene time lapse video of a photoshoot my company produces for their seasonal trend shoots. I was assign to be the videographer, so I decided to do both time-lapse and video of the shoot. You can see me with my camera with a telephoto lenses.

What you are seeing a team of essential people: Models, photographer, 2 photo assistants, digital technician, hair stylist, makeup artist, and wardrobe stylist. Other important people are the producer, client, merchant assistant, and videographer.

Photography Classes Lesson - Notes: How Much Will You Risk For Self Expression?

"I don't fear losing, the only thing I fear is not trusting my instinct. I know Ryu is not a strong character, if I wanted to win i could pick another character. I express myself during fighting and with Ryu I can fully express myself." 

- Daigo Umehara

Hello, everyone. I got a confession to make. Photography isn't my only true passion. I also love video game and the gaming community, especially Fighting game genres. Fighting game requires tactics like playing chess only in real time with a hair trigger twitchy reactions to execute counter and offensive moves. When played at the highest form of skill, few player's self expression comes out above the noise of best flow-chart tactics and top tier game characters. Hang with me for a minute, because I will tie fighting games to photography.

Photography Classes Lesson 3 - What is a lens?

Hello everybody. If you're new here. You can go to Lessons to check out everything we covered so far. In this lesson, we'll be glancing over the basic things about the lens on the camera.

What is a lens?

Photography Classes' Notes: What is my photography's rate?

Hello everyone. Between lessons, I want to post little notes that matter to me when I was learning to be a photographer. I will be calling these post "Notes" and will properly link them in from my pages on top. Let's get started.

So things were looking great in my photo business. I started to hone in on what I specialized in and started getting some nice traction on my marketing side. Then it happened. People started asking for my rates, or my day rates. I panicked and didn't know what my customers will think if I send them my rates. I looked around from Craigslist to other photographer's sites whose work look similar to mine. They vary so much. I don't know how to start. If my rate is too high, the client might shop elsewhere, and if my rate is too low, my clients will come to expect that rate next time. How much do I charge?

Photography Classes Lesson 2 - What is a sensor?

Hello, everyone. Welcome! Let's get started on lesson 2. In case you missed lesson 1, you can head over to this link: Photography Classes - Lesson 1

What's is a sensor?

The sensor records light in a set time the light was allowed in when the camera shutter button is pressed, and the recorded light protons transform into informations for the camera's computer. The sensor comes in two types, CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor ) sensor and CCD (charge coupled device) sensor.

Photography Classes Lesson 1 - What is a camera?

Hello, everyone. Welcome to Beginner's Photography Classes' first lesson. What is a camera?

The word camera comes from the Latin word for Camera Obscura- a dark chamber. Since the world's first camera was a pin hole in a dark room.  The word camera is now stuck to our current lexicon.

Photography Classes' Notes - How to prepare for your first paying photography job?

Hi everybody. It's Charlie Wang here.

So you're getting pretty good with your camera. You shot some "clients", friends and family members really, and you're getting encouraging feedback from everybody you've shot. And finally, it happens: You got yourself your first paying job. Whoa! Congrats! But you're worry...

Photography Classes' Notes - How did I start going pro in photography?

Photography is a plateau-able skill. Over time, you will know what's an F-Stop, apature, ISO, etc., is and there's no need to be hung up on it. I will teach these one at a time in the next posts, but today let's talk about how I took my first step going towards going pro. Now, I even discover my specializations in photography - luxury product photography.

Photography Classes - Introduction to This Blog

Hello!

This is my new blog on teaching you the basics of photography. So you can take that camera off of the "P mode" and start photographing the world in the "M" mode.

If you're new here. Welcome!

If you look to your right, there are a list of my most popular posts. Above, the Table of Contents to help you navigate through the site's lesson.