Girls I really want to improve my photography skills. Are there any books or sites you can recommend? Maybe an online course? I want it to be very straight forward since as soon as I start to see numbers and such I go blank... A lot of you girls are just awesome photogs and I know you'll have tips for me. Thanks!
www.clickinmoms.com I can't say enough good things about this forum, fabulous and unbelievably helpful!
I subscribe to the Digital Photography School's feed, and their forum is supposed to be pretty good too. I would definitely invest in Scott Kelby's Digital Photography book series, wonderfully straightforward and well written.
Understanding Exposure is really good. Also 2peas has a free self paced course that is very straight forward.
I like what the other ladies have suggested already but I bought this course from Creative Techs : http://creativetechs.com/training/ It is kinda pricey $75 US but the content is AMAZING. I actually bought the class when it was only 50 US and you get a 10 week course that basically covers everything! It's a webcast and you get the class plus a Q&A section for every week. Anyways I can't find a direct link to the course (I only have my link to the downloads) but if your interested scroll down on the side of the link I gave and it will say course downloads on the right side. P.S. I also bought the photoshop and the illustrator courses....I was just that impressed with them.
Understanding Exposure was like a lightbulb for me. I loved Scott Kelby's Digital Photography 1, but the second book seemed much more geared toward setting up a professional portrait studio and that wasn't what I was really looking for.
Wait.....found something way more helpful! Direct link and I think theres some video you can watch too! http://creativetechs.com/training/category/10-week-digital-photography-course/
I actually just try to get inspiration from other photographers...looking at the way they take shots, the angles, the way they get the candid moments. Here are some of my favorites: http://sloanphotographers.info/ http://tarawhitney.com/justbeblogged/ http://www.jessicaclaire.net/ http://www.theblogisfound.com/ http://www.natalienortonphoto.com/ http://www.maggieholmesphotography.com/
I'm not sure I'm a good enough photographer to really comment - but I'm going to second (or is it third?!) the Understanding Exposure book. So clearly written and helpful. My pictures have got so much better recently, I think its a combination of reading the manual (boring, yes, but now I know how my camera works - except for the 'P' mode, can't get that, keeps falling out of my brain), reading the book, stealing ideas and just playing around, taking a ridiculous number of pictures.
i really enjoy clickin moms understanding exposure helped but I was already ahead of it at the time I got it. The biggest thing is to understand your camera and understand the relationship between ISO , Shutter, Aperture and Your white balance. Lens choice is also a BIG deal, if you are shooting with a kit lens... good luck. The cheapest BEST investment for someone learning is the 50mm f/1.8. Its amazing. And then alot of the work is on the computer, which you already are great at! Oh and let me add, my skills improved 100% once I started shooting manual. You get total control over every setting and I meter in camera all the time.
one of the BIGGEST online forums and resources for me is http://www.Ilovephotography.com it is totally free but you do have to sign up to see everything. There is a wealth of info as well as a ton of talent there. I also cant say enough about clickinmoms. Totally AMAZING group of women there!