I'm really not a good photographer, so please, please don't judge me too hard on these photos. I'm writing about them as part of a process or a journey, and I thought this community would be a good place to start - I'd welcome some tips on composition.

I have a Sony A6300 mirrorless camera my Dad gave me when he bought his A1 (yes, I have my eyes on it, but let's wait for the dust to settle first and for Mum to realise she's not going to take up photography) but I don't use it enough to get practiced. By the time I pick it up again, I've forgotten everything and have to watch a few Youtube to reteach myself. Then I get disheartened as my photographs are never as good as I want them to be and just go back to happy snaps on my phone, and the whole cycle begins again.

This week I got my camera out again, started watching some Youtube for inspiration, got out my camera, cleaned it, put it in a bag, and took it to the beach six times without taking it out. When I did take it out, I realised I was out of battery life, and the charger was at home. Genius. I told you I'm rubbish at this stuff.

So what I thought I'd do is use the 'pro' setting on my Oppo phone at the beach, and work on some composition skills instead of the rule of thirds that I usually apply to taking snaps with my phone. I'm not saying any of these photos are good, but what they are is far more interesting than photos I'd usually take at the same beach doing a good old #wednesdaywalk. It's a beach called Point Roadnight, and the beautifully patterned cliffs at the end are at Soapy Rocks, where sometimes there's some okay surf in certain conditions.

I wanted to practice three things: focussing on texture in the scene, using some unexpected leading lines, and thinking about what my focus point was.

Let's start with this one - it's not my favourite, but what I thought I'd do is focus on the footprint to add a bit of interest. Although it's a deeply flawed photo and I would have liked the sea wall posts and the background to be sharper (focus stacking is so next level to me) I liked this photo because it was a little more interesting and the texture of the sand and the footprint adds interest. I think a line of footprints could also be a leading line?

I was really disappointed in myself when I got home and saw this one, as I realised I could have played around framing the shadows. But as the point of this post is a bit of self reflection, I think there's a kind of success here because next time, hopefully when I bring my camera, I can think about shadows too. I did try to play around with this in Lightroom but I couldn't quite achieve the result that I wanted.

I was also then rudely abrupted by six to eight dogs with three owners. However, I ended up taking the photo I thought was most interesting - the dog is almost off frame as it was too quick for my phone, but to me there's a kind of energy in this photo I really love, and I love how there's also a reflection of the dog in the water - exactly what I wanted to achieve. It would be super fun to capture this with a faster shutter speed to capture the action of the dog and the water a little better.

However, I also got to practice being pretty radical with cropping. I do think that this would be an amazing photo if the dog was more in focus and the wave was a little bigger and sharper.

I think the dogs were actually a lot of fun to take photos of, however accidental. The exposure was terrible on thsi one but I absolutely love the framing - I love how one dog is disappearing off frame. There's this voracious energy that to me captures the dogs as they lived their best life on the beach. I know these dogs walk their owners often, so I'm looking forward to going down with the Sony and pretending to take photos of the waves as they come in and out of the frame.

The other one I thought was interesting was using the black sand as leading lines. The obvious is the wooden posts itself. I spend about two seconds on this shot before I was nearly bowled over by the dogs, but it gave me a good buzz as I had spotted some lines that I hadn't thought to use before, particularly as it also provided some foreground texture and the rule 'find your subject and get down low' which was a new concept to me. I think this one has real potential and I'm looking forward to going back with a tripod. When you zoom in there's also some good reflections from the poles I could work with as well.

This photo (next to the dog photo which I really want to try again) is probably my favourite, and I can definitely see how a faster shutter speed and better focus would make this a better photo. I'm super keen to go and try this one again with the tripod and spend some decent time trying to get the water exactly how I want it.

Whilst none of these photos are great or even in focus, they have given me a renewed impetus to go out with my mirrorless camera again. I really don't think I'm too bad at framing - and I think that's a really good start. Feeling positive!

With Love,

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