The Ultimate Beginner's Guide to Outdoor Photography - 2018
What you'll learn
- Shoot beautiful, dynamic images in cities and nature
- Get comfortable with your camera’s manual settings
- Choose the best affordable camera gear
- Identify and photograph compositional elements
- Understand optimal lighting (when / where to shoot)
- Market your work, gain a following, impress clients, and sell prints
- Build a strong photo portfolio website
- Edit your shots in Lightroom
Requirements
- This course starts from the VERY beginning of a photographer’s journey – no prior knowledge necessary. All you need is an interest in photography and outdoor adventures.
- Any camera with manual settings will work for this course: DSLRs, point & shoots, and smartphones are all OK. While DSLR photography is the course’s primary focus, I’ve included tons of tips for smartphone photographers.
- You’ll learn how to edit photos using Lightroom Classic (month-long free trials are available). No need to have this software downloaded in advance. I’ll walk you through a step-by-step tutorial for how to install and use this software on your computer. I’ll also be suggesting free alternative apps for DSLR and smartphone photography editing.
Description
If you are interested in shooting, editing, and promoting your photos like a pro, this is the course for you. I’ve created this course for the impatient artist – those who are eager to start shooting immediately, rather than spending hours studying the history of photography.
While most courses are cumulative and take forever to get to the good stuff, The Ultimate Beginner's Guide to Outdoor Photography is quick and to the point. This course is designed so you can jump around and learn the concept you want right away, whether it’s street photography, astrophotography (star shots), portraiture, cityscapes, long exposures, HDRs, or more. You can also follow the course in its original order for a more traditional educational experience!
This course is designed for beginner photographers who want to:
Learn when and where to buy affordable, high-quality photography gear
Master the exposure triangle – shutter speed, aperture, and ISO
Uncover the use of every button on your camera
Frame beautiful images with the most effective composition rules and my signature layer cake photography analogy
Plan photoshoot styles, locations, and subjects (in nature or the city!)
Shoot a perfect sunrise/sunset photo with HDR (high dynamic range) photography
Create gorgeous panoramas to capture a vast landscape or cityscape
Shoot stunning portraits in the city, woods, or mountain tops
Capture the Milky Way and stars with astrophotography
Document cities and towns with techniques like street photography, cityscapes, bokeh, and night photography
Create an online photo business with a polished website and dazzling Instagram to sell prints, book gigs, network with influencers, and more
In Lightroom Classic, my preferred photo editing software:
Import, organize, edit, and export your new photos
Use the HSL tab, sharpening, local adjustments, and more to refine your images
Efficiently edit photos with snapshots and presets (including some of my own, available for free download!)
Develop your own workflow from start to finish
Why Learn Outdoor Photography?
Whether you’re traveling the world or wandering your town, outdoor photography fosters a new way to explore, makes you observant and appreciative of your surroundings, and connects you with nature, cities, and people like never before. Outdoor photography is adventurous, great for beginners, and doesn’t require much extra equipment.
This course is full of activities that put everything you’re learning to the test. I always include 3 tiers of challenges – base, bonus, and mega – to accommodate a variety of skill levels and incorporate numerous skillsets. For example, section 7’s activities range from shooting a simple cityscape to a portrait, with a cityscape in the background, to create a bokeh effect.
There are also over 60 pages of downloadable PDFs with step-by-step guides for every shooting concept I cover, so you can take them while out photographing. I have also included several links throughout the course and PDFs to enhance the learning experience. Some of these links will be affiliate links.
Many photography teachers like to give you a bunch of vague tips, expecting you to figure the rest out. Instead, I like to walk you through step-by-step, helping you immediately shoot advanced concepts, like astrophotography, that would typically be challenging to figure out as a beginner.
I also make a living as an influencer, and have so much to teach you about being a photographer influencer, from building your site to collaborating with other influencers on Instagram. This is the best online photography course you'll find!
Fire up your passion for photography. Enroll now!
Who this course is for:
- Beginners and hobbyists who are eager to devote themselves to photography but aren’t sure where to start
- You own a camera or are considering buying one, but aren’t too sure how to use it effectively
- You want quick, actionable advice to go outside and start shooting immediately. This course is fast-paced with actionable tips and lots of exercises.
- You want to turn your interest in photography into a business by starting a website and selling prints
- This course is a beginner level foundation in photography. It is not a good fit for intermediate or advanced level photographers.
Featured review
Instructor
- 4.1 Instructor Rating
- 791 Reviews
- 6,205 Students
- 1 Course
Hey, I’m Josh! I’m a photographer, influencer, and traveler who’s been obsessed with cameras and making YouTube videos since I was nine. Since then, I’ve amassed over 350,000 YouTube subscribers, 100,000 Instagram followers, and over 3 million views on my photography YouTube videos for shooting tutorials and camera gear reviews. I’ve worked with brands such as GoPro, Adorama, Squarespace, Mountain Dew, Axe, and Boosted Board.
Living in New York City, I specialize in urban shooting, like street photography, cityscapes, and portraiture. These are just a few of the many concepts covered in my first comprehensive beginner photography course. I’m also obsessed with road trips and nature, having visited 22 U.S. National Parks (and some international ones) to shoot my other greatest photographic passion: landscapes. I’ve traveled the world shooting photos in places such as Italy, Spain, Iceland, Mexico, Canada, the UK, and more, but I believe you can shoot a phenomenal photo in any location.
I’ve seen far too many slow, dull photography courses that can’t seem to get the point across in less than 30 minutes. My goal in teaching is to give quick, actionable advice to get you outside shooting stellar photos immediately. I also provide downloadable step-by-step shooting guide PDFs on my courses, which you can take with you and follow at your own pace when you’re ready to start shooting.
In my free time, you can find me lying on the grimy city floor waiting for the perfect street photo, filming skate videos (I’m also a sponsored skateboarder), camping in weather too cold for my gear, reading U.S. presidential biographies, or cooking chili.