Photography is quickly becoming one of my favorite hobbies. I’ve got a long way to go before I can hang with the likes of some of my friends, but I learned a lot in 2008. A post chronicling everything that I learned over the past year would be far too long, but here are the highlights, with some of my favorite shots from the year. Hopefully some of these tips will someday help other budding photographers.

Find and Be Thankful for Generous Friends – If you have the opportunity to borrow equipment from a friend, DO IT. Lou Ann was tremendously helpful in encouraging my addiction hobby by lending me her old DSLR, and a couple of prime lenses. I use the 50mm f/1.8 prime as my main lens. It is fabulous.

Good Equipment Helps, But It’s Not a Magic Wand – “Wow, you have a great camera.” is something I’ve heard several times about some of my photos. It is simultaneously rewarding (because I know somebody liked the photo) and frustrating (because they don’t know all the work that went into shooting and post-processing). I mean, you should see all of the TERRIBLE pictures I take with my great camera. I only post the ones that qualify at least as “mediocre”.

Learn to Purge – Speaking of all those terrible pictures I take, I’ve learned to keep them from ever seeing the light of the Internet. I take probably 10 times as many photos as I post, possibly more. Many are deleted right off due to poor focus, exposure, composition, etc. It’s amazing what can look in focus on the camera’s LCD only to be total crap on the monitor. If I wasn’t also shooting for posterity, I’d probably trim even more photos out of the pictures I take from various events.

Learn (or Teach Yourself) The Basics – Learn about composition, exposure, focus, etc. Take a class (I need to take my own advice on this one), or teach yourself. There are so many amazing resources on the Internet.

Get Out of Auto – That little green box on the dial on your camera? Never use it. No, seriously. NEVER USE IT. When I use the 50mm prime, I almost always shoot in aperture priority (Av mode on your dial), which gives me some awesome control over depth of field. Getting out of auto gives you so much control over your photos, allowing you to turn your photographs into art instead of snapshots. Art. Right. I should work on that.

Ditch the Built In Flash Whenever Possible

The built in flash on cameras has its place, and most of the time, it’s down and not being used. Do something, ANYTHING to use available light instead of popping that flash up. As soon as you let that sucker fire, you’re practically guaranteed flat, boring, snapshot quality images. Open the aperture, increase the ISO, slow the shutter speed down (and put your camera on a tripod) – do whatever it takes. I’m still struggling with this one as the lighting in my house is awful, and kids are FAST little buggers that are constantly moving. I take lots of blurry pictures. I’m cheating with the picture below, as it was shot with an external flash (remotely triggered with a PocketWizard) on loan from a friend. See the first item about borrowing equipment!

So get out there in 2009 and keep shooting! And more importantly, keep posting them on Flickr, Facebook, SmugMug, or whatever your site of choice happens to be. I constantly learn from and am inspired by the work of many photographers on the net.