Recap – What Have We Learned So Far? – Photography Explained Podcast

Hi, everybody. Welcome to Episode 10 of the photography explained podcast. In this episode, what have we learned so far? This is my episode 10 recap.

I’m your host, Rick and each week I will try to explain one photographic thing to you in plain English in less than 10 minutes without the irrelevant details. My aim is to explain things in just enough detail to help with our photography and no more.

Episode 10 – double figures!

I’d never thought I’d get there. And I’m delighted. Hopefully, my recording voice and how I speak are improving. Go back to episode one or the introductory episode – I sound quite horrendous!

What have we learned, briefly, and without any irrelevant detail – I must not forget that point!

What photography is
How a camera works

How to take a photo
What the exposure triangle is
Do we need cameras in 2020?

The fundamentals of cameras
And how to learn how to use a camera

And I have learned

To relax and enjoy recording episodes
To not take this too seriously
To try to explain things in a logical order- the exposure triangle was far too early in the series

To try and introduce more of me to each episode, more ad-libs, jokes, that sort of thing

So um, yeah, what else have I learned so far?

Take it slower

Pause, breathe, and think.
That this is gonna be my living.

So what have we learned?

And what have we learned without any of that much-hated irrelevant detail?

Episode One

I started with what photography is, which is drawing with light. That would have been a short episode.

So I expanded that to what is photography to me, where I told you what photography means to me, and what it has given me over the many, many years I’ve been into photography. And that’s quite a lot I’m happy to report.

You’d hope so wouldn’t you?

How a camera works

This wasn’t a technical in depth how a camera works, it was explaining that a camera is a lightproof box with a hole in it.

A pinhole camera from back in the day was a lightproof box with a hole in it.

A Hasselblad camera is a lightproof box with a hole in it.

And a camera with a lens on the front is just an expensive box with an expensive thing with a hole in it.

Yeah, how does a camera work? Light goes through the lens and when the shutter opens it hits the camera sensor.

This is how a camera works

Next episode – how to take a photo

This was just the main thoughts, things that I hope will help you if you’re out there and you have not got a clue how to approach taking photos and learning photography. So yeah, that was just a nice little list. And some things to think about when you’re looking at learning photography.

Dive straight into what the exposure triangle is

Now with hindsight, that was a mistake. Far too early in the series. I was trying to get some logical flow to these episodes. And there isn’t a logical flow to what the exposure triangle is.

So I regret that. But hey, it’s all about learning, isn’t it, and learning from my mistakes? So I explained the exposure triangle, which is not easy – it is disappointingly complicated, but when you get your head around it, it’s relatively straightforward.

What I’m finding as I talk about photography is that a lot of the times when I try and explain them in plain English it is quite difficult – a lot of the terms are very strange. They’ve evolved over the years, and they just seem to be jargon.

And that’s part of the reason why I wanted to do this’ to try and explain things so people can understand them. So what was next?

Do we need cameras in 2020?

We don’t really do we? I’ve got an iPhone XS. I lost track of the numbering at nine, or was it eight? Or was it eight-plus?

I don’t know.

Do we need cameras? They’re all amazing these days (phones that is). But yes, in my opinion, we do need cameras in 2020. I have a number of cameras, which I use for different specific things. But then again, I would do.

What else?

The fundamental components of cameras, how they work, and what all the bits are.

I completely lost my thread there….

How to learn how to use a camera.

In the last episode, I spoke about how to learn how to use a camera, which I think is very important. I tried to start off with the most important things and some of the most straightforward things – try and build things up from a base.

So I’ll say it again. Apologies for the Exposure Triangle one.

How to learn to use a camera is important because I’ve bought cameras in the past, not learned how to use them, and been disappointed with them. And it’s all been my fault.

Cameras these days are amazing.

They do amazing things, you can take amazing photos. But you’ve always been able to take amazing photos. It’s just it’s a lot easier these days for us.

What have I learned?

To relax and enjoy recording episodes – it might not sound like it but I actually enjoy doing this.

To not take this too seriously.

I don’t want this to be boring. I do leave errors in coughs, stuff, and stumbles. Do you know why I do that? I do that because I haven’t got a clue how to edit audio.

So if you want to do a podcast, and you don’t know how to edit audio, don’t worry about it. Just get stuff out there.

What else have I learned?

Yeah, the exposure triangle episode was far too early in the series.

To try and introduce a bit more meaning to each episode. Well, that might not be a good thing. Let’s be honest about that. But we’ll see how that goes.

So what’s coming up next?

The other thing I’ve learned is that I need some structure to this until the questions start flooding in. For the next batch of episodes, I’ve drafted the headings and tried to get a logical flow for the next 10.

About taking photos

I’m going to be talking about taking photos because I think we spend too much time on gear, Lightroom, stuff, and spending money on stuff.

And we don’t seem to spend as much time talking about the process of taking photos and how you do it. So I’m going down that road, which I’m hoping will be a bit different.

And you can learn from my experiences.

I’ve been doing this for over 30 years. I’m hoping that I know something about this, which is an interesting point – I’m going to be telling you things that I’ve learned that I wish I’d known when I started learning photography back in the day, some years ago.

Lots of titles

Now I’m up to Episode 25 – I’ve got titles for all of these. And I’m not gonna lie to you. I’ve made them a bit Google-friendly as well to get as many people as I can to the podcast because I need more listeners.

Sitting down and going through everything in a logical process with one or two glasses of wine (no more) really helped me to get some structure. As I touched on earlier.

Question time

I’m hoping that people are going to start asking questions. The only one I’ve had so far is from Mrs M, who asked me a very good question, which led to me recording the episode.

Do we actually need a camera?

It was a brilliant question. And it made me stop and think about the content and the logic and the series (and regret the doing the exposure triangle one so soon).

So how many downloads so far?

Well, at the time of recording this, which is about a week in advance, I’ve got just over 100 downloads. If you check out the blog post on my website for this episode, I will put in the number of downloads on that day.

But as I sit here on the 10th of November 2020, I’ve got 109 downloads, which I think I’m delighted with. It is hard to say really – 109 people or 109 downloads of my small but perfectly formed podcast.

Yes, I wrote that bit.

That must have been after wine (creative juice I will call it from now). So that’s enough for this episode. I’m beginning to waffle and that is the one thing I don’t want to do.

What’s next on the photography explained podcast? Well, composition – composition is so important, what you’re actually photographing.

And that’s how I get into the taking of photos, which I’m hoping will be really useful for people.

Okay, I’m done with this episode.

Thank you very much for listening. I hope you enjoyed this episode, which is a bit of a personal waffle, wasn’t it if we’re being honest? But if you did enjoy it, or you’ve enjoyed a previous episode, please leave a nice review and rating wherever you get your podcasts from.

What’s next? In the next Photography Explained Podcast episode 11 – 10 Photography Things Explained Quickly.

And please subscribe.

If you could tell one person about my podcast, that’d be brilliant. If you could tell 10 that’d be 10 times better. And also check out my website, Rick McEvoy Photography where you can find out lots more about me, my architectural and construction photography, and lots of other blog posts all about good stuff from photography.

Right – time’s up. I’ve been Rick McEvoy. Thanks again for listening. I’ll see you in the next episode all about composition.

OK – that was the podcast episode.

Want to know more?

Head over to the Start page on the Photography Explained Podcast website to find out more.

And here is the list of episodes published to date – you can listen to any episode straight from this page which is nice.

Let me know if there is a photography thing that you want me to explain and I will add it to my list. Just head over to the This is my list of things to explain page of this website to see what is on there already.

Let me send you stuff

I send out a weekly email to my subscribers. It is my take on one photography thing, plus what I have been writing and talking about. Just fill in the box and you can get my weekly photographic musings straight to your inbox. Which is nice.

And finally a little bit about me

Finally, yes this paragraph is all about me – check out my Rick McEvoy Photography website to find out more about me and my architectural, construction, real estate and travel photography work. I also write about general photography stuff, all in plain English without the irrelevant detail.

Thank you

Thanks for listening to my podcast (if you did) and reading this blog post (which I assume you have done as you are reading this).

Cheers from me Rick