Featured photojournalist: Mario Tama

Mario Tama joined Getty Images in 2001 and is based in New York. Here, he covers Mississippi river floods, courtesy of the Guardian 

Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty Images

Reviewing pictures makes you a better photographer

One of the things we encourage on our courses is looking at other photographers’ work and trying to understand why they have photographed a particular subject in a certain way, this is a great way to learn. During our Portrait, Intermediate, Travel, Composition and Black and White courses we set up blogs where our students up-load their pictures for review by their classmates. This sounds a bit scary but everyone benefits.

I found this site, focussion which sets out to do the same but to a much wider audience and participants, as  Michiel and Aljan, two Dutch photographers, who set up the site say “We love photography! And have been taking photos for several years now. We aren’t pro, though we want to learn and improve. Learning works great by getting feedback from other photographers. We noticed getting feedback on other photography websites can be very hard. So we wanted to build an community where we encourage to give helpful feedback. That’s how Focussion was born! ”

You might find this useful and enjoyable

Camera and accessory tutorials

Let me direct you back to Cambridge In Colour, a really great website with excellent tutorials. It looks as if they have made their web site even easier to navigate and have arranged their tutorials by type, here is a list of their camera based tutorials

Camera Types & Accessories

• Compact vs. Digital SLR Cameras
• Selecting & Using a Camera Tripod

Camera Lenses

• Understanding Camera Lenses: Focal Length & Aperture
• Using Wide Angle Lenses
• Using Telephoto Lenses
• Tilt/Shift Lenses: Using Shift Movements to Control Perspective
• Tilt/Shift Lenses: Using Tilt Movements to Control Depth of Field
• Macro Lenses: Magnification, Depth of Field & Effective F-Stop
• Macro Extension Tubes & Close-up Lenses

Lens Characteristics

• Camera Lens Flare: What It Is and How to Reduce It
• Camera Lens Quality: MTF, Resolution and Contrast

Camera Lens Filters

• Choosing a Camera Lens Filter: Polarizers, UV, ND & GND
• Understanding & Using Polarizing Filters
• Using Graduated Neutral Density (GND) Filters
• Using Neutral Density (ND) Filters

Caring for Your Camera & Photos

• Digital Camera Sensor Cleaning: Tools & Techniques
• How to Make Archival Digital Photo Backups
• How to Protect Online Photos: Copying, Watermarks & Copyrights
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