Have you ever wondered what goes into using a DSLR camera? As an objective viewer you might think it is just point and shoot. Guess again! Watch your relative or friend either laugh as you try to  just turn the camera on. They will treat their camera as a delicate instrument. Don’t be alarmed, this is normal behavior for photographers. Borrow a relative or a friend’s Nikon or Canon DSLR, try to shoot a picture. Was it good?

This is the question wedding, event, portrait photographers face every time they go to a photo shoot. Whether a family event or a customer’s event, a photographer must bring smiles to everyone’s faces. Modern cameras require the user to understand the camera and equipment they use to bring smiles.

You ever wonder why a photographer can’t just pick up his or her camera and shoot your picture. Look at the back of the camera, you will see more bell and whistles compacted into a small camera. Just to take a picture the photographer has to adjust the camera for the lighting, the aperture, choose the right lens, the shutter speed, adjust the focus and then pose the person getting the picture. Whew!

Believe it or not a photo shoot is a work of art because every photographer must tweak their camera to make a masterpiece.

Take a look at the pictures at https://hughes-stanton.smugmug.com/Dallas-Texas/Pioneer-Plaza. These photos were taken at sunrise, what we photographers call the “golden hour”. I spent two hours on this shoot. During this time I shot about hundred pictures, some I will post to this site and others to varying other sites: https://www.facebook.com/Von-Hughes-Stanton-705647249541363/photos. I have a photo posted on the Smithsonian.com website for their 2016 Photo Contest.

Please take a look: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/photocontest/detail/american-experience/bronze-statue-of-a-cowboy-riding-hard/.

Whether on the camera or on the computer, the modern photographer has advantages over the old 35mm film camera of yesterday. One of these advantages is processing time, not long ago you had to take the film to the photo processor and hope you didn’t take a film roll full of blanks. Now with modern cameras, photos can be burned to CD or sent via email or downloaded. In today’s world everyone wants it now, modern cameras can fulfill this need for speed. But as a photographer  patient is of virtue when it comes  to getting the right shot.