… our answer – stop caring and start having a little fun with it:  The best way to discover the basics of your equipment is to just use it. I get it though …. you just spent $3400 on a Nikon full frame camera with a lens and you quickly need to sell shots to Nation Geographic to pay it off.

Here is the truth …. you are still a point and shoot peep. You still need to learn content, framing, lighting opportunity, and much much more and you will need to keep one thing in mind: With the capabilities of modern day cameras and the creativeness (I think that’s a word) they enable in photographic artists – those better than you will never stop coming at you. So, you see, just to keep your head from exploding due to the fact that the 19yo just got, by chance, the dream shot you spent the last fifteen years trying to get because one of their Instagram friends told them to turn off one of the two thousands settings in a modern day camera and could afford that $600 Lensbaby because daddy paid for it – that’s your reason to just have fun. Even though, in reality, they got lucky enough to get that shot, they’ll be eating instant ramen WAY into your retirement (keep in mind a statement like this applies to Millennials now, too). Enjoy that concert shot you took without thinking, that floral shot you captured without setting up, that squirrel you captured flying through the air just by chance. Enjoy them and just have fun. Enjoy the shots you captured that only in twenty years will you realize their importance.

OK … so I’m saying “just have fun” a ton of times.

What do I mean?

Take your new spiffy $3400 camera, stick the lens on it (it usually twists on … don’t use that 2oz tube of Super Glue you picked up on way home because you thought you had to “assemble” the lens onto the camera – remember, you didn’t buy it from Ikea) and just take pictures like you did with your point and shoot or your cell phone. Do the exact same thing (many new high end cameras even have “filters” on them). Google or do a search for filters for your camera in the internet. Resize a few of your pics (Big Tech gets irritated when you try to put 100 meg files on your postings … but if you like irritating Mark, by all means, go for it) to a size where your friends on Facebook or Instagram can see them at a decent quality. Let yourself and your friends enjoy your new images.

Are we just about fun and not using any of the massive features semi-pro and pro cameras have? … no, but to get started and comfortable with your camera you need to just have fun – and honestly, a few times a year your should just go out with something like an Instax camera and just shoot for fun. If you make your hobby too much like work, it just becomes a job that pays you no money. You can easily find enough employers to pay you nothing – no need to do that to yourself. If you keep your hobby fun, where it’s enjoyable to learn new things about it, which enables you to acquire the knowledge to eventually turn your hobby into a career.

… or you can just have fun.