Equipment You Will Need

I mentioned in the last post the expense of photography. I should clarify this point a little more. Hence, the topic of this post is what you'll need, at a bare minimum, to enjoy yourself and perhaps get others to dig your work, too.

Basic list

• Camera. Any kind for now will do. Digital is better. Digital SLR is still better. But not completely necessary.
• A computer.
  
• If you go digital, and why wouldn't you -- Post-processing software. This is a fancy term for "Photoshop" or one of its "equivalents" like Paint Shop Pro or iPhoto. You don't need Photoshop. Photoshop Elements is a very handy, yet inexpensive, tool for editing and tweaking your photos.

That's it, really. Oh, and again, if you go digital, some memory cards (at least one).

You can get an entire basic setup for a few hundred dollars. Anything you want to print, you can deliver it to Costco or one of many fine "photo finishers." So, initially, you don't even need a printer.

Some things that are nice to have:

• Camera bag
• Cleaning kit
• Extra camera battery
• Extra memory cards
• Memory card reader, to transfer images from the card to the computer
  
• Specialized lenses (zooms, telephotos, macros, wide angles, etc.)
• Filters
• Flashes
• Battery chargers
• Printer, maybe even specialized ink
  
• Special photo paper (it's not all the same)

The most essential ingredient you'll need is your creativity. Make sure you take it along with you on any photo trips. I have seen beautiful pix taken with a cell phone and some pretty bad ones taken with a $3000 digital SLR.

The next post will be about framing a shot. How to get that perfect angle/perspective to render the emotion that you envision.