Application For Steemit Challenge Season 26 // Photography and Photo Editing

_{Edited using canva}

It's quite funny to know that many on the platform doesn't know how to capture photos. They just take it at random and say, after all, the steemit team doesn't look at how well pictures are captured. Most people use online pictures because they don't know how to be creative with their phones. Photography has been overlooked as being a menial skill. After all, everyone snaps, and it's not a big deal to learn how to snap with my mobile phone.

It's not about taking pictures but how, what angle, what pitch, what lighting and what composition do you use? How is your hand positioned? Because you can't tell someone you're a content creator, and yet, you don't even know how to position your phone for video creation and photos. You don't even know how to use original pictures to be creative in your contents. All these things are learnt.

The presence of mobile phones with exceptional cameras are gradually colonising static cameras, which has made it possible for those that can't afford a static camera to use what's available to give exceptional photo presence. Learning how to edit pictures exceptionally prevents outrageous expenses and creates room for the young to learn a digital skill in photography.

I'm going solo because I've been on this line for years, though a partnership would have been great, but there are things I need to reveal when it comes to using Adobe Lightroom that others may not know or be able to evaluate. Just as someone introduced how to use ChatGPT in creating cartoon characters and comic books without having to spend excessively to get one character draughted using 3D and the likes, I'm introducing the use of the Lightroom app in photo editing other than Photoshop. Who am I to teach, and what qualifications do I have?

I'm the professor in question, @bossj23, and I've stated my reasons for going solo without partnership. I'm a Nigerian and joined the Steemit platform in 2021. I've had 3 years of working experience on the platform as a content writer who's passionate about originality and exclusiveness. I've not hosted an engagement challenge before but kept applying, particularly in the line of photography and edits. Why? I feel it's something people need to know: content writers who integrate pictures to make their content have meaning.

I'm a moderator in the Steem4Nigeria and SteemKids and Parents communities, and I've had lots of achievements being on this platform. With the level of trust given me in this role, I perform my duties diligently and also train newbies to become the best of themselves on the platform while striving to have a successful Steemit journey.

I've also been a keen partaker of learning challenges hosted by different users, which has greatly helped improve my skills and has given me added knowledge to what I already had. There were things I was novice about but learnt them through Steemit learning challenges.

As for working experience, I'm a student, and I've taken up this digital skill for two years now. I've been editing pictures of clients either for wedding purposes, birthdays and the like without making it so obvious an edit was done. Editing goes far beyond removing backgrounds. You focus on the image in the background and try as much as possible to enhance one's look with your mobile, which would still give a better photographic presence in the absence of Photoshop models for editing on laptops.

These are my work. We usually focus on before and after projects. That's the essence of editing. You help improve the appearance of the image you're working with.

It's not outrightly an idea but my own personal contribution to the challenge series. **I'll be teaching the use of the Adobe Lightroom app for photo editing, which is quite complex, as making a design on Canva. One may think it'd be just to adjust lines, and you have your edits. It's far from that. You'll need to master certain principles, including colour theory as done in graphic design, to be able to use this app effectively.

Since it's a learning challenge, students get to learn from me; they challenge themselves by editing a picture that would be dropped here for every lesson. Students would have to apply what they've learnt for the 6 weeks in the images that would be given for use. This would not just give them prior knowledge on its usage but would also foster creativity and reasoning.

Just as a graphic designer thinks of ways to make a graphic exceptional, we as editors use the tools we have to make our pictures exceptional. The initial stage would be easygoing, then we'll go to the complex aspect of editing using Lightroom.

Week 1: Introduction to Adobe Lightroom

• Importing photos and organization
• Understanding raw and JPEG files
• Getting acquainted with its features
• Job opportunities on Monetizing one's editing skills
• Lightroom and canva

Week 2: Basics of Editing

• Presets usage
• Manual editing and auto tone
• Resetting and Cropping
• Using HSL and Light Panels
• Saving photos

Week 3: Color theory

• Understand the colour histogram
• White balance and BW
• Color grading
• Color panels
• Project

Week 4: Advanced Editing

• Removing spots
• Background space
• Focused edits
• Lens correction and gradients

Week 5 and 6: Projects and application of all that's learned

• Branding your photo sessions for physical job opportunities

	E.g

These are the topics that would be handled for 6 weeks. As much as Adobe Lightroom is broad, we'll be learning the basics and a bit more of the advanced. Once the basics are learnt, the advance would be easy to understand. To most, the basics may seem like advanced knowledge. Everything said would be taken into special consideration if selected.

Do you think it's wise to learn camera positioning and also get to know some hack files for photography? You'll definitely be shocked your phone can do what a highly placed phone can.