Back in August and September 2010, I ran an introduction to photography course for the social website reddit.com. It was in 30 parts, completely free and with no prerequisites.

With a few changes, the 30 lessons are now reproduced here in a more readable form. Feel free to link to this page or to refer your friends and budding photographers to it. And if you complete the class and find it useful, I would love to hear from you!

Introduction

• 01 - On photography (it's not rocket science)

The gear

• 02 - What is a camera
• 03 - Different types of camera
• 04 - Focal length

Exposure

• 05 - Exposure, pipes and buckets
• 06 - The histogram
• 07 - Shutter speed
• 08 - Aperture
• 09 - ISO
• 10 - Metering modes

Focus

• 11 - Autofocus
• 12 - Manual Focus
• 13 - Depth of Field revisited

Using the camera

• 14 - Flash
• 15 - Tripod
• 16 - Filters
• 17 - White balance
• 18 - Scene modes vs PASM
• 19 - RAW vs. JPG
• 20 - Film vs. digital
• 21 - The decision process

Post-processing

• 22 - Digital workflow
• 23 - DAM and Backups
• 24 - Levels and curves
• 25 - Layers and masks

Vision

• 26 - Composition basics
• 27 - Break the Rules!
• 28 - Be inspired
• 29 - Share your work

Conclusion

• 30 - How to go further