gravityrider

Yep. Awesomely creative, but pretty easy from a technical standpoint.

If you haven't bought the flash yet get the one with the rechargeable lithium batteries. I bought the original first because it was cheaper but quickly switched. Even 4 eneloop's were only giving me around 100 shots before I had to switch them out, and recycle time was horrible. With the larger rechargeable batteries I can easily get 1000 shots with a much faster recycle time. And I don't have to remember to bring a handful of extra batteries.

Sure, yea, morally fine and all that. But, the same techniques you'll learn to make people who "look boring" interesting will be the same that will make good subjects really stand out.

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.” ― Ira Glass

Best life advice I've ever seen.

Photography is a beautiful mix of art and technical knowledge/ gear coming together. I don't care if I won every award in the world, I'd still never criticize/ critique someone's art from an internet post. It's too personal and there are a million reasons I probably don't understand the stuff I don't enjoy.

The technical on the other hand... that's easy to critique and can be helpful to everyone. If some reviewer scores a macro lens poorly for its performance wide open- it's a community service to point out they're an idiot.

"Dark and moody" / "Light and airy" / "Painterly"

Just admit you can't control exposure.

Lenses made for manual focus are a world easier to use in manual than autofocus lenses. To answer your question, I do about 99% of my shooting in manual because many of my favorite lenses are manual focus only. You get used to it pretty quick, and the focus aids like focus peaking and focus assist are quite good these days.

Getting a bunch of vintage lenses of different focal lengths and physical aperture settings and spending time studying depth of field with focus peaking. Sadly much more expensive since vintage lens prices have spiked but more worthwhile than any class.