Field guides · Leica Q3 43 · built for the Japan and Kuala Lumpur trip
Photography Field guides
Eight single-page guides, each on one part of making photographs. Seven cover the core craft, in the order that pays off fastest. One covers a tool: a single small flash. Each guide ends with drills and a skill rubric, and the rubrics share one format so you can see where you stand across the whole series.
Learning path
The guides, in order
Ordered by impact and how often each skill decides a photo. Light first because every frame depends on it, composition next because it's in every decision, then people: catching moments, getting access and directing them, then what happens after the shutter.
How to use them
One guide at a time
Reading a guide feels like progress, but the improvement comes from shooting against it. A month or one trip per guide works better than reading all of them at once.
Read onceSkim the whole guide, then reread the core idea section.
BaselineDo drill 1 and rate yourself on the rubric honestly, from photos you already have.
DrillWork through the drills over two to four weeks, a couple per outing.
Shoot for realA trip or a few long walks with the guide's checklist in mind.
Re-rateRate again from the new photos. Two levels up on a skill means move on.
Where each skill sits
Depth, effort, payoff
Depth
How high the ceiling is: how much is left to master after years.
Ramp
How long it takes to become competent. Higher is a longer climb.
Impact
How much it decides whether a single image works.
Rules
How much is learnable from explicit rules and physics rather than taste.
Freq
How often it matters across your photos.
Video
How much carries over to filmmaking.
Ratings are judgment on a 1–5 scale, not measurements. High-rules skills respond well to study and drills; low-rules skills need volume, reference work and self-critique. Exposure, focus and gear are shallow enough that they don't get their own guide.
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Where you stand
Each guide has a detailed rubric. Copy each guide's overall tier here to see the whole picture. Each page keeps its own answers, so this one can't read them automatically.