Intro
1. Learn Vocabulary - Learn some new vocabulary before you start the lesson.
2. Read and Prepare - Read the introduction and prepare to hear the audio.
When you’re out with friends having fun, someone in your group will surely bring out a camera to snap a picture. Or when you’re home alone with your cat, you might take a picture of him when he does something cute. Photographs are a great way to keep a memory forever, on your phone or on your wall. But with so many people taking pictures, there are also many bad pictures that are too dark, or too light, or out of focus because taking a great photo takes practice.
Photography has become so popular that most cities have classes to teach people how to use their cameras and how to take the best picture. Some of these classes take place outdoors to teach students about nature photography, other classes might focus on taking pictures of people inside a room.
Rafael and Gary are talking about how photography has become very popular and the importance of learning how to correctly use a camera. Find out more in today’s English lesson about how to be a better photographer.
Dialog
1. Listen and Read - Listen to the audio and read the dialog at the same time.
2. Study - Read the dialog again to see how the vocab words are used.
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Rafael: Photography is hard. Here I am trying to make a living taking pictures of beautiful images in nature. And I feel like everybody wants me to take pictures of them at their wedding.
Gary: You need to have a really good eye to be able to frame a good photo.
Rafael: Yeah.
Gary: And there are so many people using websites like Instagram. Photos are so trendy now.
Rafael: Yeah, Instagram is trendy. You see a lot of photos up there that you can tell the photographer had a big lack of expertise.
Gary: Yes, because they don’t know the settings of their camera or the settings of their phone, because a lot of people are using their phone to take photos.
Rafael: And I think reading manuals has become a lost art.
Gary: I’d agree with you on that. My digital SLR has a really thick manual and I actually did read through a bunch of it because there were so many features that I had no idea what to do when I first got the camera.
Rafael: Well, anyway, I want to show you this amazing photo I took in Mount Hood.
Gary: That is really nice. You’ve got a good eye!
Grammar Point
Go Super to learn "Simple Past Tense" from this lesson
Quizzes
Lesson MP3
The iTEP® test
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Discussion
Rafael works really hard at his photography expertise by going out and taking beautiful pictures of nature, but he is annoyed that people only ask him to take pictures of them at events. Gary agrees that it takes a good eye and a lot of practice to be good at photography.
Photography has become very trendy, but Rafael thinks that people need to read their camera manuals to really learn about their digital SLR cameras. Gary agrees that people need to better understand their camera settings to take the best pictures.
Do you carry around a camera all of the time? What is your favorite subject to photograph?
Comments
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