It’s not every day you come across photography that is simply arresting. Even in the realm of surrealism, so much is possible with software these days that few photographic creations make you look twice and wonder “How’d they do that?” Such was the effect that Gregory Crewdson’s work had on me when I first saw it.

His works are (from what I’ve seen, at least) untitled, which is a subject for another article. I don’t know how much post-processing goes into these images, but I know that Crewdson is known for his elaborate lighting setups, which leads me to believe there isn’t much. He’s well-known enough to have his own page on Wikipedia,.org/wiki/Gregory_Crewdson a distinction reserved (by the site’s own policy) for those enjoying defensible public recognition.

Believe it or not, it has been precisely three years since the very first post on this blog. It started out as a place for me to post experimental photos and has since evolved into a great platform for sharing the information and inspiration that I come across all the time.

To all of you out there reading this now, thank you! I wouldn’t write all of these articles if nobody read them, and your occasional feedback has been really great, whether praise or critique.

For those of you who haven’t heard about it, the Lensbaby is a “selective focus” lens made by (who else?) Lensbaby, Inc. I picked up my Lensbaby 3G (not related to the cell phone technology) what must be at least a year ago now. I could probably find out by looking up my first blog post about it, but I’m too lazy.

Here’s a photo I took in San Francisco’s Chinatown:

Perhaps I sound a little bit like a shady salesman with a headline like that, but it would be incorrect to think that I perform the services I do with only myself in mind. Nay, this blog and my photography workshops exist only to serve you, my gentle readers, which is why I come to you today with this update.

First, something I’ve been thinking about lately, which I had designs to write an entire post about but that now strikes me as somewhat too unfinished a thought to deserve such treatment. It has to do with a growing trend among digital photographers that the quality of your work and of your prints can be judged if not exclusively at least primarily by some group of statistics.

In my instruction I get asked a lot about how the five most fundamentally important settings of the camera work together to achieve the effects you desire. It can be hard to penetrate the curtain of photographic jargon, some of which can seem counterintuitive, so I decided to take a minute to explain all of this stuff at a very high level. If you have specific questions of your own, please leave a comment below and I promise that I will answer them.

The only five settings that you need to know are:

• Shooting mode
• Aperture (or f-stop)
• Shutter speed
• ISO sensitivity
• Exposure value (EV)

After the jump I will explain in detail.