Plan any subject, week by week

Pick a subject and say how many hours a week you actually have. You get the real order the skills have to be learned in, the graded work each stretch ends in, and an honest total in weeks. It is arithmetic over a published skill map, not a plan a model wrote on the way to you.

No accountNo email7 subjects

01 · The estimate

8 weeks at 4 hours a week

28.5Hours of work

8Weeks

16Things to do

2Marked

That is the core path. Photography also declares 2.5 hours of specialist skills that are not counted above — take those too and it is 8 weeks. Both numbers assume you hit 4 hours every week, which nobody does; the plan does not expire if you don’t.

02 · The plan

Week by week, in the order it has to be learned

Each line is one thing to be able to do. The order is the skill map’s own: nothing appears before what it needs.

Week 14h starts here
- The exposure triangleHit a target exposure deliberately by choosing which of the three settings to spend2h
- Metering and the histogramRead a histogram to confirm exposure and recognise when the meter has been fooled2h
Week 24.5h starts here
- Working within dynamic rangeIdentify a scene that exceeds the sensor's range and choose deliberately what to sacrifice2h
- Framing and edgesMake a deliberate decision about every edge of the frame1.5h
- White balance and colour temperatureProduce neutral colour under mixed light, and depart from neutral on purpose1h · runs into week 3
Week 34h starts here
- Quality of lightIdentify whether light is hard or soft, say why, and change it deliberately2h
- Direction of lightPlace your subject relative to a light source to get the shaping you wanted2h · runs into week 4
Week 43.5h starts here
- Depth of fieldPlace the zone of sharpness where you intended, and say which control put it there2h
- Focus accuracyLand focus on the intended plane consistently, including on moving subjects1.5h
Week 55h starts here
- Motion and shutter speedRender motion the way you intended — frozen, blurred or panned — on purpose1.5h
- Focal length and perspectiveChange the subject-to-background relationship deliberately by moving, not just zooming2h
- Raw workflowWork non-destructively from raw and recover detail a JPEG would have lost1.5h · runs into week 6
Week 64h starts here
- Tonal correctionCorrect tone across a set so black and white points are consistent and nothing clips2h
- Separating subject from backgroundMake the intended subject unmistakable within the frame2h · runs into week 7
Week 73.5h starts here
- Take control of exposureMarkedRead the checklist it is marked against1.5h
- A portrait with one light you choseMarkedRead the checklist it is marked against2h · runs into week 8

This is the same plan we would give anyoneThere is no box here for how good you already are, because saying so has never made it true. This is what Photography takes, and the only thing that takes work out of it is work of yours that has been marked. What the ten-minute check gives you is the other half: where you stand in it before you start.

Check where you stand in PhotographyAbout ten minutes. No account.

The plan above is Photography in full, and the marked work in it is published with its checklist before you start. Want a subject nobody has written? Ask for it — that one does need an account, and a few minutes.