There's a special pleasure in shooting with primes. When you're restricted to one focal length, you can learn to see in it: visualize the picture even before putting the camera to your eye. I'm sure that with experience and talent this works for zooms too; I've just never gotten that far.

Zooms are the norm these days, even on cameras where primes are available. However, just because you can zoom doesn't mean you have to. That's why I thought of trying something completely different: photography exercises the old-fashioned way. I'll pontificate a bit about my experiences with a specific focal length, suggest a few things to try with it, and some exercises. These lessons aren't "read-only" -- they make no sense at all without doing the work; exhibiting and discussing pictures you happened to shoot the usual way with the focal length under discussion won't count. This lesson is about seeing photographically in a very specific way.

So, folks, get out a roll of masking tape or just strengthen your willpower, twist that zoom ring all the way left, 'cause we're going to look at the most mercurial of focal lengths, 28 mm. Tape it there, or just resolve firmly not to move it -- zooming will ruin the purpose of the game.

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