Make it easy on yourself, Linda. If you don't own a point & shoot camera (auto focus), buy one. Go to a lighthouse and take a bunch of pictures. It's kind of "what you see is what you get" when you first get started. Basically that means "what you see in the view finder is what you see on the photo." Watch out for the sun and try to keep it somewhat behind you. If you shoot into the sun, be prepared to have some heavily shaded points of interest.

Once you get the basic idea about what is going to come back from the developers, then you can concern yourself with photo composition. Photography can be as simple as you want, or it can be as complicated as you want. There are many examples of complicated photography in this forum. The pictures are magnificent!

Photography is an excellent hobby that doesn't require a lot of expensive equipment at first. Start slow and make sure you really like what you're doing before you make a serious commitment of money and time. Most photographers are happy to only get a couple of super pictures from each roll of film. Don't be afraid to ask questions on the forum. You will always get some sort of an answer from one of our members. There is a lot of experienced photographers posting here.

Bob