In essence the Camera is a box:

Regardless of whether the camera has photosensitive film at the back of it to record the image in the raw state a camera is a box with an aperture in it. It projects the scene to the back of the camera onto where the film would be or on to the photosensitive digital sensor. It is very important to realise as a photographer this gives you absolute control over what you are photographing, in that what you point it at is what you will ultimately receive in the final photograph, although it is second generation and of course how you use the few controls will also dictate the result.  The honesty in that is perfect and exactly they way it should be. The tool that we call a camera has been made quite technical unnecessarily in my view by many of the camera manufacturers these days. Although advances in digital on many fronts have been great be careful not to get caught up with unnecessary settings that deter the photographer from achieving the potential of the scene. The use of aperture shutter speed and ISO are the basis of controls that give you all you need on a camera to explore the fundamentals of picture making. That is why I recommend to pick up a film camera to begin with, so as to bring things back to basics especially when starting out. Find a simple camera that you can see through without thinking about much, then that leaves you more head space to connect with the subject in the moment of taking. The more that you are focusing beyond the camera and are connected to the subject matter the more successful the pictures are likely to be. Where you put your focus quite literally is what you get in this life, and none more pertinent than still photography picture making, an art form of being present and expressive.