The Phoblographer:

Every photographer has to start somewhere; and when it comes to shooting photos every instructor will tell you to shoot in manual mode. The reason for this is because it gives you the most creative control. When combining this control with your creative ideas, you’ll be able to actually get the photo idea from your head into pixels from the camera.

I’m a huge believer in manual exposure - even in manual focusing. Besides my Olympus OM-D E-M10, I shoot with a Canon AE-1 Program, an old-school analog SLR. The AE-1 Program was one of the first autoexposure Canon SLR’s, but I much prefer to shoot it in manual mode. It’s a very different, much more deliberate form of photography that forces you to actually think before you do anything, and I love it.