Photography Tips Guide

Posts Tagged ‘Learn Digital Photography’

It concerns me as a photographer when I see the numerous articles and ebooks about making cash from your camera. 8 Easy steps or 10 ways to turn those snapshots into cash. And, “Hi shutterbug here’s a foolproof way to turn those photos into dollars”. Or, earn $200-$400 per day from your camera. With all the resource boxes pointing to, you guessed it, books and cds that will help you make money from your camera or rather the authors make money from your purchase. All of us who are photographers would love to make a regular income from the hobby or profession we love. None of us want to be told that it is difficult, it takes time and not many people make it. These dubious dealers give the impression that anyone can make money from their photos. Rubbish! If you take a look at the stock sites and see the quality of images for sale, you’ll realise that unless you are really talented you will never produce the quality that the buyers are looking for. Do yourself a favour. Do a search on the name of the ebook author who makes all of these claims using Google and then go to the major stock sites and do the same. Where are these authors making their money? From you! If it was so easy why don’t they have thousands of images on the stock sites? I rest my case. Take a look at the guidelines for submission on the stock sites. Every last one of them requires a camera that takes a high resolution image. Some even state that they’ll only accept images taken on certain mid-range to high-end digital SLRs. Don’t even think that you will be able to compete with your compact camera. You stand no chance. Your images are just not big enough. I have been on seminars given by successful stock photographers from the microstock sites and all them state that it is tough, demands long hours of work and takes a long time to make a reasonable income. Some never make it despite quality, dedication and a lot of effort. It is not a part-time money making machine as claimed by the ebook authors. So what does it really take to make money from your camera, if it is at all possible for the amateur? You have to make a decision to dedicate yourself to your photography even if it is part-time. Carefully consider the following points: 1. Dedication to the art of photography If you are not a dedicated photographer striving for excellence in your art there is no real money to be made. Sorry that’s the bottom line. There are so many talented artists producing high quality images that you do not stand a chance if you cannot compete in this field. You need to up your standards and create images that are very high quality. 2. Dedication to detail Every detail in your image needs to be perfect. This is what the buyer is looking for. He doesn’t come along and say, “now which poor point-and-shooter can I help make money today”? When a buyer is planning to put a photo on a billboard every detail must be perfect. Examine your images and ask yourself, “Would I see this image in a magazine?” 3. Dedication to quality 99.9% of snapshots won’t make it past the stock site evaluators. Their standards are very high. Sharpness, great colours and perfect composition are just some of the factors you must take into consideration when planning to sell your images. You have to be a photographer, either a pro or dedicated amateur regularly looking at the quality of your images and pushing the limits. Look at the books and magazines and compare your photos. Do they compete? If the answer is yes then you are getting close. The ebooks say that there are millions of people looking for photos for the school and class assignments or projects who will buy your images. Get real! If they have the opportunity to buy an ordinary snapshot or a high quality image shot by a top photographer both selling for a dollar, which would they choose? 4. Dedication to discipline Discipline is key to any hobby or vocation and especially so with photography. You need to be disciplined in your learning and improving your skills constantly. You need to be disciplined in your shooting and editing your images. And, you need to be disciplined in your submission of quality images to the stock libraries and photo sites. It’s a numbers game. The more quality content you have out in the market the more chance you have of buyers selecting your images. You cannot do it on a whim or when you feel motivated to do it. It is essential to have a commitment to the task and a disciplined overall process. 5. Dedicated to achieving results If at first you don’t succeed try and try again. If at first you don’t get the results you desire don’t give up or try something else. Keep at it until you see results. It’s like the little green shoot popping its head above the soil or the tip of the iceberg. You are building the roots that will support the later growth of your business. If you don’t have a results driven motivation to see it to the end you will not achieve the success you set out to attain. It’s a hard uphill road to success with photography. The photo world is competitive and saturated with good quality images. If you are to succeed you must break through the barrier from great to outstanding. You must stand head and shoulders above the rest in your quality and excellence.

When making the decision to learn photography or improve your existing skills, there is just so much material bombarding us making it difficult to know where to start. Where do you start and how do you get started.

My journey started many years ago, before the digital revolution when life was more structured, great material was available and the choices were limited. Now you can do a search on the internet and come up with a hundred sources. The unfortunate thing is that most of the material doesn’t offer you a preview and you can’t browse through it like a printed book or course. So where does one start? It’s essential when starting out on a photographic journey to get the basics right. Learning the fundamentals properly will prepare you for a bright and very fulfilling future in photography. Let’s take a look at a few important steps.

1. Find a practical ebook or course

Photography is a practical hobby and although theory is a part of it, one enjoys it by going out and doing. The operative word is doing. Any course must get you doing something from the very first chapter or if possible from the first paragraph. In teaching and training I have found it most effective to offer on the job mentoring while we are taking photos. With the instant feedback digital gives, it is the perfect way of teaching someone. That, of course, is great when dealing one on one with live people. Through a book or ecourse it may be a little more difficult but the author must get you shooting images immediately. The method I use in my books is to start people out shooting images and then afterwards giving them the criteria with which to evaluate their own images and improve them. Shoot, improve, shoot improve is the perfect way to learn because it’s practical. I cannot emphasise this point enough. A quick tip for looking at ebooks and courses, make sure that the author offers a money back guarantee. If the ebook or course doesn’t offer real practical advice you can get your money back. If they are not transferring their skills to you then the ebook isn’t worth it.

2. Start doing assignments or projects

The course or ebook you have decided upon should have practical assignments and projects or you have made a bad choice. I love acquiring knowledge through reading and research but after all these years it has done nothing to improve my photography without its practical application. So, start working through the assignments or projects carefully and try to apply the skills or techniques you are learning. Don’t proceed to the next chapter until you have mastered the lesson or skill. If you’ve bought a book that doesn’t have assignments then you need to create you own based on the material you are learning. Write it down so that you are clear as to what you should be doing then go out and shoot. You must have an end in mind and achieve a practical goal when your assignment is complete.

3. Use a journal

This is a photo journal and not a writing journal. You want track your progress and watch your learning journey develop. It can be a regular journal where you paste in your photos and make notes of location, date, time, the settings you used to take the image and how you felt. Or, you can maintain it on your computer. The key here is to watch your progress and see where you are improving and where you need to give more attention. Besides this, it’s a fun activity and a showcase of your photography. The key here is that it should help you keep focused and maintain your photographic journey. You are able to leave photography for a few weeks then pick it up again, revise and begin where you left off. It gives you structure to your learning and allows you to remember where you were last at and can continue on a logical course.

4. Teach someone else

This is where my photo journey took off like a rocket. As soon as I started teaching others I cemented the principles in my own mind and my own photography improved a hundredfold. I got together a group of friends for the purpose of enjoying my photo outings on the weekends. Because I was the most experienced they asked questions and I gave the answers. The ones I didn’t know I refreshed from my books and courses and the rest is history. Once you explain something to someone else you have to think about it more logically which often results in a better understanding on your own part.

5. Practise, practise, practise

The famous South African golfer and winner of many major international tournaments said, “the harder I practise the luckier I get.” You don’t think the master National Geographic photographers shot those fantastic magazine photos by chance do you? They come as a result of years of practise, trial and error. Go out and find your favourite subjects and practise shooting them from different angles, perspectives and viewpoints. It’s logical that if you shoot a subject in three different ways you won’t get the same results as if you did it in a hundred different ways.

Photography is a journey of discovery and learning. And, as you discover new things about your environment, subject or location and include them in your images you will start to improve at a rapid rate. These are just some of the principles that if applied correctly will help you learn photography like never before.

Learning digital photography in our instant society is only possible by applying the basic principles of good photography. Digital is another tool and there is no real fast way of doing this. BUT… If you are prepared to follow these six quick photography principles you’re on the road to learning digital photography fast. And I really mean fast. So here goes.

1. Choose your subject carefully.

This is the centrepiece of your photo. Make sure you identify a suitable subject and focus on this. Not negotiable. If subject is not clearly identifiable your photo will be below average.

2. Place you subject intelligently.

Divide your image into thirds vertically and horizontally. Imagine 2 lines across and 2 lines down. Where these lines intersect place your subject on one of these points. If you have an horizon in the image, line it up with one of the 2 horizontal lines.

3. Get closer to your subject.

Most times the subject is what you want to remember about the scene you are recording. So get as much of it in your photo. This is especially so with family photos. Have smaller groups of people shot closer to the camera.

4. Exclude clutter from around your subject.

Make sure that there are no trees or telephone poles sticking out the top of you subject’s head. Unless you particularly want to remember the garbage can, bicycle, microwave or signboard, leave them out of the scene. Look for anything that you don’t want to see in 20 years when viewing the photos and exclude it.

5. Look at your subject from a different angle.

Shoot from up higher (above the subject) or lower (looking up at the subject). Find a different angle so that the image is unique a gives you a different more interesting aspect.

6. Change your viewpoint.

Most people stand in front of the subject and just shoot away. Move around looking through your viewfinder and find a different position that gives a more interesting shot. Experimenting is the key.

BONUS TIP

Finally here’s a bonus tip. Choose a subject you want to photograph and shoot it in 50 different ways. Shoot from high, low, the left, the right, directly above. Get in really close, turn you camera at an angle, hold the camera above your head. Change your viewpoint, walk away from the subject, lie on your back or lie on your stomach. It may sound a lot but when you try it you’ll see it’s possible. When you’ve finished, browse through all the images and you will be amazed at your ability. You will have found a new and different angle that will amaze your friends and family. Don’t worry about feeling stupid if you want to get that great shot. Follow these 6 basic photographic principles and your photos will improve dramatically and very fast. Within hours you friends will be complimenting you on your great images.

Starting out with any new venture, or for that fact resurrecting an old venture, there are always the questions where do I start or how do I start? Although the urge is there to try something big, starting at the beginning is essential. Learn to take baby steps first.

If you’ve watched the old time classic movie the Sound of Music, it’s “let’s start at the very beginning”. A very good place to start. So beginning your photography journey you need to look at three fundamentals in order to get going.

1. Get to know your camera

Getting to know your camera is essential for your beginning in photography. A workman who is not competent with the tools of the trade is not going to get very far. I am not talking here of every single little feature but rather all the major features, settings or controls. You need to be able to operate without thinking and often times while you aren’t looking at the controls. Know where they are by feel so that as you’re looking through the viewfinder you can change settings automatically. Do this little exercise and you’ll get to know them fast. Go through your manual and go through each setting on your camera. When you are finished go through it again; this time checking off all the settings you know. Then go through the manual again and learn those settings that you are not sure of. By logically working through your manual and getting to know the camera’s features will be invaluable as you learn photography.

2. Shoot regularly and on every occasion

One of the major benefits digital photography has given us is the ability to take photos without the cost restrictions of film. The problem is that people use this to the detriment of calculated and thoughtful composition of their photos. But if used correctly, digital gives the ability to keep shooting without any constraints. The reason I see that shooting regularly is key to learning is because practise does make perfect. Through trial and error we learn about most things in life. Sometimes you do get a lucky shot amongst the rapidfire shooting sprees but this is the exception. The famous golfer Gary Player always said, “the harder I practise, the luckier I get.” Use every ocasion to practise and then compare images you have taken previously. Evaluation helps to examine your photos and find out where you can improve. But don’t just stop there. Go out and improve the areas you need to and practise more in the areas where you have deficiencies.

3. Focus on the fundamentals of photography

Learning the basics properly is key to anything you do. If you give yourself a good foundation and learn the fundamentals you are going to get off on the right foot and not make the basic errors which need correcting. Find a really good book or e-course take each element of photography and apply it. Don’t try learning a bunch of keys and attempt put them all into one photo at once. Learn good composition before trying to shoot action photos. Rome wasn’t built in a day but our instant society has taught us that we can everything and have it now. It doesn’t work like that with photography. It has step be a logical progression as you learn one step then apply it and move on to the next step. Don’t forget to keep on revising what you have learnt as you need to build on to the foundation of the previous step and so on.

These three steps are just some basics to get you going. There are many others that you gradually need to incorporate into your photograhic learning journey. It’s not all going to happen at once so you need to grasp just a few of the basics to start growing.

The world has gone digital crazy. With many homes having multiple digital camera owners you can’t move without seeing someone taking a digital snap. And the operative word here is a snapshot. Not much thought, creativity or photographic composition. Just lots and lots of digital pollution cramming the millions of hard drives, DVDs and memory cards. Digital has enabled people to take more low quality, thoughtless snapshots. Digital photography could see the death of creativity in photography in general. Why such a harsh statement? Here’s why:

1. Lack of thought.

As a film photographer the consumable costs of photography were much higher. This forced us to think and carefully consider each shot. There was a greater thought process. Using a motor drive for taking multiple shots was for the press photographers who could afford take thirty six images in a few seconds. For the rest of us we had to think more before pressing the button.

2. The Shakespeare effect.

This is the evolutionary idea that if you give a roomful of monkeys a typewriter each and enough time, they will eventually produce a work equal in quality to Shakespeare. There is a similar mindset among digital photographers that if they shoot enough photos, somewhere amongst the thousands will be quality images. You have as much chance as that happening as a monkey.

3. Drive by shooting syndrome.

This is similar to the lack of thought in taking a photo. Because of the multiple shot feature in digital cameras and the low cost of digital photography, it’s quick an easy to take an image. Just like a drive by shooting the camera is pointed in the general direction of the subject and a bunch of images is taken. Then you move on to the next target and fire away again.

So what’s the answer? Plain and simple slow down, right down and smell the roses as the saying goes. The creative process is methodical and well thought out. You need to be able to observe, think and then take action. Because digital photography is so quick, cheap and easy the principles and techniques of photography tend to get sidelined. Here are a few steps to encourage your creative process.

1. Make or allocate time for your creative process.

Creativity won’t be hurried. At times it may come to you quickly but this is the exception rather than the norm. So sit down and absorb the environment. Observe your surroundings, subjects and any activity. Let it become a part of you.

2. Be selective.

Find something that turns you or rather your creativity on. If this is colour then focus on the rich hues and shades. If it’s an object or subject observe it carefully in relation to it’s surroundings. Now close your eyes and picture the final image.

3. Change your position or viewpoint.

By looking at your subject from different angles, heights or positions the image will change as the subject changes in relation to its environment. All of a sudden you see things you never would have seen.

4. Try something different.

Shoot a traditional tourist shot of your subject and then look for a shot that is completely different, one you’ve never seen before. Make it unrecognisable. Hire a boat and shoot from the the water. Go to the top of a nearby building or if you’re adventurous climb a tree or lie down on your back.

Creativity is often just doing something different. Something that hasn’t been done before. The key element that I have found to creativity is time. So take your time and smell the roses. Your photography will never be the same again. Put photography, creative photography back into digital photography.