look closely at these images what if I told you that not a single one of them required post-processing all these are photographed and exported straight out of the camera as they were captured and working that way has its big benefits when I'm traveling I'm shooting almost daily editing all these photographs daily would be insane i'd burned out in 2 weeks and my travels usually last around 6 months so that's no go what to do so I had to find a solution it was either editing all the photographs every single day or facing a pile of 50,000 photographs to go through at the end to solve this time issue I learned to shoot in such a way that editing isn't required and I'll try to pass on these core principles on how to photograph that way to you i'm going to be straight with you this isn't a learn photography in 20 minutes video it's a gradual process that can take you some time but you will learn what to do and which skills to develop to be able to capture images that require little to no editing at all so first let's speak about editing in general let's clear that few objections or excuses I often hear from beginner photographers statements like uh you don't need to learn to shoot you just need to learn how to edit or why do I need to worry about composition i have 80 megap and just crop whatever I don't need later on following that logic you could grab a 8K video recorder spend a few hours on the street and just cut out the interesting moment from that flow of people that you had uh in your recording why to bother photographing then and the goal is photography is to capture a moment eternally through proper composition not just capture a range of moments and crop it out later on but why do we edit our photographs anyways well some photographers see in editing a natural process it's a way to bring the their product to life while others use it as a way to hide their mistakes editing should be something that enhances your images and not something that you're using to fix your compositional or uh bad lighting mistakes actually there is nothing wrong with editing photographs but you need to understand that it is better to use the editing as a seasoning to the main dish rather than try to make a main dish out of the seasoning pickle is a pickle it doesn't matter what kind of seasoning it have it will still taste sour we use editing to straighten our image but not to try and fix it now let's look at few benefits doing it all in camera actually that was the way that it was done in the past of course there was some dark room work and cropping done with the film as well but the emphasis was on getting the right getting it right on the spot and that's probably why the photographers from the 20th century were so good at composition and uh storytelling because of the higher cost of film and because of the limited amount of images that they carry on them they had to think and that forced them into this thoughtful process before taking a picture most of today's photographers just click with very little thinking and this is something we try to fix here i'm often asked "Pill do you crop?" Well the short answer is that yes I do crop but I always try to shoot in a such a way like I do not need to crop that forces me to think and to work my composition significantly better rather than saying that hey I have like gazillion pixels here i'll just point the camera and click it and later when I get back home I will just crop whatever and uh hope for the best and I believe that shooting that way leads to professional growth the first one that with time your technical skills are going to sore there is no doubt about that it happened to me it happened to many others that I know this approach demands a higher level of technical understanding and skill you need to master exposure focusing and your camera settings this leads you to become more confident and capable photographer overall your compositional skills are also going to see a quality bump forcing yourself to get it right on the spot will make you explore composition and really pay attention to what is in front of you you will learn to look at light in a different way now when you don't have this possibility of fixing the light in in post you will try to nail your exposure every single time and if you have some troubles with exposure there is a video somewhere here that I'm speaking about that subject and how to manage exposure efficiently keeping an eye on your exposure constantly will make you very conscious of the light in the scene even later on if you decide to work uh and still edit your photos as as before you will notice that because you shoot for certain period of time in a mindset of non-editing your editing process will be shorter like there will be less technical mistakes to fix your images will be 80 90% ready to go you just need to add a little bit of contrast and perhaps the favorite color grading that you like you will save a lot of time and when I say a lot I mean you will gain days back you will develop a shooting style by making deliberate choices in camera a photographer will develop a distinct visual style a way of doing things that will be felt in every capture of yours the images you capture will have more authenticity in them i know from responses I get to my photography that they feel very very raw and very real and people like that in this world of everything being uh so digitally manipulated people actually like to see the reality as it is and of course you will be able to share your things quickly my photographer friends know that I can have a series ready in a matter of minutes after finishing a shoot I'll just go to a cafe and quickly run through the images on my camera and select a few that are ready for sharing basically right away and overall you will have a greater satisfaction from the creative process trust me having images that are worthy of publication straight out of camera is uh very satisfying it builds a lot of confidence in yourself and your capabilities as a photographer i am often asked how many keepers do you have from a shoot and it's a funny question because technically it's all good i only need to choose between the different angles of captured images to see where I nail the composition best and which image truly tells the story so what do we need to become better in camera there are a few key parts uh on improving that you need the first one is all related to your camera you need to learn and to know your camera inside and out and I mean getting to know it very well so when you're out there shooting you will use the camera in the same way like you will drive a car you don't think when you need to shift gear or you signal left or right you just do it and it needs to be most almost instinctively that's the way you need to learn to use your camera this is probably the place to say that it is good to work with same gear for several years so you can develop like this muscle memory of where the buttons are where your favorite settings are and you can use them with maximum efficiency now you don't need to learn every single setting but you need to master exposure and controlling the light understand aperture control depth of field set the right f-stop for the desired sharpness and background separation in camera you need to master shutter speed freeze the scene when needed or blur motion intentionally you need to select the appropriate shutter speed to achieve the desired outcome shutter speed mistakes are almost impossible to fix in post if you didn't freeze the moment properly or something is blurred there it's you cannot sharpen it back so it needs to be done properly in camera uh you need to control your ISO generally keep it as slow as possible but understand when and now need to raise it without introducing excessive noise use exposure compensation to fine-tune brightness without overrelying on post-processing learn your camera focusing system if if your camera doesn't focus on what you exactly intended to from the beginning you lost a shot you lost a moment and will learn to work with white balance in camera as RO shooters we often neglect white balance because it's easy to fix in post when you're shooting in camera white balance is actually quite important because because the settings are burnt into JPEG files and the JPEG files are less flexible in terms of uh white balance adjustments after that but if you want to do things in camera you need to try to understand temperature learn to recognize different light sources daylight candle light fluoscent and how they affect the color of the scene because this is something that is very difficult to fix in JPEG now after finishing with the camera we need to go to composition you need to learn to nail composition for that you need to understand the basic of composition rule but mostly how to compose for the scene and apply rules only when they're needed you need to learn to break the scene into parts and use everything that you have there uh the different lines object symmetry space you need to take advantage of all compositional elements that are there but I will emphasize don't focus solely on the rules learn to create images that are interesting to look at rules are your tools they are not the photograph it is less important if they're perfectly in balance or not or if you have all your lines straight it's important to bring the story and the message to the people in the best way possible now when we speak about composition it always sounds like that we need to position our objects uh properly and that's all of their job but it's not just that we need to illuminate distractions we need to make sure that uh there is no inframe competition with our main subject we need to find the best angle accordingly to the light and we need to look that in the background there is nothing distracting and and can take the attention of our main story so there is a lot of things to learn there and a lot of things to pay attention to much more than you would just usually do if you feel that you're lacking in compositional skills I have a monthly composition class a few hours that already helped 100 photographers you can check it down below you can also consider subscribing because I share some pro tips on a regular basis here but let's back to our things learn your lens learn its field of view and the perspective it applies to the scene just like with camera I recommend sticking to a single lens for extended period of time that way you will develop this uh natural feeling uh of that field of view and the distance to your subject and most important get composition right in camera so you don't need to crop significantly later if you notice I don't say don't crop sometimes cropping is necessary but try to shoot in a way to avoid cropping as much as possible that will straighten your composition also learn to look beyond the subject consider your background play close attention to what's behind your subject and just look for any distracting elements that normally would require removal in editing as someone who wants to photograph in camera your job is to eliminate these distractions on the spot you will need to move your feet around your subject and change your perspective until you find the best angle the one that gets you the best look on the story the best lighting and the most suitable readable background of all utilize your in camera creative tools understand and use your built-in camera picture styles and profiles uh different film simulations pro portrait flat monochrome increase your contrast when needed increase or reduce contrast work with sharpness and clarity just to achieve this desired aesthetic directly from the camera be mindful that all these settings they're baked into JPEG files and offer less flexibility than RAW files using camera and filters if the camera has one i personally shoot in both in RAW and JPEG during my travels i would usually share the JPEGs but once the images are coming out of the camera I'm keeping only the RAW files later when I'm back home I would work on these practice your eye and shoot deliberately every time you press the shutter have a clear intentation and visualize the final image of course analyze your results regular review of unedited images and identify areas from improvement observe light and learn to explore properly for different types of lighting you always need to analyze your results row not after you crop and uh adjust and edit the image and uh see your progress no your progress as a photographer is actually at the row and unedited images another thing that I always do is I have an easy way to rate my photographs i find it easier to apply ratings in camera then in the camera app in the camera I have set a shortcut of a button so when I'm reviewing uh the images I just press on that shortcut and it automatically sets four stars to that image and later on when I'm pulling the images out I just say filter me all the four fourstar rated ones then I can find these images very easily but the key takeaway to achieve minimal editing is the general shift in mindset from I'll fix it in post to I will try to capture it correctly now you see I didn't say don't edit but I say learn to shoot like you have no option to edit and this mindset it will push you forward i see photographers every day and the ones with the right mindset are the ones that continuously evolve not the one who look uh for the easy parts this requires patient practice and deep understanding of your camera and the creative process in general minor adjustments like slight cropping or subtle exposure tws may still be desired the goal is to create compelling images primarily through your skills and decisions at the moment of capture now need to understand that this approach it does requires more patience and that requires more understanding and learning your camera better but the fundamental goal at working that way is to become better to become better photographer and become better photographer not because of the way you are editing become better photographer because of the way you're shooting i remember that when I was starting my photography journey I was like I have the same camera like that guy like the difference in our photographs and why his photographs are better is simply because he knows how to edit better it didn't even occur to me and I didn't even understand it at that point that his photographs are better because he understands light better and because he understands composition better and he's just overall better photographer it's not about the editing it's about your way of capturing an image and that's what you're going to learn to do much better if you try to do everything in camera everyone can capture a good photograph once in a while you can call it luck or a numbers game but what makes the pros stand out is the consistency and the intentionality of their work they just get lucky far more often huh i hope you learned something here and if you have some questions down below in the comments if you like that video be happy enjoy your shooting see you next time