The thing about starting photography is that there's so many things to learn, there's so many things to do, there's so many resources to read, there's so many people screaming their opinions out on the internet everywhere. It can be really confusing. So I'm here to answer that. This video is going to be the answer to a whole bunch of different questions I get from people that are in the first couple of years of photography.
It's not specifically for people who are very green to photography as in you know the first couple of weeks or first couple of months but these tips are definitely something that you can grow into. So in this video I'll lay down about 20 foundational tips and the basics of what you should be learning. I'll give you just enough detail to cover the points and then if you want to go deeper into these points then you know what to to Google Next. All right, let's jump in and let's start with the more conceptual art-based things first. Photography is 70% what's in the photo, 20% how you take the photo, and 10% how you edit it.
Okay, sure, you can play around with these values just a little bit, but I always get asked, you know, where is a good place to focus my energy on, you know, learning because there's just so many things to learn. And so this particular breakdown of photography accentuates the fact that that having good foundations, having a very strong initial image is a great place to start. It's not about gear, it's not about the edit. Well, it is a little bit, but the majority of it is starting with a very good foundational photo and having the basics right first. From there, then you can then craft it, understand how you want to take that photo, and then edit it to just give it those final touches.
There's a saying that is A little bit vulgar in the Australian lexicon and that is you can't polish a turd which you know you can sprinkle glitter all over you know a piece of poop if you want but it's still at the end of the day a piece of poop. So that's kind of what the essence is of this particular point. You want to make sure that your foundational image first and foremost is as good as it can be.
So when you're out there in the field look for things like subject and layout and composition and color and space and lighting. These things are far more important than how you take a photo or what your eventual edit looks like in Lightroom. The real secret to getting better at photography is vision.
And here is a breakdown of what vision actually means in terms of a photography sense. But the essence of it is that visual language, doesn't matter what medium you're using, uses the idea of what's in here. your vision, your mind, your imagination and that is the defining factor between whether a photographer is good or not. Again, similar to the last point it's not about the gear, it's not about the edit, it's about how the photographer chooses to see the world and how they decide to express their vision. Understand what good looks like as fast as you can.
This is also known as good taste. What you need to do is expose yourself to a lot of good photography and start to subconsciously immerse yourself in that world so that you understand what good photography looks like so that you understand what that level is and then you can take your own work and emotionally detach yourself from it and compare yourself with how this standard is you know are you up to the standard of what professional photographers do or are you up to the standard of you know an amateur or a beginner like where are you in that range so in psychology there's this thing called the dunning-kruger effect which is basically in this context what will happen is in your first say one to two years of you doing photography you'll think that your work is the best thing since sliced bread you'll be totally enamored and totally in love with your work and that's totally fine but as you get more exposed into what good looks like as you get more into the industry into the community into the hobby you'll find that your work maybe isn't as good as you once thought it was and from there once you know even more and you've practiced even more it's only then that your your skill level starts to match the level of professional of the market of you know the high level that you want to hit that that watermark right and That's totally fine. That's the way the cookie crumbles. That is the process that most people go through.
Just make sure that throughout that entire journey, throughout that entire U-shaped journey, that you are objectively trying to remove your emotions out of your images and that makes you a lot more objectively able to handle whatever you're creating and contrasting that with everyone else's. Look to other forms of visual art for inspiration. In addition to absorbing as much photography work as you can, also consider different visual mediums like painting, movies, you know video, illustration, architecture, anything you you can get your hands on. Find out what you gravitate towards what you like what your interests are because your uniqueness is the combination of your interests and the earlier you can start to fuse these things into your work the more time you will give yourself to you know become a little bit more unique a little bit more different in your approach to your photography than everyone else.
Style isn't something you should really worry about at the beginning. Don't worry too much about having a style at the beginning. Your style at the beginning is everything and it's supposed to be like that. If you want a full deep dive into what style in photography specifically means, check out my video on that right here or in the link in the description below.
Okay, let's talk about some tips on what I call the craft of photography, the execution of photography, the exposure triangle. Okay, let's bring this back to basics because so many people skip over this and aren't as good at this as they could be. So the exposure triangle is an easy way to picture the three things, the three elements that dictate the exposure of your overall picture. They are shutter speed, aperture and ISO.
What you want is to be so good at the exposure triangle that you can simply just flick a couple of dials and know that one stop here, one stop there will give you the exposure that you're looking for. because sometimes depending on the style of photography you're doing, split seconds matter. So get really really good at it. So good that you don't even need to look at your camera. Now the priority of how you should be approaching this exposure triangle goes shutter speed first, aperture and then ISO in order of importance.
And because shutter speed is so important I made an entire video on how to get sharp shots every single time with a very prominent focus on shutter speed and you can find that here or in the description box. Photography rules are a way to think about them rephrase the idea of photography rules with visual patterns so things like the rule of thirds symmetry leading lines frames a whole bunch of that stuff right because these visual patterns have certain implicit meaning in their creation and when you learn them and then when you break them sometimes when they're broken they no longer have the original meaning that they once had. And that's important to understand.
And the game is to amass as many of these visual patterns as possible to deeply understand them, why they were created, why they are effective, so that in the field you can then use them and combine them together to create far more interesting and thoughtful compositions while you're out in the field. Don't get lost in the whole like learn photography rules so that you can break them. It's bullshit. That's just lazy teaching.
Show me your first 100,000 shots. Photography is one of those things that seems very easy on the surface, seems very easy to just quickly take a snapshot and then fall in love with it and call it good, right? But to be at a professional level of photography takes a lot of time, takes a lot of grit.
It takes many, many years to be both proficient at photography and to develop a style at the same time. So the point here is that, you know, most people's first couple of years of their entire catalog of shooting the photos aren't that good to be honest and that's totally fine you're learning so the point here is that it does take a long time so you do need to take a lot of shots make a lot of mistakes and learn from all of them break down skills and then create a habit to work on them there are so many skills to learn when it comes to photography every single category of photography has its own subset of skills to learn. And so a great approach might be to Dive into a particular category you want to learn, and then understand the entire skill set that you need to learn. Break down each skill that you need to learn, pick one, and then every single week, work on that every single day, the same skill for the entire week.
And keep doing that until you just master the entire category of photography. Now, if you want a habit-based approach to transforming your photography, then check out my video here or in the description box. Always consider the light.
High noon is a visual pattern. And if you don't understand what that sentence means, then shoot, maybe an hour before or after sunset or sunrise in order to get the best light every single time. But your objective as a photographer is to essentially capture light and it is in this understanding of how the light changes whether it goes soft, whether it's hard, whether it's colored, whether it's flat, what these differences are and how you can best apply the correct visual patterns to the quality of light. That is In essence what you're doing as a photographer you are capturing light.
Everything in your photo is deliberate. As a photographer it's your responsibility to make sure that every single thing in the composition has a purpose. So everything in the background, all the horizons and whether they're level, your bokeh, that random dude in the background, every single little element in your composition needs to earn its place. Because they should all be working harmoniously together to tell a particular story, right?
Having an element that doesn't belong sometimes can ruin an entire image and you might be so enamored with the subject in and of itself that, you know, you miss out on the auxiliary things that distract from the overall compositions. To make sure that every single thing that you put into your images has a purpose and a place. Okay, drill this into your mind.
Every single photo needs a subject, every single one. You need to be able to communicate to the viewer exactly what is the purpose of that image and you do that through subject. Your subject needs to be the highest level in terms of visual hierarchy of importance in your composition. It is you as a photographer telling the viewer, hey look at this thing And then look at this thing and see how these two things, you know, have an interplay with one another.
Is there a relationship here? Is there a story here? This is the essence, the art of visual communication. You as the photographer, including elements of importance and signifying them to the viewer so that they can then interpret your image in a particular way. And so it's very, very important.
Make sure that every single image you have has a strong subject. to look at move move move and experiment tripods are meant to stay in the same place but doesn't mean that you should if you're looking to really expedite your process and your growth as a photographer then i would highly recommend that you move around a lot and experiment a lot with a different bunch of different compositions and shoot just a lot and make a lot of mistakes Because it is in this experimentation that you start to understand what you like, what you don't like, what is good, what is not, what is successful and what is not. And you start to develop a visual lexicon of visual language. And this is the essence of proficiency, the essence of style.
And especially now in the digital world, like digital images don't cost anything. And so we can just hold on to the shutter if we want to and take hundreds of images in the same scene with little detriment and so why not? An image isn't finished until it's edited especially if you're shooting in raw which you should be doing for every single image. There is this kind of common misconception that a unedited image is somehow more pure I don't know how in some way right but this fact is just totally not true for a whole host of technical reasons that you know is out of scope for this particular video.
But the point here is that shooting in raw and then not editing your image is kind of like eating a salad without dressing or without any extra bits on it. It is plain and it is raw. So make sure that you learn post-processing in order to put the final touches on your image because they all need that kind of love.
So if you want a video about learning how to use Lightroom and my own Step by step. top to bottom process on how I edit images in Lightroom. You can check out my video on that right here or in the description box. Photo walk with other photographers and review.
Okay, so a little bit of a growth hack is to go out with other photographers to the same location and then review all of their images and compare them to your own. And what you'll find is how they decided to approach the same scene and the same location that you did. And you'll start to see the gaps in your own approach and your own methodologies and so that you can fix them and you know be more aware of them for the next time you go out into the field. Doing this with a whole bunch of new people every single time really accelerates your growth and So I highly recommend that you approach it in this way. Some things on auto are totally fine.
So there are some like full-on manual Nazis out there that say manual, manual, manual, manual, every single thing that you do in the camera. Now, don't be intimidated by these people. For me personally, even as a professional photographer, I use auto white balance and auto ISO almost exclusively all the time, right? So it's totally fine, especially if you shoot in raw.
Now, if you're going to use a semi-automatic method of shooting like aperture priority or shutter priority, I would highly suggest you use shutter priority. For me personally, I do use manual, but I use auto ISO. So take that as you will. Plan and scout.
Not all photography is serendipitous and spontaneous. A little bit of planning, a little bit of forethought can go a very, very long way in your overall success for a particular shoot. And using apps like Google Earth or PhotoPills can actually tell you the sun's location anywhere in the world at any time.
And you can get really, really good at this, right? You can get really good to the point where you can imagine an entire composition even before you've reached there so that when you eventually do get there, you have a whole bunch of time saved so that you can experiment and explore the area even further. Okay, finally, let's talk about a few gear related things.
Lenses over bodies. Generally as a good guide, spend your money on lenses more often than bodies because lenses tend to have more benefits, more upside when you're spending a little bit more money on them rather than on the bodies. Oftentimes you'll get more performance gains in terms of sharpness and image quality in this way and the lenses are oftentimes more approachable in terms of price too.
So before you get into this Find a mount that you like for a particular given camera brand and stick to that brand and stick to that mount for a very very long time so that you can start to build a collection of good lenses. Learn specific gear skills. There are so many bits of gear to learn and they all have their own specific domain knowledge to them. So say for example if you are learning landscapes then you will probably need to learn how to use a tripod properly and all of the little things that are associated with that. If you're doing portraiture, then you probably need to know how to use a flash.
If you're learning street photography, then you probably don't need to learn either of those things so you know where to spend your time learning. Every category of photography has its own gear and its own techniques. So make sure that you're finding the time to understand which gear is relevant to you depending on the category of photography you're using and find out the techniques and the skills you need to learn based on those.
Learn the focal lengths. Lastly, different focal lengths are good for different things and have different effects on your overall compositions in terms of compression, depth of field, a whole bunch of different stuff. For example, if you use a 85mm focal length, then that's generally pretty flattering on the face and you'll see a lot of portrait photographers use that particular lens. Or if you're using a 200mm lens, then you'll find that the compression in the overall composition will change depending on the depth of things you have in your composition as well and there is a distinct relationship with that.
So whether it's 16, 24, 35, 50, 85, 105, 200, whatever it is, pick a particular focal length and learn its strengths, its weaknesses, its quirks and then build up your knowledge of all all of those different lenses over time. Alright that's it for this video that was 20 tips for really good foundations for the rest of your photography learning journey. I hope you enjoyed this video hit that like button subscribe and all that good stuff. If you want to join the community check me out on Instagram, on Patreon and on Discord. I'll see you in the next video but until then get out there and make something that matters.
Peace!