Taking Better Pictures Isn’t Always About Photography

Three years in the past, close to the beginning of the pandemic, my images floor to a halt. There’s nonetheless a spot in my Lightroom catalog the place Could and June 2020 must be. I’m glad that my break was non permanent, but it surely crystalized to me that there’s extra to being a very good photographer than simply urgent the shutter button on the proper time.

Everybody is aware of you could enhance your images by engaged on issues like camera settings, composition, post-processing, and so forth. However there are many paths to taking higher pictures. A few of them are even (seemingly) unrelated to images. At present, I’ll undergo 4 completely different areas that matter if you happen to’re attempting to take higher pictures, beginning with the obvious and dealing my manner down.

1. Taking the Picture

The second that you simply take a photograph, you’re locking in essential choices – particularly, your alternative of camera settings, topic, lighting, composition, and timing. These are a few of the pillars of images that have to be strong in an effort to get good outcomes.

Should you continually remorse your choices in any of those areas, at the very least you recognize what to work on! The ideas later on this article are necessary, however it’s important to solidify the foundations first. And naturally, even one of the best photographers have room to enhance when it comes to composition, timing, and so forth.

I gained’t actually go into this facet of images immediately. I’ve already coated issues like camera settings and composition tons of of instances earlier than, and for this text, I need to broaden the scope a bit extra.

2. Associated to Taking the Picture

This part is the furthest that you simply’ll see most images tutorials go. It’s all of the issues which can be associated to taking the photograph, however not often carried out the second that the shutter button is pressed.

For instance, within the discipline, this contains scouting for topics and visualizing the pictures that you simply’d wish to take. As soon as you come residence, it begins to embody issues like culling your pictures, post-processing one of the best ones, and printing the outcomes.

I’d additionally put follow below this umbrella. It’s necessary to familiarize your self together with your camera tools (you must know how one can use it together with your eyes closed!) and setting the appropriate camera settings shortly. Likewise, spend as a lot time within the discipline as potential. You’ll decide up on subtleties like climate patterns, lighting circumstances, hidden topics, and so on., that you just can’t study from residence.

None of that is as instant as urgent the shutter button, but it surely impacts the standard of your pictures all the identical. Sure, the earlier part – “taking the photograph” – is the nucleus of images. However plenty of different issues are swirling round it.

3. Tangentially Associated to the Picture

I might have known as this part logistics, as a result of it entails some unsexy components of images that, nonetheless, make good images potential within the first place.

One a part of logistics is solely reaching the situation with the appropriate gear on-hand. As a panorama photographer and backpacker, I in all probability spend extra time on this “facet of images” than anything. Earlier than I even step out the door, I’ve found out the climate, weighed my bag, downloaded the related path maps, checked for fuel stations alongside my drive, deliberate my meals, and so forth. That is all very specific to my sort of images (you in all probability don’t must examine for fuel stations if you happen to’re a road photographer in NYC) however each style of images has an equal checklist.

Then there’s the much more boring, but much more important facet of issues: organizing and backing up your arduous drives. Once more, you possibly can argue that it’s circuitously associated to taking pictures – and naturally anybody, photographer or in any other case, ought to again up their laptop. However for photographers particularly, you merely can’t permit your necessary pictures to teeter on the sting of a tough drive malfunction, or to be so disorganized you could’t discover the one you’re on the lookout for.

Lastly, the logistics facet of images contains ensuring you’re “there” when good issues begin occurring. Displaying up early and staying late are under-appreciated expertise in images. I continually see panorama photographers go away earlier than sundown if it’s an overcast day, just for the sky to show stunning half-hour later. The decision of snug pleasures – sleeping in, leaving early for dinner, packing up when it begins to rain – will get me, too. However after I keep it up anyway, I’ve taken a few of my finest pictures.

4. Seemingly Unrelated to Photography

All of the factors above are necessary, however this part is my actual motive for writing this text. The extra time that I spend as a photographer, the extra I understand that my outcomes rely closely upon my life exterior images.

The clearest instance is what I discussed earlier – how I didn’t take any pictures for a few months in early 2020. That was a loopy time for nearly everybody world wide, and I had a lot on my thoughts that images wasn’t a precedence. Even when I had taken the time to tug out my camera and drive to a panorama someplace, I’m certain I wouldn’t have gotten good pictures. My head simply wasn’t in the appropriate place. 

It wasn’t simply psychological – it’s additionally about bodily well being. Within the years since that time frame, I’ve discovered that going to the health club, taking walks, consuming higher, and easily staying in form has had direct and apparent penalties for my panorama images. You wouldn’t suppose there’s a relationship between strolling on the treadmill and taking higher panorama pictures, however there completely is. I discover that I’m extra energized to exit typically, and I can hike for longer distances after I do. It’s even helped my psychological readability. No marvel that quite a lot of skilled chess gamers will go for a run or kick a soccer the day earlier than necessary video games!

Lastly, an important factor to remove from this text is you could get higher at images by getting higher at different hobbies. One factor I’ve actually taken up just lately is cooking, and it’s wild how typically I discover myself making connections between that and taking photos. Abilities like planning forward, consideration to element, time administration, visualization, and extra – after I improved them in a single space of my life, they transferred to images.

That is the facet of taking higher photos that you simply’ll hardly ever hear about. However if you happen to’re not happy together with your pictures, perhaps the realm you have to work on isn’t associated to composition or camera settings in any respect. It may very well be that you have to bounce on a motorcycle or learn a novel as a substitute! Possibly that doesn’t sound prefer it’s related to images, however in the long run, it’s all associated.