100 Things I have Learned About Photography
Since I found photography two and a half years ago, I have learned different things, which I would like to share with you today. These lessons have made me richer and I hope that you will find them refreshing and inspiring on your journey with the camera, too.
1. Never do photography to become a rock-star.
2. Enjoy what you are shooting.
3. Prepare well for your shooting, realizing that your battery isn’t charge when you’re setting up for that sunrise shoot is too late!
4. Always take one warm garment more than you actually need with you.
5. Pay attention to your thoughts and emotions while you are shooting.
6. Set goals you can achieve.
7. Write tips about photography, because writing is also learning.
8. Never go shooting without a tripod.
9. Be pleased with the little prosperities
10. Build relationships with potential photo friends.
11. Watch the place you want to shoot first with your heart then with the camera.
12. Always stay calm.
13. Know that you tend to overestimate yourself.
14. Perspective is the killer.
15. Dedicate yourself to photography, but never browbeat yourself too much.
16. Take part in a photography community.
17. Keep your camera clean.
18. Never compare yourself to others in a better or worse context.
19. Find your own style of photography.
20. Try to compose more and to hit the shutter less.
21. Seek out and learn to accept critique on your images.
22. Do something different to recover creativity.
23. Get inspiration from the work of other photographers.
24. Criticize honestly but respectfully.
25. Get feedback from your woman.
26. Don’t copy other photographer’s style.
27. Be bold.
28. Take care of the golden ratio.
29. 10mm rocks.
30. Take self-portraits.
31. Read books about photography.
32. To give a landscape-photograph the extra boost, integrate a person. (maybe yourself)
33. Every shooting situation is different than you expect.
34. Pay attention to s-curves and lines.
35. Always shoot in RAW.
36. Keep your sensor clean, so you can save some work cleaning your image in post production.
37. Discover the things you think are beautiful.
38. It takes time to become a good photographer.
39. The best equipment is that what you have now.
40. You can’t take photographs of everything.
41. Break the rules of photography knowingly, but not your camera ;)
42. Pay attention to the different way that light falls on different parts of your scene.
43. The eye moves to the point of contrast
44. Clouds increase the atmosphere of a landscape.
45. Start a photo blog.
46. Accept praise and say “thank you”.
47. ‘Nice Shot’ is not a very useful comment to write.
48. ‘Amazing!’ isn’t useful either. Try to describe specifically what you like or don’t like about an image.
49. You are not your camera.
50. Ask a question at the end of your comment on a photo to get a ping-pong conversation with the photographer.
51. Do a review of your archives on a regular basis, the longer you photograph – the more diamonds are hidden there.
52. Always clarify what the eye catcher (focal point) will be in your image.
53. No image is better than a bad one.
54. Everyone has to start little.
55. Your opinion about photography is important!
56. Leave a funny but thoughtful comment.
57. Speak about your experiences with your photo friends.
58. Limit your photograph to the substance.
59. Participate in Photo contests.
60. Post processing = Optimizing your image to the best result.
61. Shoot exposure latitudes as often as possible.
62. Use photo matrix as seldom as possible, HDR’s always have a synthetic flavor.
63. Always remember what brought you to photography.
64. Never shoot a person who doesn’t want to be photographed.
65. Always turn around, sometimes the better image is behind you.
66. It’s who’s behind the camera, not the camera.
67. Mistakes are allowed the more mistakes you make, the more you learn!
68. If you have an idea and immediately you think : No, this is not going to work – Do it anyway. When in doubt – always shoot.
69. Understand and look to your histogram while shooting. It delivers very important information about your image.
70. Know your camera, because searching the menu button in the night is time you don’t want to waste.
71. Shoot as often as possible.
72. Believe in yourself.
73. Do not be afraid of getting dirty.
74. Pay attention to quality in your image.
75. Your photographs are a personal map of your psyche.
76. Re-check your ISO-Settings. It’s wakeful to detect the wrong settings on your screen.
77. Be thankful for long and thoughtful comments on your images.
78. Never trust your LCD. Normally it is brighter and sharper as the original image.
79. Provide for enough disc space, because it’s cheap and you will need it.
80. Learn to enjoy beautiful moments when you don’t have a camera with you.
81. Always arrive at least half an hour earlier before sunrise / sundown, composing in a hurry is a bad thing.
82. Try to amplify your mental and physical limits. Takes some extra shots when you think “it’s enough.”
83. Pay attention to structures in the sky and wait until they fit into structures in the foreground.
84. Visit the same place as often as possible. Light never shows the same mountain.
85. Print your images in big size. You will love it.
86. Calibrate your monitor. Working with a monitor that is not accurate is like being together with someone you can’t trust. It always ends badly.
87. Don’t think about what others may say about your image. If you like it, it’s worth publishing.
88. Never address reproaches to yourself. Learn from your mistakes and look forward, not backward.
89. Fight your laziness! Creativity comes after discipline.
90. Ask yourself: What do you want to express in your images?
91. Always try to think outside the box, collect new ideas about photographs you could do and ask yourself : Why not?
92. Search for a mentor.
93. Photography is never a waste of time.
94. Every community has it’s downsides. Don’t leave it out of an emotional response.
95. There will always be people who will not like what you are doing.
96. Henri Cartier-Bresson was right when he said that “Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.”
97. A better camera doesn’t guarantee better images.
98. Always have printing in mind when you post process your images.
99. Photography is fair : You gain publicity with the quality of your images. Unless the images are stolen, there is no way of cheating yourself higher.
100. Write a 100 things list.
Do you have learned something that I didn’t mention? I would be glad if you let me know it as a comment, so I can learn from you !
