13 More Ways to Become a Better Photographer

By Betty Bassett

1. Know your lenses. Telephoto lenses compress and wide-angle lenses distort. It is important to know the strengths and weaknesses of your camera lense.

2. Know your surroundings. Develop your situational awareness. Reimagine what is before you through a viewfinder. The camera does not have as wide a scope as your eye so it forces your picture to be only that which you can see through viewfinder.

If you are standing in the middle of a busy street, squat down and hold your camera up then look through the lense. The items that become relevant will announce themselves to you. If not, then go low or go high. Place your camera on the ground and change your frame of reference. Maybe you can get to someone's balcony to look down on the crowd. How best can you convey the story? What story will your picture tell? When you zoom in does it tell a different story? Even the grittiest or most  barren scene can illicit emotion.

3. Be mindful of light.  What is the time of day?   What is the season of the year? How do you capture a windy day?  What if you had a backdrop of cloud? How will raindrops change what see as you take a walk through the woods? As water glisten on leaves and flower petals they convey themselves in a different point of view.

4. Your camera is a powerful tool for change so put it to work thematically in a coherent project. It could be 24 hours in the life of your daughter. What does she look like in her bedroom asleep? What are the things in her room that is important to her? What does morning hair look like? Breakfast. Playing outside. Watching tv. Playing on her cell phone. Getting ready for school. Studying. Doing household chores. Participating in sports. Hanging with her friends. Setting the table. Cooking. Chilling with the family dog. Or, it could be a week in the life of your husband, or gay pride or pollution or climate change. I don't know but your pictures can make a statement not by having that one perfect shot but by conveying things over time, seeing them in flux, seeing them alone.  Stick with a single theme and let that story unfold.

5. When you get behind the camera, it's fun! Life conveys itself differently. Patterns arise. Abstractions take hold. The challenge is to find it. Should you go big or go small? Forest or tree? How can you play with light and shadow? Not everything lends itself to abstractions, but challenge yourself to find the ways that things common in the visual field can lend itself to be seen in a different way. That is the way that you think like an artist.

6. Do you think that you can make ugly, pretty? The camera sees things differently than your eye sees things. The camera pronounces and exaggerates that line or curve. When it does then the ways that your subject is perceived is shifted.  You might think you know something but your camera will know the same thing differently. Let your camera surprise you.  

7. Sometimes it takes a hundred shots to have one good image. You are allowed to be ruthless and discard the images that aren't up to snuff.

8. Find your niche and develop your unique style. Do you just love to take pictures of buildings or are you fascinated with macro photography and the lives of bugs? See what other photographers are doing with various genres and copy their work. Keep on copying until you develop your own voice.

9. If someone likes your photography and asks you what kind of camera you have then it's like asking what kind of pencil you use when you write a good story. Regardless of your gear it going to take practice. Put time into it. The creation of beauty is more about the concept of the artist than the tool that he uses.

10. Become inspired by scrutinizing art, sculpture, and architure, gardens, pane glass windows, jewelry, fashion, purses, accessories, furniture and  interior design. What makes something artistic? How does it make you feel? Why is it pretty? Consider going into art stores and museums and learning art history. How does the size or scope of a piece of art make you feel? How does the artist use color, light, line, shadow, curves? Is the image a pass or a fail to you? Why? When you answer these questions then you become a better photographer because you have a better understanding as to what others see as art. You develop a sense of the things you find beautiful.  

11. As a photographer remember to breathe. Your life is not just about documentation. It's about finding joy, so live the moment. Don't let the delight pass you by. Be present. Experience the moment. 

12. Manipulate the environment to frame that shot. If the table looks empty, put a hat on it. Push the table to the window so you can get good lighting. Put the hat to edge so that you can capture that perfect shadow. Place a cushion on the living room sofa to make the color pop. You are the artist.  Is it too much or too little? Play around with things. Experiment.  See how it turns out.

13. Photography is a journey. It's about engaging your mind to see things within constrictions and working with that limitation. Humans are bored, unless they are on a creative venture, unless they have something to do. Let photography capture your engagement. It's better than doodling.

Reference:

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