15 Ways to Become a Better Photographer

By Betty Bassett

1. Shoot pictures as often as you can. The more you practice, the more you learn. It's okay to use your cell phone as a camera.

2. Excel at mastering the controls on your camera. To do this you have to read the instruction manual that came with your camera. Then practice memorizing what it means. The technical aspects are often where many photographers fail so take small strides and try to memorize the camera controls a little bit at a time. Keep practicing with a certain function on the camera until you've got it. It takes a little effort and if you can find the patience to explore how things work then you will gain immense confidence from that. Keep some notes on your calibrations and the results that you achieved so that you can remember what's what. It won't seem so overwhelming when you break it down into bit sized pieces. Give yourself permission to have time to negotiate one function of the camera at a time and just manipulate that one aspect until you understand how it changes the results of your picture. Then move on to the next thing. Make sure to keep notes so that you can review your progress and entrench knowledge in your mind. For example, play around with ISO in various locations where lighting is of a different brightness or intensity. Write down the auto camera settings then take pictures going up one notch at a time. Be sure to keep notes as to the setting at each interval so that you can compare it to the end result. You'll find that being patient with yourself and keeping good notes will truly help you become a better photographer.

3. Consider a different context. We see the world from our height and eye level but if that is the way we capture the world then it's pretty boring because that's how everybody else sees it too. To make our picture something to talk about we must always challenge ourselves to capture the mundane from a different viewpoint or angle. You can shoot a picture from your knees or lay your camera on the ground and take the picture from that point of view. You can also get on top of a ladder or climb on a table to get at things from a fresh perspective.

4. Know your light and compensate for your scene to the proper exposure. How would you depict the lighting? Is it flat? Is there a ray of light? How will it affect your subject or composition? Take notes on the metering and exposure settings and see how your picture turns out when you adjust each mode.

5. Play with the focus. Often photographers leave the camera on auto focus mode but that can be annoying when the camera doesn't select the proper thing to focus on. Get to know how to work with various focus controls on your camera and practice manual focusing as well. 

6. Study art composition, color and lighting. What do you like or don't like about a picture? What colors really appeal to you? How could you improve the composition by adding something or taking away?

7. Read. Be engaged in how photographers see the world and work their craft. You may find inspiration.

Documentary films about documentary photographers:

https://youtu.be/y-Rsf5fYQ4I

https://youtu.be/HSD42ecex7w

https://youtu.be/emwd8JyXwI

https://youtu.be/uecTqOVfKkk

8. Be immersive. Make a day of once a week just to be mindful about capturing something. You may experience the world in a fresh light if on Tuesday each week you challenge yourself to capture something in a way that it hasn't been captured before or to compose a picture that marks a milestone for that week, sort of like a timestamp of your life. Maybe on Tuesday you can play with angles and examine how things look afresh from behind the lense of a camera. Cameras limit your field so within that field what is the focal point? What do you want people to see? What feeling do you want people to take away when they see the image that you've captured? Just play. It's okay to fail and come up with a million bad images and just one good one. Nobody knew how to master their craft overnight. It's a process. Just find joy in the thing that you do. And allow yourself to fail. It's how you will improve. Learning from mistakes is what makes for a better photographer.

9. Learn the rule of thirds and other composition rules. Then you can decide to follow them or break them.

10. Find the symmetry. The mind likes balance and equates that to beauty. Find where you can create symmetry in your composition and you'll have a fine picture.

11. Pay attention to the background and edges. Does your subject get lost in the picture? Is your picture too noisy? What do you want others to see? You can create a focal point by making a color pop or putting something unexpected in a pattern of lines or curves.

12. Evaluate the scene. What narration is your picture telling? Are you going for surrealism or funk? Can you isolate your subject from the background by adjusting the depth of field? How can you control the background so that it is not convoluted?  

13. Consider light. Light is the controlling factor when it comes to photography. Play with it. What happens when you put a subject with the light directly behind her or directly facing her? Keep notes on everything so that you can learn from all of your experiments. How do things look in direct sunlight or in artificial light? How do things look in the shadow or with reflected light? You are a scientist. This is your science experiment.

14. Embrace shadow because shadow gives us a sense of depth. Is the shadow harsh or is it soft? How does it affect the thing that you are trying to capture?

15. What needs documentation? Life is fast. You blink an eye and it's next year already. How do you want to capture a moment? What do you want to feel when you see that picture ten years from now? Life is beautiful so capture that. You see things from your perspective according to your values. Noone else will catch things quite at that angle or appreciate an object in that light. You are unique. What you see is unique. The way you see it is unique. What you define as beautiful is unique so play around with it. Find your style. Convey what you see. Help others to find something that they've missed. You are an artist behind the lense of that camera. Tell your story.

Reference:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/amp/photography/tips-and-solutions/44-tips-improve-your-photography