I got a Nikon D80 DSLR earlier this year when my bonus came in. I’ve been dabbling with photography ever since, managing to take some good shots but still nowhere near a consistently decent photographer. (Exhibit A: my Flickr stream. Consult it if you think it’ll be helpful.)
Recently I discovered a flaw with the camera, and it ended up being covered by warranty. Good news: free fix. Bad news: no camera for a few weeks.
So I’ve decided to consider this a challenge: how do I become a better photographer when I don’t have the camera? When I get it back, how can I start producing better pictures right away?
I’m open to any and all advice: memorize the manual, browse Flickr for hours upon end, take a class, whatever. But even though I do have an older point-and-shoot in the house, for the purposes of the challenge, assume I won’t pick it up – nor any other camera.
When I was in photo school, I learned more from immersing myself in the works of the greats–really immersing, not just skimming–than from most of the exercises my instructors gave me. Spend some time at the library, among piles of photo books. Sketch the photos to “feel” the composition. Write about the them; describe them in words. This helps you make sure you really notice the details.
Or you could take lots of pretend pictures. Whenever you find yourself wanting to take a picture, take one in your mind. Think about how everything should be ideally composed, where the light is coming from, what you want in and out of focus. The best tip for taking better pictures is to take 10x the pictures you are now and immediately ditch 90% of them. That’s what the pros do.
If you had a light meter, you could go out and compose several images in your mind and then consider what you think the manual shutter speed and f-stop settings would be for the particular scene, then compare this to what a (good) meter would indicate. Do this for objects in motion as well. This is one of the most important aspects of photography for developing your own style, as two different photographers can get entirely different images using the same subject and camera and composition yet using different shutter and f-stop settings.
Also you could go through thousands of magazine photos and, with a sharpie, and reframe the images so that they are tighter yet still acceptable compositions. This is also good for discovering new moods within an existing frame of image.
Also, you can walk around your yard with an empty picture frame and compose shots of everything around you. Composition is every bit as important as lighting to establish mood.
While you are already in your yard, walk around just before a good rain comes upon you, then do the same thing right after it rains. What do you notice that is different about everything around you? Why? Pay very close attention to every color and detail between the two sessions.
There are other things that you can do, but they are more specialized; I’d need to know if you were going to be leaning more toward portraiture work or landscape, indoor or outdoor, etc.
Do you have an inexpensive camera you can use until the good one comes back? Something’s better than nothing, and you can at least concentrate on pure composition. Also, take the same shot at different times of the day to experiment with lighting.
You have the camera I want. I have a Canon Powershot A95 but I’m content with it for now. Looking through your photostream, my favorite pictures of yours are the ones of your child. They are the best to me. There’s a mood to them I like. However this picture would have been aswesome if it was in focus. Did you use a tripod or just hold it in your hands? For pictures like that you really need a tripod or some sort of hard surface.
Anyway, I like lissener’s advice. Looking at other people’s photographs really inspire me. And for a shameless plug, this is my photostream.
Looking at your images, I’d say that you have an eye for color, but I’d work on my compositions a little more. Particularly with a lot of your images, you could have improved them considerably by getting lower. Particularly with the images of the burning vehicle I would be practically laying in the street and composing shots.
The images of the child could also benefit from this. The best pictures of children are nearly always from their perspective. Your best bet is to get low and let them get used to your presence. Let them get bored with you and then they will do all of the cute things you want them to do after they get used to you and your camera in their environment.
Remember to use the space you are given in the viewfinder. there are some images that you have that would have worked much better (IMHO) had they been shot in portrait instead of landscape.
WomanofScornb, that NYC photo was taken a few years ago with my Sony point-and-shoot – entirely handheld. I now have a tripod, but haven’t used it – the warranty repair interrupted experimenting with this. (And the D80 is awesome.)
Euthanasiast, I’m still such a dilettante that I haven’t really explored the camera much beyond automatic settings. With a kid, especially, there are competing desires to take as many pictures as possible, damn the education; and to invest the time necessary to get skillful, rather than lucky. Your suggestions are great for boosting the latter. As for kind of photography – I take lots of portraits of my daughter by necessity (and for fun, of course), but overall I’m (probably) more interested in urban night, light, and architectural photography. My next lenses (working with the kit lens now) are likely to be ones that allow closer close-ups.
Everyone else, this is awesome advice. Thanks – and keep it coming. (And I swear this isn’t just me fishing for Flickr visitors.)
Actually, yes. But I wrote the OP half as real advice for me, and half as a conceptual exercise – how do you become better at something when you’re not, for the moment, able to do it?
Absolutely. And don’t just pay attention to photographs–look at all visual art around you. From cinema to advertisements to paintings. They all are based on concepts of visual composition and, for me, a lot of learning to be a better photographer was to almost osmotically absorb composition through critically looking at visual art of all kinds.
A basic book on composition will always help, so you know how to critically evaluate the visual culture around you.
You might consider studying and practicing drawing modern art.
The point of modern art is to perfect bringing emotions to fore with color choice and how the various blotches and lines flow and are positioned in relation to one another on the canvas (or in the case of sculpture, in the air.)
Grab a copy of Photoshop and learn how to use it to enhance your photo’s color, sharpness, and composition. Take that picture of the red door in your picture pile, and remove the lens distortion so it looks proper.
Also try out some software that lets you stitch together photos into a panorama. It can change your whole outlook on how you might shoot a landscape. Or architecture, for that matter.
