What three ideas, concepts, or things have helped improve your photography the most?

[Jay Decker]

Here's my list:

1. Identify the subject and fill the frame with that subject. When it doubt, I move closer and usually find the subject there.

2. Learning about light, how to read light, and how to light a subject. I can now better predict what lighting will give me a photograph I am looking for and anticipate where and when I can find that lighting, which also results in a higher success rate in the same or less time.

3. Loosing the fear to engage the people I photograph on an intimate level and learning to verbally take them to the emotional place and look I want to capture.

What is on your list? Repeats, variations, and refinements items by others are welcome. Who knows, you might even learn something new from someone else or learn to think about an aspect in a different and helpful way.

 

[fotomeow]

Meat Robot,
1. shoot whatever the h*ll you want & dont second-guess yourself: dont let the idea that most things have already been photographed hinder you from following your own passion and personal experience/vision.
2. the Zone system, including variations in lighting and how to optimize the zones you want to highlight.
3. KISS

 

[noimmunity]

1. Practice: Familiarizing myself with the operation of a specific camera/lens so that it becomes second-nature.

2. Exposure: Pictures are not something you take, they are something to which you give. You give imagination and relationship, and the best word for that is exposure.

3. Looking.

 

[airfrogusmc]

1. Try to use all the elements in the frame to help support the visual statement. Not necessarily cropping tight for the visually impaired. A great photographer once told me everything in the frame is helping your photograph and if it's not helping it then it's hurting it.

2. Learn to see light. Really see it.

3. Make sure the processing also fits with the visual statement.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

1. Switching from film SLR to digital DSLR and using M mode for everything for several months. It helped me to understand the exposure. Film and books were useless for me.
I only get it after 10K pictures taken and reviewed on camera screen 🙂

2. Switching from DLSR to b/w film RFs for street photography, where 24 frames are plenty and shooting in all manual is the fastest and most convenient way.

 

[Keith]

I'm still searching for them ... but the journey during this search is what really helps me I find because lack of success itself becomes the driving force to improve and grow.

 

[stuart_115]

1 - Rule of thirds. It's a basic one I know, but once you know it composition gets easier. Generally a picture stand or falls with the composition.

2 - Shooting in aperture priority mode gives me the most control to get the result I want. Large apertures (f1/1.4 - f/2) gives me separation. A little bit more gives me sharpness on the subject (f/2.8 - f/5.6). For landscapes I go to f/8 or f/11.

3 - Going back to film has learned to capture the right moment with fewer shots. It also learned me that light leaks are not always bad and that Kodak Portra rocks.

 

[Bob Michaels]

1) accept that lenses, cameras, film, digital and everything else equipment oriented has almost nothing to do with the quality of your photos. Photographers make meaningful photos, not equipment.

2) accept that your subject is more important than your photography. When you put your photography as the primary focus, you become destined to be on a path to mediocrity.

3) have a solid idea of what message you want your photo to communicate. Critically review what you have done previously to see how it accomplished your objective of the message you desired to communicate.

 

[John E Earley]

1. Photography is about the light. It's also about the quality or absence of light.

2. Those things that I don't need to include in my photo and still be able to tell what I want are just as important as what I do want to include.

3. Sometimes it is more important to live life than it is to record it.

 

[daveleo]

1. Take comments, advice, criticisms, judgements with a grain of salt and a glass of water. Know your critics. Look at their work.

2. Aside from work and assignments, make pictures that *you* love. Don't make pictures to cultivate adoring fans.

3. Try to understand why you like the images that you like, and why you don't like the others. Spend a lot of time studying this.

 

[Bill Clark]

1. I was fortunate to meet a gent who was my coach and mentor, helping me along with my photographic journey.

2. A patient and very understanding wife.

3. Reviews made, either verbal and/or a written report of my work, that stated the positives and one or two recommendations on how to do better the next time.

 

[noisycheese]

1: Learning to use a 28mm lens correctly.
2: Learning to trust my photographic instincts.
3: Learning to overcome adversity with relentless persistence.

 

[RichC]

1. Learning that a camera has only two controls worth caring about (shutter speed and aperture). Three (ISO) for digital. And knowing how to use these.

2. Learning to trust my photographic instincts (TM Noisycheese).

3. Learning to photograph ideas only - and never, ever things.

 

[tstermitz]

1. The visual world is random and disorganized. This entropy can be tamed using the rules of Formal Composition organize. How the Diagonal & Reciprocal lines organize a picture infinitely better than the rule of thirds.

2. North light and the way shadows play across a face.

3. The psychological importance of Human elements in the image, as well as gesture.

 

[Richard G]

1. The idea of taking a camera with me every day.
2. The revelation that there are great non-Leica lenses, which led me to the Zeiss C Sonnar which transformed my understanding of lenses; and the Zeiss f4.5 21 Biogon which I needed and could afford.
3. The idea that a good photograph is about emotion.

Two of these I learnt on RFF.

 

[Harry S.]

1. Use one camera so often you can get the job done without thought, but care less about it to the point you forget how to use certain functions.

It occurred to me the other day I didn't remember what ISO my M240 was set at or if it was set to auto ISO. I didn't even bother looking or fiddling and the pictures still came out fine.

2. Delete flickr and tumblr and rarely upload pictures on the internet. Gone is pursuit of likes and notes, and the short-lived ego-stroke. Stop trying to measure up to other photographers.

4. Or #3 for those who are counting. Don't shoot outside in the middle of the day even if you are extremely inspired. Dull light kills even the best composition I can come up with.

 

[DominikDUK]

1) You only need to please yourself
2) Look at other art forms than photography (Renaissance and Baroque artists knew more about light than 99.9% of all photographers)
3) Develop your vision

 

[mfogiel]

Editing photos, printing them, looking at prints and repeating the process.

 

[emraphoto]

Care and respect for the people brave enough to share their story.

Humility

Determination

 

[Brian Atherton]

1. Observing what I’m seeing. Really observing.
2. Using a manual camera, thereby gaining a proper, intuitive, second-nature understanding of shutter speeds and aperture and their effect on an image.
3. Learning to understand and judge light without the use of a meter.
4. Sticking to one or two lenses until I was comfortable I could frame a shot by instinct.
5. Finding a decent camera I was in tune with, one that didn’t get in my way of working. Getting to know its workings inside out.
6. Remembering: photography ain’t all about the latest, bestest, superduperest gear… it’s about me and my vision.
7. Practicing.
8. Practicing.
9. Practicing.