Improving your photography involves understanding the nuances of composition, lighting, subject matter, and timing. These elements work together to create compelling images. Nigel Danson shares insights from his experience of shooting over 250,000 photos and reflects on the journey from his early, less successful attempts to his current expertise.
Coming to you from Nigel Danson, this informative video highlights key lessons learned over years of photography. Danson emphasizes the importance of four essential components: light, composition, subject, and timing. He shares examples from his earlier work, where he struggled with these aspects, and contrasts them with more recent successful images. This video is valuable because it breaks down these elements and shows how mastering them can elevate your photography.
One crucial aspect discussed is light. Danson recalls his early days in Iceland, where he often shot in suboptimal lighting conditions. Understanding how to use light effectively, whether it’s the soft glow of a sunset or the dramatic shadows of a stormy sky, can transform an ordinary photo into something extraordinary. He illustrates this with examples where good light was present, but his early compositions failed to capitalize on it. Over time, he learned to anticipate and utilize light to enhance his subjects.
Composition is another key area Danson explores. He talks about the mistakes he made by not understanding how to place elements within the frame. For instance, including too much irrelevant foreground or background can distract from the main subject. By focusing on simplifying the scene and using elements like leading lines, balance, and symmetry, he improved his compositions significantly. His examples show the difference between a cluttered, unfocused image and a well-composed, striking photograph.
Danson also discusses the importance of understanding your camera. Knowing how to use your camera intuitively allows you to focus on creativity rather than technical details. He suggests practicing in various settings until adjusting your camera’s settings becomes second nature. This way, you won't miss crucial moments while fiddling with controls.
The concept of timing is crucial for capturing dynamic scenes. Whether it's waiting for the perfect wave or the right moment of light, timing can make or break a photo. Danson shares how patience and anticipation are essential skills. His experiences show that sometimes, you need to take numerous shots to get that one perfect image, especially in changing conditions.
Another valuable tip Danson shares is the advantage of using a long lens. While wide angle lenses are popular in landscape photography, they can be challenging to compose with. Long lenses allow for greater control over what is included in the frame, making it easier to isolate subjects and create impactful images. He provides examples of how using a long lens helped him capture detailed, intimate scenes that would have been lost with a wider angle.
Danson also emphasizes the importance of simplicity. The best photos often have a clean, uncluttered composition that draws the viewer’s attention to the main subject. He illustrates this with examples where simplicity in color, pattern, and form creates powerful, memorable images. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Danson.
Nice intro to Nigels’ video. I just wanted to mention Henri Cartier-Bresson said ” Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.” This was referring to film, around 278 36exp. rolls, just at an eyeball estimable I’d say the 250,000 is an appropriate estimate in how people shoot digital these days.
Photography is not really complicated, at least in the digital era. Things like camera settings, composition, and understanding how light impacts the image can be learned quickly if a person works at it, looks at other photographer's work, and seeks feedback on their own images. I made a few really good images the first year or two of owning a camera, which was about 20 years ago.
It took a lot longer though to fully appreciate the correlation between the time devoted to photography and the quantity of good pictures that I was making. I recall sitting at home reading the newspaper one cold bleak winter morning back around 2015, and coming to the harsh realization that great pictures don't come knocking on my door. Speaking to this author's point that it's important to "get out and shoot" was a cold slap of reality in the face for me. But I was already at about the 10 year mark so I had to decide whether I was content with making a few decent amateurish photos a year, or driving myself harder to become a more consistent photographer. I chose the later.
The other thing that tends to happen over a couple decades is that our style and tastes change. For the first ten years or so, I sought out super-saturated colorful landscape images. Remember the first response to HDR? Looks terrible looking back, but at the time it was all the rage of landscape photographers. At the midpoint of my photo journey, a light switch went off in my head and black and white captured my fancy. At this point it's about the only genre which makes my heart beat faster. I can't explain it; it just happened. I would in no sense of the word call myself a portrait photographer, but I've begun seeing portraits in a new light. A book that's recently captured my imagination is a book of Edward Steichen's fashion photography in the 1920-30s. I would never in a million years guessed that I'd be captivated by it when I started photography back in 2004. The other major change in my "seeing" over the years was from the grand landscape to a more detailed close-up view of nature. It was about 15 years before I bought a macro lens, but at this point can't imagine living without one.
I'm looking forward to what the next 20 years will bring for my photography. Well... not too anxious to get there, as I'm about to hit the 70 year mark, and might just be lucky to be alive in 20 years. But so much in photography happens unexpectedly, that the kinds of images that I enjoy making today could very well be replaced by something different tomorrow. So I guess what I've learned in the last 20 years is that I have no idea what I'm going to learn next.
All of the ideas for a capture are great and repeated in many videos and books! But looking at old, long time ago, images is mostly about Software at the time and the machine you run it on as well as the monitor. Images change through time as to what you see on a monitor in the digital age where as in film days it was what was printed at processing store or your darkroom.
Like today we now have noise reduction SW and some years ago the ability to get rid of sensor dust on an image where most just captured at f/4 or f/8 where dust was never seen and sensor rarely needed to be cleaned, a chore and scary thing most times.
I like going back in time to some of my old images with different cameras and one thing I found was the lack of noise in images with my old Canon T2i and the sharpness of my Vivitar 8300 as well as my Fujifilm WP Z, yes still use like having a cell phone handy.
If you have noticed lately they finally come out with monitors and laptops screen for Photographers as well as machines that have 32G of memory as a norm vs 8 or 16 like we had to find and pay for gaming rigs just get some extra juice out of one. Today you can find a computer for less with what we looked for some years ago, Every two or three years $1500 or so was the norm for replacement to a higher abilities that came along. Maybe six or seven years ago we were able calibrate a monitor as well use a device to calibrate the cameras WB on site. SW that started to make/get keep lens corrections with lenses that finally were chipped to get METADATA, Remember writing shot info down in a note book?
Ever wounder why we go for more and more megapixels when looking back we could a print the size of a poster with the old point and shoot and even today we share mainly on sites that we use very small images.
Ever look at the old panorama rigs for our old film and heavy DSLR's that cost way up there and today the best is just over $100 and comes with a stepper on it's base, my first A7s and A7R2 had a panorama selection on the dial.
I apologize for the rambling but those images you once thought were bad have you ever gone back to reedit with you new machine and monitor, you may get hooked. One day things well be even better and you will tell your stories of the past.
#4 Why do a panorama when a 12mm does it in one image (not till 2017 did you have that choice) as a full image not a 16x9 elongated.