Learning a new skill often involves key moments that accelerate your progress. This is especially true in photography, where certain realizations can significantly improve your technique. Here are three crucial tips that can boost your photography skills.
Coming to you from Pay Kay, this engaging video offers valuable insights for anyone looking to enhance their photography. The first tip focuses on intentionality. Kay emphasizes that you are responsible for everything in your frame. This means every distracting element, like a random pole or a piece of trash, is something you can control. By shifting your composition slightly or adjusting your angle, you can eliminate these distractions and improve your images. This idea is a reminder of the control you have as a photographer.
The second tip is about the learning cycle. Kay explains that reviewing your work is just as important as shooting. After a shoot, instead of jumping straight into editing, take time to review all your images. Identify what worked and what didn’t. This process helps you understand your mistakes and successes, allowing you to improve on future shoots. This cyclical process of doing and reviewing builds your skills over time, making you a more confident and capable photographer.
Kay also shares personal examples to illustrate these tips. He discusses a series of images shot at the top of Mount Fuji, demonstrating how intentional composition can create vastly different images from the same location. In another example, he critiques an early photo he took in Japan, pointing out mistakes like a crooked horizon and distracting elements. These examples show how deliberate changes can significantly enhance your photos. That's just the start, so check out the video above for the full rundown from Kay.
I've noticed many of my horizon lines are off by about 1-2 degrees and always sloping downward to the right. I wonder if other photographers also have this natural tendency and why over almost 20 years of shooting, I still default to this slight error when I shoot handheld?