Well, here we are into a new year. Like you, I always have a string of resolutions I want to adhere to. Like you, some resolutions fall by the wayside while others stick. If you resolve to enjoy nature photography more and improve your skillset in the new year, there are a few things you can work on daily.
A few days ago, I presented a webinar titled 10 Things You Can Do to Improve Your Nature Photography. While several points stood out, I think these three stand out the most.
What’s lacking in the webinar is an emphasis on hard, technical skills. Instead, I talk about soft skills: a certain kind of mindset that, if you adopt it, your learning curve is reduced, your results are more predictable and consistent, and your enjoyment of photography goes way up.
So with that in mind, I think these three strategies will improve your mindset and improve your photography no matter what kind of camera you use, what your post-processing workflow is, or the style of photography you enjoy the most.
Pick up your camera every day
I know a lot of us are weekend warriors. Before I started doing photography for a living, I was a weekend warrior as well. I’d go a week or two and never pick up my camera. When the occasion came for me to go up and take photos, I had to spend a bit of time reacquainting myself with all of the buttons and controls on the camera. Despite how ergonomic and user-friendly camera makers make their cameras, controlling them isn’t as intuitive and natural as breathing and walking.
Therefore, you’ve got to become familiar with the camera, its controls, and its settings.
My solution: pick your camera up every day. It doesn’t have to be for a long time. I’ll sit at my desk and go through the menu items to know where everything inside the camera is. I’ll just pick up the camera and move the dials just to familiarize myself with the layout. If you are like me and have multiple bodies (I keep using my old cameras until they break), each camera has buttons and dials in different places.
The idea is to have a good idea of where everything is located and develop the ability to set your camera the way you need it quickly and efficiently.
Just picking up your camera for a few minutes each day helps strengthen muscle memory, so when the moment counts, you’ll be ready.
Accept that you’ll make mistakes - and learn from them.
I’ve shot millions of pictures, and I still make mistakes. In fact, I make mistakes more than I think I should. But you know, we are all humans, and mistakes are a part of the human condition.
The best golfers in the world play the game knowing that they’ll never play perfectly. I think that’s the same with photography. Even the best photographers in the world take pictures knowing that you can’t take that perfect shot each and every time.
But we try.
Photography is all about consistency. Each time you take an image, the image may not be perfect, but the results are predictable. Predictability and consistency are the hallmarks you should shoot for as a photographer. But don’t be too hard on yourself when you make mistakes on your journey. Just keep on shooting.
Focus on the Fundamentals
As photographers, we have plenty of incredible tools at our disposal. We live in the good ol’ days of photography. Incredible cameras with technology that you could not even fathom ten years ago are available to us. The lenses we buy are sharp and make low-light photography easy. Add that to the fact that we can shoot images on re-usable digital media…. are you kidding me?
With all that technology, it’s important not to lose focus on the fundamentals of photography. The fundamentals are pretty basic concepts that were true about photography 80 years ago and are still true today.
Topics like:
An understanding of light and the difference between good light and bad light and how to deal with it all;
An understanding of camera handling techniques that ensure your images are sharp and you let the technology (image stabilization) work for you instead of you working against the technology;
Getting close to your subject is almost always better than cropping;
Composition is learnable and comes naturally to you if you practice enough.
If you think about photography in terms of computer technology, the camera and lenses are like hardware, and the software that runs the camera is the operating system. We (in a sense) become the apps that use the camera to create outputs (photographs) that the camera can’t do on its own.
Each time you take a picture, it should be an extension of the fundamentally sound practices you’ve developed over time with practice and effort. Of course, you’ll make mistakes along the way, but don’t be too hard on yourself.
If you want to see the entire webinar, check it out below.
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