This is the second installment of our look at the three most important habits I see in the most successful, professional photographers who pass through the GlobalEye Photo Agency each month. We covered Lighting and Patience in the first installment -- if you missed that, you can check our sell stock photos blog -- otherwise we'll dive back in and look at technique.
For all the convenience of automatic-everything cameras, I sometimes wish they were somehow only available after the photographers had passed a manual photography course. Sadly, it is so simple and so convenient, that most photographers who start out on automatic mode never go back and learn how to control the basic camera settings themselves.
And that means there are a large number of photographers out there capturing photos that are nearly great ... But because they have absolutely no theory and only very basic technical skills, they will never know what's holding them back and more significantly, how easy it could be to correct the issues and make great images.
I see this every week with the membership applications. Shots that would have been perfect if the photographer had only turned off the center weighted auto-focus and paid more attention to their point of interest. Shots that would have been perfect if they'd turned off the preset exposure mode, and thought about their depth-of-field. Shots that might have been perfect if they would only thought about the effect of shutter speed ...
The other disappointment is those photographers who do not even make the effort to read the manual that came with their camera so they'd take full advantage of the features available to them. Here are just a few problems .. And the photographer's reasoning ... That I've seen just lately ...
1. Great submission of images, but all of them had a noticeable color cast that even I (seriously color-blind) could spot.
"Yes, I saw something about setting white balance, but figured the factory settings would have it covered..."
2. Strong subjects & compositions, but too grainy to ever use ...
"That's potentially because I keep the ISO set to 1600 so I don't have to stress about flash using up my batteries ... "
3. Fantastic submission ... Technically spot on & subject matter perfect for stock, except they were captured as medium jpgs ...
"I didn't want to run out of space on my memory stick ... "
The last one might sound totally ludicrous but is a familiar story around here ... The photographer had a $2000 camera and was shooting tons of excellent images each week with real stock potential, if he'd only splurged another $50 on two additional memory devices. (The average point-and- shoot nowadays captures a better quality file than the one this bloke was saving!)
So my last recommendation here is, if your entire photographic experience is digital-auto, each chance you can, switch off the auto-everything and learn to do it yourself.
Even better, call into the local second-hand shop and pick up an old manual film camera ... They're giving them away nowadays ... And put 1 or 2 rolls of film through it. You may learn more from those 100 shots than a year with your digital auto-everything!
OK, that's just a few general ideas to get you started. Next time around I will cover a couple more specific elements we see in the top selling pictures and a simple trick to be certain you get them right each and every time.
For now, feel free to visit our blog and post your own ideas on what makes a photographer a professional!
For all the convenience of automatic-everything cameras, I sometimes wish they were somehow only available after the photographers had passed a manual photography course. Sadly, it is so simple and so convenient, that most photographers who start out on automatic mode never go back and learn how to control the basic camera settings themselves.
And that means there are a large number of photographers out there capturing photos that are nearly great ... But because they have absolutely no theory and only very basic technical skills, they will never know what's holding them back and more significantly, how easy it could be to correct the issues and make great images.
I see this every week with the membership applications. Shots that would have been perfect if the photographer had only turned off the center weighted auto-focus and paid more attention to their point of interest. Shots that would have been perfect if they'd turned off the preset exposure mode, and thought about their depth-of-field. Shots that might have been perfect if they would only thought about the effect of shutter speed ...
The other disappointment is those photographers who do not even make the effort to read the manual that came with their camera so they'd take full advantage of the features available to them. Here are just a few problems .. And the photographer's reasoning ... That I've seen just lately ...
1. Great submission of images, but all of them had a noticeable color cast that even I (seriously color-blind) could spot.
"Yes, I saw something about setting white balance, but figured the factory settings would have it covered..."
2. Strong subjects & compositions, but too grainy to ever use ...
"That's potentially because I keep the ISO set to 1600 so I don't have to stress about flash using up my batteries ... "
3. Fantastic submission ... Technically spot on & subject matter perfect for stock, except they were captured as medium jpgs ...
"I didn't want to run out of space on my memory stick ... "
The last one might sound totally ludicrous but is a familiar story around here ... The photographer had a $2000 camera and was shooting tons of excellent images each week with real stock potential, if he'd only splurged another $50 on two additional memory devices. (The average point-and- shoot nowadays captures a better quality file than the one this bloke was saving!)
So my last recommendation here is, if your entire photographic experience is digital-auto, each chance you can, switch off the auto-everything and learn to do it yourself.
Even better, call into the local second-hand shop and pick up an old manual film camera ... They're giving them away nowadays ... And put 1 or 2 rolls of film through it. You may learn more from those 100 shots than a year with your digital auto-everything!
OK, that's just a few general ideas to get you started. Next time around I will cover a couple more specific elements we see in the top selling pictures and a simple trick to be certain you get them right each and every time.
For now, feel free to visit our blog and post your own ideas on what makes a photographer a professional!
About the Author:
Matt Brading is a photographer with GlobalEye Photo Stock Agency who prefers to sell stock photos using the direct contact systems and content-based photo marketing. He also published instant photo web sites using the photo site secrets method.
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