This is the 2nd installment of our look at the three most important skill sets I see in the most successful, pro photographers who come through the GlobalEye Stock Library 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 each week with the membership application submissions. Photographs that might have been spectacular if the photographer had only turned off the center weighted autofocus and paid more notice to their main subject. Shots that might have been spectacular if they'd turned off the preset exposure mode, and thought about their depth-of-field. Shots that could have been spectacular if they'd only thought about the effects of shutter speed ...
The other disappointment is those photographers who do not even bother to read the manual that came with their camera so they would make use of the features available to them. Here are just a few problems .. And the photographer's explanations ... 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 possibly because I keep the ISO set to 1600 so I don't have to stress about flash using up my batteries ... "
3. Amazing submission ... Technically spot on & material perfectly suited for stock, except they were shot as medium jpgs ...
"I didn't want to run out of space on my memory stick ... "
The last one might sound totally daft but is a familiar story around here ... The photographer had a $2000 camera and was shooting hundreds of strong photographs each week with real stock potential, if he would only splashed out another $50 on 2 additional memory cards. (The average point-and- shoot nowadays captures a better quality file than the one this man was saving!)
So one last idea here is, if your whole 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 used camera gear shop and pick up an old manual film camera ... They are giving them away these days ... And put one or two rolls of film thru it. You'll learn more from those 100 shots than a year with your digital auto-everything!
OK, that is just a few general ideas to get you thinking. Next time around I'll cover a few more particular elements we see in the best selling images and a straightforward trick to be sure you get them right ever single 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 each week with the membership application submissions. Photographs that might have been spectacular if the photographer had only turned off the center weighted autofocus and paid more notice to their main subject. Shots that might have been spectacular if they'd turned off the preset exposure mode, and thought about their depth-of-field. Shots that could have been spectacular if they'd only thought about the effects of shutter speed ...
The other disappointment is those photographers who do not even bother to read the manual that came with their camera so they would make use of the features available to them. Here are just a few problems .. And the photographer's explanations ... 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 possibly because I keep the ISO set to 1600 so I don't have to stress about flash using up my batteries ... "
3. Amazing submission ... Technically spot on & material perfectly suited for stock, except they were shot as medium jpgs ...
"I didn't want to run out of space on my memory stick ... "
The last one might sound totally daft but is a familiar story around here ... The photographer had a $2000 camera and was shooting hundreds of strong photographs each week with real stock potential, if he would only splashed out another $50 on 2 additional memory cards. (The average point-and- shoot nowadays captures a better quality file than the one this man was saving!)
So one last idea here is, if your whole 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 used camera gear shop and pick up an old manual film camera ... They are giving them away these days ... And put one or two rolls of film thru it. You'll learn more from those 100 shots than a year with your digital auto-everything!
OK, that is just a few general ideas to get you thinking. Next time around I'll cover a few more particular elements we see in the best selling images and a straightforward trick to be sure you get them right ever single 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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