It is easy to take better photographs. Anyone, even the best at something can always get better at it. All you have to do is acquire more knowledge, practice, and maybe have a bit of inspiration.
The Basics
1.2 trillion photographs are taken worldwide per year (statista.com). Before the introduction of mobile phone cameras, ninety-five per cent of these billions of photographs were taken in horizontal format; compact cameras are ergonomically designed to be held that way.
Now that eighty-five per cent of the population uses a smartphone to take photographs ninety-five per cent the images are vertical, because that’s the way we hold it. Even videos are shot vertically, which looks ridiculous when you view them on a horizontal screen. To a generation who have grown up with smartphones and tablets held vertically, this is going to look normal.
The last thing you want to be as a creative photographer is normal.
When I started photography in the 1970s there were about 10 billion photos taken a year and most of those ended up in a shoe box. It was easy to win competitions – all you had to do was make a good print or take a correctly exposed transparency and enter to stand a chance.
If you wanted to get published you sent some sample prints, phoned, phoned again (and again) and sometimes went to see the publisher. At the end of this process, I often walked out of the office with between a hundred and a thousand pounds worth of sales (worth about twice that now) and a client who bought work from me on a regular basis after that. Now there are photographs of everything all over the internet.
Dispirited? Don’t be.
Out of 1.2 trillion photographs, how many were created rather than taken? How many are composed, and I don’t mean just with the subject fitted into the frame? So out of that billion or so (that’s a guess and good composition is subjective anyway) how many are well composed? Read my Basic Composition Guide
How many of the photographers thought about the lighting, adjusted their viewpoint, waited for the subject to move to just the right spot, went back when the weather was different?
Think about the image you are creating. Master techniques that allow you to take pictures when others can not, when the subject is backlit, fast-moving, against a cluttered background.
When you take a good photograph PRINT IT, frame it and exhibit it. Show it to your friends, people whose judgment you value, good photographers, artists, tutors, the person or people in it. Listen to their comments; even if they are just being polite or you disagree these are far more valuable that ‘great capture’ or ‘brilliant’ online.
To find out more about my photography or tuition contact me
The Basics
More photography portfolios and articles
Looking Through Glass is an eclectic collection of my art nude, glamour and nude portrait photography and articles on creative nude photography
Warning: Contains nudity. Not safe for work viewing