Cameras have never stopped evolving. Editing and post-processing apps haven’t either. The technique also evolves, every day a new photographer comes out with a new way of capturing photos. One feels lucky to belong to the century we are in and to be able to count on these advances. However, in photography, there are a series of unalterable, lasting, eternally valid principles, applicable at all times and places, and that have a (great) direct influence on our photographic results.
In today’s article I would like to share with you 5 small lessons that, the day I bought my first camera, I was completely unaware of. They are lessons that, believe me, will be worth you forever. Your camera will be obsolete in no time, it doesn’t matter, I want these 5 key concepts to persist in your photographic retina. They will help you out of more than one hurry, they will allow you to create great photographs.
Lesson 1: It’s not the camera. It is the goal.
The vision you portray of the world around you is not the product of the camera, but of the lens. There is a huge variety of lenses on the market, each one will allow you to photograph the world in a different way. The camera, as good as it may be, is a sensor and an image processor, a kind of translator that captures the image first “displayed” by the lens. The camera is the brain, the lens becomes the eye. The “perception” happens at the height of the target. This is where most of the success of a photograph is decided.
If you want to take a good picture you cannot underestimate the role of your camera’s optics. Find out about the most suitable type of lens for the type of photos you want to take, find out about the properties of the lenses, how they differ, how they modify the photographic result depending on the diaphragm or the focal length.
In the Photographer’s Blog you have a whole section full of articles where we try to give you a hand when deciding the most suitable lens for your next great photograph. In my case the King of Lenses, that adorable 50mm f/1.4 has completely changed my life.
Lesson 2: It’s not the camera. It’s the photographer.
You are the center of photography. Even when you don’t appear in it. Acquiring a good camera will help you take good photos more easily, without a doubt, but the brain behind the photography is you. You are the screenwriter, the mastermind. The camera, a mere executor, is unable to make decisions beyond a few exposure adjustments. The one who feels the photo and previews it before it even exists is you. You are the one who frames it. You compose it. The photographer’s job consists of orchestrating a whole series of instruments, putting into practice principles and rules, contributing a human point, and giving the world a unique vision of what is being photographed.
If you don’t master photography, the camera won’t do it for you.
Lesson 3: Light is 50% of success.
If there is no good light, no matter how many tricks you use, you will never achieve the optimal result. A good photograph requires a good portion of light. Locate a nice landscape near where you live and take a couple of photos, one at noon and one towards sunset. You will see that one photo has nothing to do with the other.
The success of your photos largely depends on the light. In two senses:
- You have to have a sufficient amount of light. There are several ways to achieve this, investing in a good wide aperture lens like the King of Lenses I mentioned earlier, or setting the camera to shoot at slow speeds that allow you to capture enough light, among other ways.
- In addition to having a sufficient amount of light, you have to know how to manipulate and work with it. Light is dough, you are the chef 😉 Do you remember lesson 2?
Lesson 4: History comes first.
Photography, however beautiful it may be, is an instrument of communication, similar to words, songs, movies or paintings. You need to have a good camera, mount the right lens, have a good light and also know how to drive it as you please to get the look you want, but all this becomes useless if you lack a story to tell. Your story can be a message, a brief idea, an emotion, a mental tickle. I don’t know. Something. When you show me your photograph, I as a viewer must experience something in my brain. If you were to monitor (uugghhh, what a word!) my brain activity with one of those things, you should see a lot of activity. That’s the story 😉 You understand me, as a viewer I want you to provoke me, I want you to change my thoughts and emotions to some extent, don’t let me look at your photo and think “Well focused photo, correct light, well, so what?!”.
The story gives meaning and purpose to your photo. The story is the soul of your photography. The story is the beginning of your photo, and the end you want to convey to the viewer.
The end or goal of your photo should not be «Show how good a photographer I am. As a photographer the truth is that I am the cane! I am incredible.”.
Every time you want to work on a photo, plan what you want to convey with it. If at any time it is not very clear to you if your photograph is going to have a message or not, a trick or method that you can use is to put the camera aside for a moment and think about the content of your photo in verbal terms, in words . If you can convey the content of your photography in words, in one or two sentences, then congratulations, your photo has something to communicate. Obviously, that sentence or two cannot be a physical or visual description of the image.
Some examples to illustrate what I say. Do you feel something when you see these photographs? Click on them and see them enlarged. Look at them and tell me if you feel something, if you find yourself “transported” for a moment to the place in the photo, if you notice a small emotion in your brain.
If you are interested in this topic, stay tuned, I am working on an article in which I will soon propose practical examples to improve the emotional and narrative content of your photos 😉
Lesson 5: Take a unique photo. Unrepeatable. And always do it.
A little secret that makes many photos take our breath away lies in how unusual they are. Your photography has to have character, personality. You can make it unique not only with the story or emotion that it evokes (previous lesson), but with any other means that you have within your reach, aesthetic, with light, composition, technique. For God’s sake, avoid taking photos that end up being “just one more photo”. Every time you put your finger on the shutter button of your camera, think, for a second, how you are going to make it a unique photo. You have plenty of resources at your fingertips. I don’t care if you want, at first, to imitate a beautiful photo that you’ve seen somewhere, or reproduce the work of a great photographer, for learning purposes it will be great for you, but make a contribution that changes that final result, give it a spin nut, that subtle signature of yours that will make your photo unique.
We remember photos that are different. They are the ones that mark us. Make yours one of them.
conclusion
I have just presented you with 5 elements that will mark the trend of photography in the year 2037, and in the following year, and in all the years to come. It’s like seeing the future 😉 but it’s like that. They are lessons that you do not usually find in a photography manual, but they are valid for all times and types of photography that you want to take. Remember, follow and apply these 5 tips, they will get you out of more than one hurry. They will open new doors for you when you find yourself stuck, for when you think that a photo of you is no longer enough, when you find yourself going around in a closed circle, think about whether you need to photograph your world with another lens, close your eyes and verbally pronounce the message , story or emotion of your photograph, in order to verify that it has content.
Surround yourself with a good lens and plenty of light. Do not photograph colors or compositions, or objects, or even make portraits of beautiful subjects.
Photography stories and moments.
Enjoy, artist.