How I Learned to Take Stunning Photos
A guide for how to transform your photography skills
Photography is often seen as an endeavor only for professionals or serious hobbyists. To be a serious photographer, surely you need the newest gear and years of experience…right? This is what I thought when I first started learning how to use a camera. All the pictures I took when I got started looked uninspired and stale, and it seemed like only a select few could take amazing pictures effortlessly.
The goal of this guide is to show that photography is an accessible art — you already have the tools needed to start taking beautiful pictures today. There are just a handful of concepts that can instantly take your photographs to the next level.
A Note on Gear
The cameras on smartphones have started to pose serious competition with traditional DSLR and SLR cameras. Combined with a manual camera app (Adobe Lightroom is a popular free option), a smartphone is a great tool that many beginning photographers already have.
If you have a DSLR camera or are using the manual features on an app like Lightroom, you should become familiar with the concepts such as aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. Having the basics down will allow you to figure out what settings to use in various situations and not always be stuck in Auto mode. Tony Northrup has a great video on his channel explaining these basics.
The examples I provide later have been taken with Nikon D5000 DSLR camera, but your phone can yield similar — if not better — results. As the visionary photographer and director Chase Jarvis titled his book:
The best camera is the one you have with you
Looking Sharp
Having a focused subject can make or break your pictures. Being able to consistently take sharp pictures should be the skill you tackle first when learning photography. Usually, the auto-focus on most modern phones works well, but having manual focus is still always helpful for tricky shots. One of the benefits of using an app like Lightroom is that you have full control over where the camera focuses. For DSLR cameras, the focus can be changed manually by adjusting the lens (make sure that the lens is in manual focus mode first).
To ensure your photograph is looking sharp, hold your camera as steady as possible to reduce motion blur (or use a tripod), shoot with sufficient light on the subject, and make sure your camera lens is clean. Shooting on a large JPG file or in RAW will give you more detail in the picture, and it also gives you more freedom when editing.
Remember to always take a couple of pictures for each shot, especially if the subject is moving.
Frame of Mind
Movies and videos keep the audience engaged by choreographing interesting sequences and various moving parts. Since images are still, you have to design a path for your audience to follow through your image. The best way to know where the audience will look is to identify what the subject (the focal point of the image) is in the picture. Keeping the subject in the center usually will not be as interesting as keeping it slightly off-center (for more on that, refer to the Rule of Thirds). A simple but powerful tip is that choosing an interesting subject will make the photo as a whole more interesting.
Always be on the lookout for interesting moments to capture in your photographs.
Another strategy is to use the “frames” in the setting such as rocks, trees, or even doorways to highlight the subject. Use these to completely or partially surround the subject. Remember that it is okay to have “whitespace” that breaks up the image. A well-framed picture can always be cropped or modified later, but a poorly-framed photo is much harder to change after-the-fact. Finally, try experimenting with multiple shots of the same subject to see what looks best. Often a picture that looks one way through your eyes will look considerably different from the camera.
Framing is really where the art of photography comes in, and this is where you have the most artistic freedom.
Note down your favorite pictures from professionals and from your own collection to see what aspects of them you like. As with any art, there are basic guidelines made to help you build a foundation, but don’t be afraid to break the rules and take artistic liberty whenever you see fit.
Exploring a Little Deeper
The depth of field is essentially the range of in-focus objects in a picture. A deep depth of field is where the subject and surroundings are both in focus, giving the widest range of focused objects in the frame. The opposite is a shallow depth of field, where the subject is in focus and the background is out of focus. This effect is so popular that many newer smartphones have an in-built “portrait” mode that recreates shallow depth of field on the phone.
Ways to change the depth of field include widening the aperture (smaller numbers corresponds to wider apertures), focusing on the subject with a large focal length (ex: 200mm vs. 55mm), or decreasing the distance to the subject. A DSLR camera has more control over these factors than a phone, and you should explore how to use one in Manual mode if you have one already.
Mix and match each technique and see what makes your subject pop.
Conclusion
One of the most wonderful things about photography is that it gives you a new way of seeing the world. It has the power to take the mundane — such as a tree, pile of rocks, or bird — and transform it into artwork. By constantly looking for the next best picture, a photographer is able to work with his surroundings to make great results. The first step is to get out there and take as many pictures as you can.
Start with one photo a day. Just one. Whatever you do, don’t wait to start.
See how quickly you can take 100 photos. Remember, not every shot has to be perfect, and you are bound to make mistakes. Slowly you will acquire all the camera skills, various framing techniques, and stunning pictures in your portfolio. More importantly, you will acquire many new experiences and see the world in a more interesting way. All you have to do is go and take some photographs.
