Creative but not Technical?

PHOTO CHALLENGE | Go for a photo walk wherever you are, shooting with only intention in mind, but with all the creative freedom to create. How’s your angle, composition, and exposure? Then, adjust all of them to see if you can do better/different.

What if you have good creative photography skills but lack technical skills?

It’s easy to identify a photographer with good creative skills that need some practice with the technical aspects of their camera. They’ll often make comments about how disappointing it is when the image they saw in the viewfinder doesn’t end up captured in the final product. Creative photographers, without technical expertise, have great energy and movement in the photos, but can experience things like flat exposure, lack-luster colors, or an abundance of soft focused images. Thankfully, practice is truly key. Not just shooting though, but applying technical and creative skills every time you pick up your camera is what genuinely shapes your ability to have success when you shoot.

Everyone wants to capture great photos of the moments that are most important. No one sets out with their camera to take a poor photo. Knowing how to work with any type of light, how to use your camera, and editing are the basics of good photography. Beyond those basics, what are the technical aspects to give you the best images that SHOW you know what you’re doing?

Many of these elements you’ll notice are from things we’ve discussed at one point or another throughout this course, but are things that take a lot of time and practice to really get figured out. If you can’t change form one scene to the next or struggle with the quality of your photos, here are some things to keep practicing:

• A BALANCED IMAGE | The viewer will be able to tell you they like the photo or not, but may not be able to explain why. Most times you’ll see that the lack of balance is off, whether that be light, contrast, composition, etc.

• PERSPECTIVE | A slight adjustment to the left or right, up or down, can be what makes or break your photograph. The perspective you portray says so much about the story you’re trying to tell. Is it about a feeling, the light, the time of day, an emotion, or simply the main subject?

• APERTURE | How often have you taken a photo and felt like you should’ve changed your f-stop? Yeah, me too. It happens. Be cognizant of how you depth of field responds to the final image. Is your subject isolated enough? Does it make sense for the scene? If you aren’t sure, take a shot with a low and a high aperture and look at each on your computer to see what feels and looks best.

• COMPOSITION | Just like a balanced image, the composition of a photo can nearly ruin the end result of what you were shooting. Take the photo that stood out to you, then stop and assess the scene and shoot again. Did you want to shoot it the same way twice? Could you have changed your perspective or composed things to remove distractions? It only takes a moment to be intentional about your composition, don’t overlook it.

• ISO | It’s less about how to use it (adjust the dial, increase it in lower light situations) and more about when to use it. Noise in a photo is not a bad thing, it’s what gives us a properly exposed image. It’s better to have a little noise (which you can rarely notice unless you’re shooting at 6400) than to have an underexposed, poorly focused shot. So crank it up!

• EXPOSE YOURSELF TO ART | I can’t tell you how powerful it is to you as a person, a creator, and a photographer to learn about other photographers and artists. Learn what you like and don’t like from different art forms, be a critic for all that you see, and never stop searching for inspiration.