Improving your photography is easier than ever in this information age. There are plenty of generous photographers share their ideas, knowledge and wisdom. Here are some tips how to improve your photography. From affordable-high impact, to very expensive-low impact.
Photography books
Reading photography book are the most affordable way to improve your photography significantly. Books are mostly written by reputable people in the field, and know what they are talking about. It has a lot more credibility than random stuff you find in the internet (Although some internet source are awesome).
Book is also thorough and focused. Books is relatively easy to understand because good books are accompanied with adequate illustrations and photos. When I get started a few years ago, many of my photography knowledge comes from books. It make the greatest impact on my skill.
The other awesome part of book is the affordability. You can get on average 10 photography books than attending the cheapest photography seminar/workshop around. You can also sell it after you master the knowledge. To get the most of photography books, you need to try it as soon as possible, so it register directly to your brain.
For book recommendation, I suggest you to look at my REVIEW page.
Audio Video tutorial
If you are not a reader type, you might want to try out audio video tutorial. It is free on the net. YouTube have plenty. There are some websites that sell DVD/CD training as well. Many professional or ex professional shares their knowledge this way. It is not as cheap as book, but sometime it is better than book because you can see the practice right away.
One DVD set that make a difference is Strobist DVD by David Hobby. This DVD is about lighting especially for portraiture. He shows that by using relatively inexpensive equipment, your photo could really stands out.
Photography blogs and social media
Some photography blogs are very useful for beginners or advance photographers. The good one will be experienced photographer that has a huge appetite on teaching and sharing. Some of notable people include Scott Kelby, Rick Sammon, Scott Bourne, Jeff Ascough and many others.
Some are very accessible in social media, so you can ask questions or interact with them. Thanks to internet web 2.0
Practice
After you collect some knowledge from the masters, you want to practice, practice and practice. There is no substitute on practice, and a lot of time, practice is free. Sometime, you might even get paid for. Why yo want to practice? because there is a discrepancy between theory and practice. Every shooting situation is different. Photography is an art not science. So with practice, you will become better in solving problem and adapt to the shooting condition.
Self evaluation
You will also need to evaluate your photographs. Look at the photo closely and ask yourself what could be improved, do you have strong composition, is the subject is interesting or making impact on audience, is the photo is in focus and so on. You can also get feedback form other experienced photographers, your mentor or colleagues if you have one. With evaluation, you will find your strengths and weaknesses.
You can ask for evaluation and critiques in internet forums too, but please take it as a grain of salt. Don’t take it fully. Many people in the internet consists of many kinds of people. Some people are too nice so they can’t critique, some are downright rude and arrogant, but actually they don’t know what they are talking.
Camera gears and other equipments
Contrary from many blogs and opinion in the internet, I think camera gears are important factor to improve your photography. Yes, you can use the cheapest equipment like iPhone and a photo editing application. But overtime, you will find it is very limited in application.
Camera gears does not have to be very expensive, lens like 50mm f/1.8 (cost $90-150) could change your photography and let you take photos like you never before. To save cost, you can also buy used gears or old models. I wrote a post about how to afford the gears you want a while ago, check it out.
If you are going to do photography for a living, you will definitely need a reliable and good gears. You don’t have to get the best gear or the newer model, but choose the one that the most appropriate for kind of photography you are doing. It could make a difference. For example, with low light full frame camera Nikon D700 and low light lens, I am able to shoot candlelight photos very easily and very clean from noise.
However, don’t get addicted and buy every gears after gears without doing your homework: reading books, watching tutorials, practice and evaluate.
I recommend to get camera, lenses and equipments at Amazon.com or BH Photo Video. They have stellar services and very competitive price. Avoid sellers that have questionable low price. Their goods either are defective, without warranty, counterfeit goods or opened box goods from customer return.
Seminar and Workshop
The role of seminar and workshop is to inspire, to give you a jolt, or to update your skill and see what is going on in the photography field. Different from self-learning, you can interact and ask questions directly to the masters which is great. Attending seminar / workshop once a while is great, especially if the lecturers are someone you admire of their work. They are not cheap, and there are many lecturers are not good at guiding or teaching even they are very good in their photography. So doing research before you select seminar that you want to attend is very imporant.
Courses in College or University
If you have time, money and you need more structure, then I suggest you to take some courses in college. You will have an advantage of availability of resources such as photography studio, equipments and most importantly, the professors. You also more knowledge about photography such as history, concepts, trends, style and so on. You might also learn from class competition, team work and evaluation from experienced teacher.
It is a huge debate whether taking photography course in college will worth the time and money because many of pro photographers does not have formal education. But in my opinion, it is definitely useful in some degree.
Good luck on your photography adventure.
Become our Facebook Fans
Follow me @ Twitter