Here are the 5 things about photography that you need to know but that no-one tells you.
1. A more expensive camera doesn’t make you a better photographer. Some of the best photographs we have ever seen have been taken on inexpensive cameras. The skill of the photographer is far more important.
2. Your friends and family usually won’t tell you the truth about your photography. You just have to look at the comments on Flickr to see that, in general, if someone knows you (and even if they don’t), they will give you positive feedback on your photography. This makes it pretty hard to know how to improve your photographs, which is where an IOP® photography course can help.
3. A good photographer doesn’t take photos of objects, they take photos of the light that hits the objects in the frame. It’s an important distinction but one that is not discussed often enough. If beginners to photography thought more about light and less about the physical composition, they would immediately improve their photography.
4. You have to take lots of photographs to get the magic shot. Beginners get disheartened far too quickly, without realising even the photography masters took plenty of poor photographs before they started taking great ones. After all, it was Henri Cartier-Bresson that said “Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.”
5. Your best camera is the one you have with you. There is no point in buying an expensive DSLR and finding it too unwieldy to carry around. If you don’t have a camera with you, you won’t get any shot at all, so always make sure you have a little compact hidden in the glove box or tucked away in your jacket.
