Buying a camera is exciting.

You finally have the camera you have been wanting. Maybe you have watched a few YouTube videos, bought a lens or two, and you are ready to get out there and start making photographs.

Then someone asks you to photograph something important.

Maybe it is an engagement. Maybe it is a family portrait or a maternity session. Or, perhaps most dangerously, someone asks you to photograph their wedding.

You might think, “This is my chance to practice.”

It is not.

Practice belongs before the performance.

That is one of the most important lessons I want beginner photographers to understand. You need to learn photography before you take responsibility for someone else’s important moments.

Think About Learning a Musical Instrument

When I was a kid, my mother put me in band. I learned to play the clarinet.

We did not simply get handed an instrument and told to go perform. There was a process.

In the beginning, we did not even have the entire instrument. We spent time working with the mouthpiece and learning how to produce the correct sound. Then we progressed to the instrument itself and began learning notes.

Once we learned something in class, we went home and practiced it.

Every night.

The following week, we came back and demonstrated what we had practiced. Our teacher could correct us, refine what we were doing and help us improve.

Eventually, the entire band reached the point where we could actually play music together.

Then came rehearsal.

Rehearsal was not where we learned how to play the clarinet. It was where we brought together what we had already learned, practiced the pieces we were going to perform and fine-tuned them.

Then came the performance.

That is how learning a musical instrument works.

Photography is not fundamentally different.

Practice Before You Photograph for Clients

A beginner photographer needs to practice. A lot.

But you need to practice before you are responsible for somebody else’s important moments.

If you are standing in front of a couple on their wedding day trying to figure out what your camera settings do, that is not practice.

That is a problem.

If you are photographing someone’s maternity session and you are still trying to figure out how to control your exposure, that is not practice, either.

Those people hired you because they expect you to know what you are doing.

They do not get another wedding.

They do not get another pregnancy.

They do not get to recreate that particular moment because your camera settings were wrong.

That is why you need to learn before you take on that responsibility.

How Beginner Photographers Should Practice

So what should you practice on?

Anything.

Seriously. Anything that light falls on.

You are outside and there is a fire hydrant? Photograph it.

A chair? Photograph it.

A tree? Photograph it.

Your kitchen? Photograph it.

The point is not necessarily to create a portfolio-worthy photograph. The point is to learn.

Change your settings.

See what happens.

Make the image brighter. Make it darker. Change your shutter speed. Change your aperture. Change your ISO.

Then look at the result and ask yourself:

Why did that happen?

That is how you start learning photography.

The goal of practice is to understand the relationship between your camera settings and the photograph you create.

Learn Your Camera, Not Just How to Turn It On

One of the biggest problems I see with new photographers is that they own cameras they do not actually understand.

They know the camera has an aperture setting. They know there is a shutter-speed dial. They know there is an ISO button.

But knowing that those things exist is not the same as understanding them.

You need to know what your settings do, what their limitations are and, most importantly, why you would choose one setting over another.

That is a fundamentally different level of knowledge.

I do not just want to know what setting I am using.

I want to know why I am using it.

When I am in a particular lighting situation, I should be able to make decisions because I understand what is happening, not because I memorized somebody else’s settings from a YouTube video.

The same principle applies to lighting. It is not enough to know that a light is positioned in a particular place. You need to understand why it is there and what it is doing.

Learn to Shoot, Then Shoot to Learn

There is a distinction here that I think is incredibly important:

First, you learn to shoot.

Then you shoot to learn.

When you are starting out, you need to learn the fundamentals. You need to understand exposure, light and your camera. You need to understand how different choices affect the photograph.

Once you understand those fundamentals, you can begin using photography itself as your laboratory.

You shoot something.

You see what happened.

You figure out why it happened.

You try something different.

You shoot again.

That is how experience develops.

A teacher friend once explained the distinction to me this way: In the early grades, you learn to read. Later, you read to learn.

Photography works in much the same way.

You learn to shoot. Then you shoot to learn.

Your Lens Is Not Always the Problem

I see beginner photographers ask questions such as, “Why is my lens making my photographs so grainy?”

Often, the lens is not the problem.

The settings are.

If you are trying to photograph something in terrible light and you have pushed your camera into settings that create a noisy image, changing lenses is not necessarily going to solve the fundamental problem.

You need to understand what is happening.

You need to understand your camera’s limitations.

You need to understand light.

You need to understand exposure.

That is why practice matters.

When you have spent enough time working with your camera, you begin to recognize situations and know what you need to do. You do not have to guess.

You know why you are making the decision.

Editing Is Not Your Photographic Style

Here is another thing I want beginner photographers to understand:

Editing is not a photographic style.

Putting a particular color treatment on every photograph does not necessarily make it a style.

Making everything orange, brown, blue or sepia does not suddenly make your work recognizable.

Your photographic style develops from what you do before you ever open Photoshop or Lightroom.

How do you light your subject?

How do you compose?

How do you position people?

How do you use your environment?

How do you choose your perspective?

What kinds of moments do you look for?

What decisions do you consistently make?

That is where style comes from.

Think about a filmmaker whose work you can recognize almost immediately. You might recognize the way they use lighting, camera movement, composition or other visual elements.

That is style.

It is recognizable.

And it develops over time.

Nobody starts with a fully developed photographic style.

It emerges from doing the work.

Do Not Use Editing to Rescue Bad Photography

Editing is an important part of photography.

But editing should enhance a photograph, not rescue one that was poorly made in the first place.

If you are consistently relying on editing to fix exposure problems, poor lighting or other fundamental issues, you are avoiding the real work.

The answer is not always another preset.

Sometimes the answer is simply:

Learn how to take a better photograph.

That is a much harder answer.

It is also the one that will actually make you better.

Talent Is Not Enough

There are talented photographers.

There are people who seem to have a natural eye for composition or light.

But talent by itself is not enough.

You take talent and combine it with skill, knowledge, experience and discipline, and that is when you have something powerful.

Skill takes time.

There is no shortcut around that.

You cannot tips-and-tricks your way into becoming a professional photographer. You cannot buy an expensive camera and expect it to make your photographs professional. And you cannot edit your way into mastery.

You have to put in the work.

Learn From Photographers Who Are Better Than You

Once you have developed your fundamentals, there is another important step:

Put yourself around photographers who are better than you.

Take workshops.

Learn from photographers who are operating at a level above your current skill set.

Do not walk into a workshop expecting to already know everything.

That is the point.

You are there because there is something you do not know.

Watch what better photographers do. Ask questions. Observe how they think. Pay attention to the decisions they make.

Then take what you have learned and practice it.

There is an old saying that “iron sharpens iron.”

If you only surround yourself with people who know exactly as much as you do, there is a limit to how much you are going to grow.

Find people who are better.

Learn from them.

Then practice what you learned.

Do Not Confuse a Camera With Competence

A professional-looking camera can create a false sense of confidence.

Your client may look at your camera and assume that because it is more sophisticated than the phone in their pocket, your photographs will automatically be better.

That is not how it works.

A camera is an instrument.

The person operating it still needs to understand how to use it.

Your clients do not necessarily know what “I’m new” or “I’m still learning” means in practical terms. They simply expect you to deliver photographs they love.

That is why your level of experience matters before you accept someone’s money or take responsibility for something that cannot be repeated.

Earn the Responsibility

I am not trying to discourage anyone from becoming a photographer.

Quite the opposite.

I want you to become good.

But there is a difference between discouraging someone from photography and discouraging someone from pretending they are ready when they are not.

You do not have to start with a wedding.

You do not have to immediately charge clients.

You do not need to build a portfolio by taking responsibility for moments that cannot be recreated.

Start smaller.

Learn your camera.

Learn light.

Practice exposure.

Photograph everything.

Make mistakes where the consequences are small.

Figure out what went wrong.

Try again.

Then try something harder.

Eventually, you will reach a point where you can walk into a situation and know what you are doing and, more importantly, why you are doing it.

That is when you are ready for greater responsibility.

Practice. Learn. Shoot. Repeat.

Photography is a craft.

And like every other craft, it takes time.

So do not rush the process.

Do not be embarrassed that you are still learning.

Do not feel like you have to prove that you are a professional by immediately taking on professional-level responsibility.

Instead, embrace the process.

Practice.

Learn.

Shoot.

Evaluate.

Learn some more.

Then go shoot again.

The goal is not simply to own a camera.

The goal is to master the instrument you have in your hands.

And when you finally understand what you are doing well enough that you can walk into a difficult situation and confidently create the photographs you envisioned, you will discover something important:

Being good at this is a reward in itself.

Ready to Put in the Work?

If you are a beginning photographer, do not ask yourself, “What should I charge?” just yet.

Ask yourself:

“What do I need to learn?”

Then go practice it.

If you are not sure where to begin, leave a comment or get in touch. Tell me what you are struggling with, what you are trying to learn or what you do not understand about your camera.

And if you want to hear about upcoming videos, workshops and other opportunities to learn, join the mailing list.

The camera is only the instrument.

Learn to shoot. Then shoot to learn.

I truly hope you found this information helpful. Feel free to leave a comment below if you have any questions about the post.