Practice! Practice! Practice! That is the mantra of every great photographer.
Practice is something I am seeing that seemingly most digital photographers don’t do.
Regardless if you’re doing glamour photography, fashion photography, wedding photography, nude photography or even architecture. You need to be practicing every single day. I am constantly telling people this. Practice is the way you get to Carnegie Hall!
I am seeing a lot of people who; and I’m talking about a lot of portrait and wedding type shooters who tell me that they don’t have a subject to practice on. The look that I give them is one of bewilderment.
I find it absolutely ridiculous that anyone would say something like that. They are in effect telling me that they don’t practice enough nor are they really interested in improving their skills. My solution is always a very simple one. That is to practice.
Practice on anything that light falls on. In fact I asked someone today if they thought that light fell on a bush, a rock, a potted plant; or a toy car any differently than it did on a person.
The reality is that it obviously doesn’t and so you need to be shooting any and everything you possibly can; every single day. There is no excuse. Or; as an art director I used to know years ago used to say often say. “I can’t print your excuses!”
He was absolutely correct. There was no excuse for not getting the shots. A thing that really annoys me these days about digital shooters is that when I was coming up in photography every single frame I exposed cost me money.
That never stopped me from shooting any and everything I could, every single day that I could. I of course was limited as a twelve year old by how much money I could come up with to buy film and get it processed.
I’ve had hundreds of rolls of film come back from the lab completely black because I didn’t spool it properly or worse; I just didn’t expose it properly. It seems that people are looking for photography shortcuts rather than ways for developing skills.
You digital photographers don’t ever have that kind of problem to contend with. So I say there is no excuse at all for you not to be practicing. None at all. I outline all of this in my newest YouTube video this week.
Check it out. Please subscribe and like and share. I will be working to make them better each week. Your questions and comments are very important to me as it let’s me know what you guys want to know.
So get out there and practice.
