How to learn photography at home
In this article I will break down “learning photography” for you so that you could turn your goal into a plan, and you could start learning photography or improve your skills from where ever you are!
I’ve been learning photography online for 7 years now.
I honestly believe that everyone can do it, with the right mindset.
I love that in our profession, your photography skills are judged by your portfolio, so decide for yourself if you should continue reading this blog post by checking out my work first.
Let me start off by saying that the best camera is the one that’s on you.
These days all of us have a pretty decent camera in our phones. Taking good pictures is just like cooking good food. The oven is just a tool! It’s all about the driver, not the car. Everyone can learn how to take better pictures. You should definitely invest in the driver before you buy a racing car.
So I like to break it down to 3 parts:
Theory, Personal Style and Experience.
These 3 things make up your photography skills and identity. Any improvement in each of these will improve your photography and help you take and edit better photos!
Theory
This is the part of research and reading a lot. Theory is number 1 for a reason. If you want to improve your photography, the first go-to is theory. Think about it, the difference between a photographer and a hobbyist is that when both look at the same picture, the hobbyist will tell you “This photo is beautiful” and the photographer will tell you “This photo is beautiful! The composition here is nice, the framing works really great, I like the leading lines and the complementary colors”.
I’m trying to say that the photographers knows WHY the photo they look at is beautiful.
Now days, everyone - no matter who you are - has some kind of experience in taking photos. Knowledge is what will help you to take better photos - much more than a more expensive camera or lens. You have to learn the technical stuff. There is a lot of info that can really help you to think better and create better.
The world of photography is very wide and there are a lot of different niches. Shooting Portraits in a studio is a lot different from shooting food or architecture. Yet, the basics are the same.
The best place for me was YouTube. If that’s your thing too check out my Inspiration for Photographers blog post. This blog post is basically a big links gallery to great online tutors and a lot of good videos and lectures on photography and videography.
There’s a lot to learn. I won’t lie, it requires a lot of hours, and it may seem like too much at the begging. But, skill is only developed by hours and hours of beating on your craft. If you are reading these lines I can honestly guarantee that you can do it too! To be honest, I think you can learn everything you desire in these days of accessible knowledge.
A good place to start is: a how does a camera work, what is exposure, what is composition, light theory, colors theory, camera angles and post processing (editing).
2. Personal Style
If photography was a person, then Theory would be its head and personal style would be its heart.
You need to understand what it is you find beautiful. You need to look for the beauty in whatever you see. Go online and look at photos from pros, stop on what you like and ask yourself what makes that photo look so good? What do you like about it?
As you learn more and more theory this process will get more and more interesting. And as you will get deeper and deeper into what you like about others’ work, you will slowly begin to realize what do you like more and what you don’t like as much. Also, looking at beautiful photos and trying to reverse edit them or trying to image how the RAW file should’ve looked like - you will find your brain working and learning just with the power of your imagination and the power of your theory knowledge.
Look at other people’s portfolios as whole, and see if you can understand that artist’s style. You will find a similar “vibe” or “atmosphere” to their photos. If you follow artists you like on Instagram for example, sometimes you might see a photo and recognize whose photo it is, because you recognize their style: the way they shoot their images, and the way they edit them.
This is important to understand because editing and post processing has a huge impact. I like to think about it as if we are talking about cooking: the best chefs make sure they cook the best food they can, and they pay a lot of attention to the plating and the presentation.
Post production is a inseparable part of creating an image.
If you want to find inspiration, I’m sharing my links archive with everyone. You can find a lot of great role models and artists to look up to and learn from.
Here are a few examples of my final images next to their RAW FILES.
Editing has a huge impact!
3. Experience
The good old teacher - trial and error.
The application part is always interesting. Taking the theory knowledge and applying it when you shoot and edit is a process. It takes time and you will encounter obstacles and difficulties in this process. This is a great thing, because it means your brain will work harder. Doing things in your way will teach you a lot. Shoot as much as you can, but think about what you are shooting and be active in the process before you just click the shutter button or your touch screen. Spraying and praying usually work against you.
Another great way to acquire experience is by challenging yourself.
Here’s a list of a few challenges:
Take an object and challenge yourself to create as many different images as you can.
Challenge yourself to create one image everyday for a year (365 Challenge), or once per week if your schedule is more tight.
Go sit in a coffee shop you like for one hour in the same spot and look for moments and take as many pictures as you can.
Go out with your camera and one lens (Prime is better. The harder you will challenge yourself, the more you grow and learn).
Take on yourself to shoot something you don’t normally shoot. If you usually shoot landscape, go shoot portraits. Refresh yourself and challenge yourself! Cross learning works for 100%. (This means that you learn in one field can help you in other fields. In other words - every improvement effects your general performance and improves it!)
Look online for photography challenges to get inspired by other amazing people. There is a lot of great content out there!
In this blog I will do my best to help you learn about the theory of photography and help you invent your own style. The next blog posts will be filled with information. I’m doing this with a lot of passion and love. This is my opportunity to give back to the world by helping others, and spreading love in the way.
I’m available for any questions and advice. Feel free to reach out.
Much love,
Yuval.
