100 Things I’ve Learned About Photography

by Darren Rowse

100 Things I’ve Learned About Photography

Since I found photography two and a half years ago I have learned different things which I would like to share with you today. These lessons have made me richer and I hope that you will find them refreshing and inspiring on your journey with the camera, too.

1. Never do photography to become a rock-star.

2. Enjoy what you are shooting.

3. Prepare well for your shooting, realizing that your battery isn’t charge when you’re setting up for that sunrise shoot is too late!

4. Always take one warm garment more than you actually need with you

5. Pay attention to your thoughts and emotions while you are shooting

6. Set goals you can achieve

7. Write tips about photography, because writing is also learning

8. Never go shooting without a tripod

9. Be pleased with the little prosperities

10. Build relationships with potential photo buddies

11. Watch the place you want to shoot first with your heart then with the camera

12. Always stay calm

13. Know that you tend to overestimate yourself

14. Perspective is the killer

15. Dedicate yourself to photography, but never browbeat yourself too much

16. Take part in a photography community

17. Keep your camera clean

18. Never compare yourself to others in a better or worse context

19. Find your own style of photography

20. Try to compose more and to hit the shutter less

21. Seek out and learn to accept critique on your images

22. Do something different to recover creativity

23. Get inspiration from the work of other photographers

24. Criticize honestly but respectfully

25. Get feedback from your lady

26. Don’t copy other photographer’s style

27. Be bold

28. Take care of the golden ratio

29. 10mm rocks!

30. Take selfportraits

31. Read books about photography

32. To give a landscapephotograph the extra boost, integrate a person (maybe yourself)

33. Every shooting situation is different than you expect

34. Pay attention to s-curves and lines

35. Always shoot in RAW

36. Keep your sensor clean, so you can save some work cleaning your image in post production

37. Discover the things you think are beautiful

38. It takes time to become a good photographer

39. The best equipment is that what you have now

40. You can’t take photographs of everything

41. Break the rules of photography knowingly, but not your camera

42. Pay attention to the different way that light falls on different parts of your scene

43. The eye moves to the point of contrast

44. Clouds increase the atmosphere of a landscape

45. Start a photoblog

46. Accept praise and say “thank you”

47. ‘Nice Shot’ is not a very useful comment to write

48. ‘Amazing!’ isn’t useful either. Try to describe specifically what you like or don’t like about an image.

49. You are not your camera

50. Ask a question at the end of your comment on a photo to get a ping-pong conversation with the photographer

51. Do a review of your archives on a regular basis, the longer you photograph – the more diamonds are hidden there

52. Always clarify what the eyecatcher (focal point) will be in your image
53. No image is better than a bad one

54. Everyone has to start little

55. Your opinion about photography is important!

56. Leave a funny but thoughtful comment

57. Speak about your experiences with your photo buddies

58. Limit your photograph to the substance

59. Participate in Photocontests

60. Post processing = Optimizing your image to the best result

61. Shoot exposure latitudes as often as possible

62. Use photomatix as seldom as possible, HDR’s always have a synthetic flavor

63. Always remember what brought you to photography

64. Never shoot a person who doensn’t want to be photographed

65. Always turn arround, sometimes the better image is behind you

66. It’s who’s behind the camera, not the camera

67. Mistakes are allowed! The more mistakes you make, the more you learn!

68. If you have an idea and immediately you think : No, this is not going to work – Do it anyway. When in doubt – always shoot.

69. Understand and look to your histogramm while shooting. It delivers very important information about your image

70. Know your camera, because searching the menu button in the night is time you don’t want to waste

71. Shoot as often as possible

72. Believe in yourself

73. Don’t be afraid of getting dirty

74. Pay attention to qualitiy in your image

75. Your photographs are a personal map of your psyche

76. Re-check your ISO-Settings. It’s aweful to detect the wrong settings on your screen.

77. Be thankful for long and thoughtful comments on your images

78. Never trust your LCD. Normally it is brighter and sharper as the original image.

79. Provide for enough disc space, because it’s cheap and you will need it.

80. Learn to enjoy beautful moments when you don’t have a camera with you.

81. Always arrive at least half an hour earlier before sunrise / sundown, composing in a hurry is a bad thing.

82. Try to amplify your mental and physical limits. Takes some extra shots when you think “it’s enough”

83. Pay attention to structures in the sky and wait until they fit into structures in the foreground

84. Visit the same place as often as possible. Light never shows the same mountain.

85. Print your images in big size. You will love it.

86. Calibrate your monitor. Working with a monitor that is not accurate is like being together with someone you can’t trust. It always ends badly.

87. Don’t think about what others may say about your image. If you like it, it’s worth publishing.

88. Never address reproaches to yourself. Learn from your mistakes and look forward, not backward.

89. Fight your laziness ! Creativitiy comes after discipline.

90. Ask yourself : What do you want to express in your images ?

91. Always try to think outside the box, collect new ideas about photographs you could do and ask yourself : Why not?

92. Search for a mentor.

93. Photography is never a waste of time.

94. Every community has it’s downsides. Don’t leave it out of an emotional response.

95. There will always be people who will not like what you are doing.

96. Henri Cartier-Bresson was right when he said that “Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.”

97. A better camera doesn’t guarantee better images.

98. Always have printing in mind when you postprocess your images.

99. Photography is fair : You gain publicity with the quality of your images. Unless the images are stolen, there is no way of cheating yourself higher.

100. Write a 100 things list

Do you have learned something that I didn’t mention ? I would be glad if you let me know it as a comment, so I can learn from you !