A little controversial maybe...

 Being a photographer is not something that you do, it’s something that you are.

 I get emailed a lot by people about equipment, settings, photoshop editing and all manner of 'technical stuff'. I also get asked a lot about what my top advice is for taking better pictures, and the answer is really not in a plugin or a shiny new camera, it’s how you use your eyes to see what’s in front of you, and how you translate that through the lens.

I do feel that there is a very distinct difference between a 'photographer' and a 'camera owner', they are not the same thing, and if you open your mind, and simplify your photography to concentrate more on the actual photography itself, and less on worrying about if your using the right camera, lens, or software plugin, then great things can be achieved.

I find it funny that as photographers when somebody outside our trade asks about a great picture that they have seen that as photographers we often answer stating that the camera is just a 'tool' and no camera can make you take better pictures. However, when I see photographers discussing images online, I often read people talking about 'what settings were used' and asking what model of that camera was used, what lens, what F stop, and about if they had used this or that, and why don't they use this or that…

 My thoughts on this are simple and not for everyone but as I say, it’s just my thoughts.

In my professional work, I operate as a commercial photographer, this means in very simple terms that it is my job to make stuff look good. A lot of that work is in studio and on location, and my clients require, mostly, a big output file that could go through to be used in billboard advertising etc, so the camera equipment that I tend to use in my ‘professional’ capacity reflects those requirements and for me what’s important is the resolution and the quality of the lenses used. That said, I don’t jump every time a new version of the camera I use is launched, in fact, I mostly skip about 2 generations before I update. When I do change it is mostly because I feel that a body needs swapping out after years of service, and not because it’s no good anymore.

In my work I can not really hope that something works forever, I use my equipment a lot, and whilst I always care for it very well, it’s my livelihood, like anything it’s got a lifespan. So one very important point to make here is that when you buy your camera equipment, start by buying just what you need, even if that is just one camera and one lens. Learn how to use those first and then build up from there when you feel that you would like move forward technically. That might be a different lens or even some lighting equipment. In my view you should always invest your money in ‘good glass’, and what I mean by that is the lens. There is not much point in spending thousands on a high-end camera body and then putting a cheap lens on the front of it because you blew your budget on the former. The lens makes the most difference to what your end image will look like in regards to definition and sharpness. I have lenses that cost over £6000 that are years old, heavy beautiful things made of actual optical glass, not really easy to get these days, that are simply amazing to use, I will always have those with me.

So what can I do to take better pictures and where do I start?

I love photography, I truly still feel it is a very special thing to be able to capture a moment in time in the way that I see it through my eyes and how it makes me feel. The latter part of that sentence being a key point, it is not just about shooting things to show what they look like, it’s about shooting to show how it ‘feels’. In recent years there has been a big trend in shooting with wide open apertures so that you get that low depth of field, and the viewer is more drawn to the subject that you want them to look at. Wedding photographers have been doing this for years, because for them they have little time to react to often cluttered situations, and need to produce ‘emotional’ images that their customers will love. Once again there is a key point there, ‘emotional’ images, these are photographs that you just look at and fall in love with, sometimes you don’t even know why, but you connect with them and they have meaning to you.

Interesting to note at this point that some of the most famous images of all time were shot on cameras that, by comparison to today, were very basic. And so we get to the real crux of things, do you create your own photograph through your perception of the world around you and how you frame and light something, or do you rely on camera technology to do something that you hope it will to get a great picture?  

It's no secret to those who know me that I still like to shoot older film cameras still for my own personal work. Some frown upon this activity like it’s some sort of attempt to be more genuine, traditional or ‘old school’. The reality is that it’s none of these, I just like the way that film shoots and I enjoy the process of it. Some architects still choose at times to sit in front of an easel with a blank piece of paper in front of them, and some songwriters still pick up a guitar and a notebook rather than sit in front of a mixing desk with a laptop. It’s really no different and when I am not shooting film I am mostly shooting my own family life and adventures on a digital rangefinder camera using a single 35mm lens at f1.7, because I like how that feels and is suits what I want my images to look and ‘feel’ like.

My best advice if you want to shoot better pictures is simple, shoot more, shoot shoot shoot and then shoot some more. The thing is that like most skills in life, especially the creative-natured ones, some people have a natural leaning towards something and some do not, regardless of this photography can and is sometimes quite technical. Over the years indeed it has become more and more so with lots of different camera, lighting and digital editing options open to us, and this is all great, but I wonder sometimes if we allow ourselves to get so overwhelmed by the technical that we actually allow it to detract from what we are shooting and how we are doing that. People just starting into photography can often get put off by all the 'stuff' that they feel that they need to learn and know about, just choosing a camera system these days, especially if you put something on social media about it, can be a nightmare, "oh that was a mistake you should have bought this or that..."

It’s good to just spend a day walking around with your camera and opening your eyes to what is around you. Even in a busy city centre, just looking up can reveal all sorts of things that perhaps might make an intersting picture, old and new architecture side by side for instance. A road sign is just a road sign, but it the angle you shoot it makes a simple but pleasing frame and the shadow it casts looks interesting to you, then why not try that?

One of the very great things about shooting digital is that you can always just delete the images and start again, no need to wait a day for prints to land on your doorstep lol

“Sometimes you just need to shoot stuff to see what it looks like shot”

So many people these days seem a little obsessed with the latest 'shiny thing' and they forget that photography comes from the heart, it’s a creative act and no matter what 'shiny thing' you use the best image will always come from that and not what you are holding in your hand.

It’s a bit like riding a bike, you can watch endless online videos about it and read books about it but if you have never actually got on the bike then when you do guess what will happen. You love the look of the new shiny red bike, all your friends tell you the red bike is the one you need because it will take great images, you save your hard-earned money and go off to the store to buy it and when you arrive, they have brought out a new shiny blue bike! Utter nightmare because this is apparently faster and does more stuff, what do you do?

It takes on average 10,000 hours to start to master a skill set so that it becomes second nature. This is pretty important in photography I feel because by being able to shoot and work through the 'technical stuff' in second nature mode you can then place your attention on what you are shooting, how you might want to shoot that and why. You become I think more creative. I often tell people in seminars that one of the best things that they can do when they start shooting is to tape up the back screen so that they cannot see what they have shot. This often raises a few pulses but at the end of the day when most of us started it was on film and we could not check this instantly, we had to think about what we were doing overall and by not seeing the instant image we were probably more focused on what was going on through the viewfinder, and how we were doing that.

There is no point in learning the complexities of how to make a watch if you have not bothered to learn how to tell the time...

Photography is a skill, it’s a craft, and I am passionate about that. I hear so often, 'hey you must have a great camera to shoot images like that", we all have I think, and we all say that it annoys us but, in a way, perhaps we ourselves have helped to create this importance around equipment and settings through the constant online drive to use technology, or rely on it.

Life without the Back Screen

I don't really believe that we need to check every frame we shoot 'just in case it’s half a stop under' when you use a modern camera with a massive dynamic range, we have editing tools these days that can pull an image out of a litteral black hole. Back in the day we used to shoot commercial shoots on transparency film that did need to be spot on, and lighting gear was pretty basic if I'm honest by today’s standards, indeed the lights would drift colour temperature wildly at times and nobody could really afford the measurement devices to check that. You’d often be waiting a whole day to hear back from the lab that the colour balance was all okay and that was tough if you didn’t have a polaroid back for a test frame, but we all did it.

If you watch somebody using a camera these days you will soon notice that the amount of time they spend looking at the backscreen of their camera compared to the amount of time they actually spend looking through the viewfinder, framing, shifting position left or right etc, is about 40% viewfinder, 60% back screen. This is not just people first starting out their journey with photography, this is also people who have been doing it for years. It has almost become part of the routine in shooting. Now I am not saying that the backscreen is not very useful, it is a quick view into what you are doing. What I do think though is that we do not always spend enough time actually looking at what we are shooting through the viewfinder. It is very easy these days to quite literally rattle off hundreds of frames in seconds. In the days of film, you had 36 chances to get what you wanted and no way of knowing what you had shot once the moment had passed, unless, of course, you were paying attention through the viewfinder. When I first started out in newspapers and press agencies a famous picture editor once said to me, “if you saw it through the camera, that means you’ve missed the shot Tim, you need to be more observant of what’s happening and anticipate the shot”.

So, what am I getting at here?

Embrace the technology, the new equipment and all that goes with that but don't think that you need the latest thing all the time, you don't. What you really need to do is get out there and shoot stuff, build up that 10,000 hours of experience and build up that knowledge in your own head and memory about what works and what does not. Concentrate on what is happening through the viewfinder, think about that and then decide how you want to put that together. Connect with what you are actually shooting and what you want your image to say.

People sometimes worry that they don’t think that they can produce great photography if they don’t have or use any lighting equipment. It is true that lighting can radically change a scene or photograph and I use it extensively in what I do commercially for my clients, but consider two things. Firstly I am a professional photographer and I am expected to produce great results each and every time not matter what the conditions or hurdles, and at times these can be substantial, where lighting can save the day. Secondly, you have lighting unless you are sat in a totally darkened room, light is all around us. What we do with that is just as important as what we do with lighting equipment. Some of my most iconic images have no extra lighting at all, they are created by simply using the light from nature and making sure that I get the optimal image through both my position and that of the light source, in these cases, the sun.

“Don’t just shoot what it looks like, shoot what it feels like…”

When I start a shoot, I know what I want to achieve, I mostly have the finished image in my mind. Years ago, I would struggle to get what was in my mind into the camera but as years went on I found that I could do this better and better and these days I pretty much don't even think about the technical when I shoot, I just get on with it and focus on what is happening in front of me. Don't get me wrong I don’t think of myself as an amazing photographer, and would never profess to be, but I am happy with what I am creating, and I can see myself improving year after year as my experiences grows. I spend a lot of time in studio with lots of lighting equipment that many people would find quite daunting, the reality is that when I work in that environment I build up the light I want one light at a time, my method is based on the position and intensity of each light in turn. How it will not only light my subject but how its position relative to me and the camera will change the fall off of that light, its softness or hardness, and how that will enable me to create in a single image what I have already created in my own mind prior to the shoot starting. It is not unusual to spend an hour setting up lighting in a studio, and then shoot just 3 frames, but those 3 frames require little edit.

I think personally that I started to shoot in 'auto-pilot' about 5 years into shooting professionally with my commercial business, AmbientLife, and I shoot a lot, so that is a good few years to get to that point. I honestly don’t think that I will ever profess to know everything, there are so many variables and so many possibilities that it is impossible. In many ways this is the complete joy of photography, endless possibilities for being creative. For me photography will never be a distination, it is a wonderful journey that I never want to reach the end of.

Just my view of course...

You can also read this article and many others that offer advice on photography over at DIY Photography where Tim is a regular contributor.