This is the 2nd installment of our look at the three most important skill sets I see in the most successful, pro photographers who come through the GlobalEye Stock Library each month. We covered Lighting and Patience in the first installment -- if you missed that, you can check our sell stock photos blog -- otherwise we'll dive back in and look at technique.
For all the ease of automatic-everything cameras, I often wish they were somehow available only after the photographers had passed a manual photography course. Unfortunately, it's so easy and so handy, that most photographers who start out on automatic never go back and learn the way to control those settings themselves.
And that means there are a large number of photographers out there capturing photos that are nearly great ... But because they have absolutely no theory and only very basic technical skills, they will never know what's holding them back and more significantly, how easy it could be to correct the issues and make great images.
I see this each week with the membership application submissions. Photographs that might have been spectacular if the photographer had only turned off the center weighted autofocus and paid more notice to their main subject. Shots that might have been spectacular if they'd turned off the preset exposure mode, and thought about their depth-of-field. Shots that could have been spectacular if they'd only thought about the effects of shutter speed ...
The other disappointment is those photographers who do not even make the effort to read the manual that came with their camera so they'd take full advantage of the features available to them. Here are just a few problems .. And the photographer's reasoning ... That I've seen just lately ...
1. Great submission of stock photos, but all of them had a significant color cast that even I (seriously color-blind) could spot.
"Yes, I saw something about setting white balance, but figured the factory settings would have it covered..."
2. Superb subjects & compositions, but too grainy to ever use ...
"That's possibly because I keep the ISO set to 1600 so I don't have to stress about flash using up my batteries ... "
3. Fantastic submission ... Technically spot on & subject matter perfect for stock, except they were captured as medium jpgs ...
"I didn't want to run out of space on my memory stick ... "
The last one might sound totally ludicrous but is a familiar story around here ... The photographer had a $2000 camera and was shooting tons of excellent images each week with real stock potential, if he'd only splurged another $50 on two additional memory devices. (The average point-and- shoot nowadays captures a better quality file than the one this bloke was saving!)
So one last idea here is, if your whole photographic experience is digital-auto, each chance you can, switch off the auto-everything and learn to do it yourself.
Even better, call into the local second-hand shop and pick up an old manual film camera ... They're giving them away nowadays ... And put 1 or 2 rolls of film through it. You may learn more from those 100 shots than a year with your digital auto-everything!
OK, that is just a few general ideas to get you thinking. Next time around I'll cover 1 or 2 more particular elements we see in the fastest selling photos and an easy trick to make sure you get them right every time.
For now, feel free to visit our website and post your own suggestions on what makes a photographer a professional!
For all the ease of automatic-everything cameras, I often wish they were somehow available only after the photographers had passed a manual photography course. Unfortunately, it's so easy and so handy, that most photographers who start out on automatic never go back and learn the way to control those settings themselves.
And that means there are a large number of photographers out there capturing photos that are nearly great ... But because they have absolutely no theory and only very basic technical skills, they will never know what's holding them back and more significantly, how easy it could be to correct the issues and make great images.
I see this each week with the membership application submissions. Photographs that might have been spectacular if the photographer had only turned off the center weighted autofocus and paid more notice to their main subject. Shots that might have been spectacular if they'd turned off the preset exposure mode, and thought about their depth-of-field. Shots that could have been spectacular if they'd only thought about the effects of shutter speed ...
The other disappointment is those photographers who do not even make the effort to read the manual that came with their camera so they'd take full advantage of the features available to them. Here are just a few problems .. And the photographer's reasoning ... That I've seen just lately ...
1. Great submission of stock photos, but all of them had a significant color cast that even I (seriously color-blind) could spot.
"Yes, I saw something about setting white balance, but figured the factory settings would have it covered..."
2. Superb subjects & compositions, but too grainy to ever use ...
"That's possibly because I keep the ISO set to 1600 so I don't have to stress about flash using up my batteries ... "
3. Fantastic submission ... Technically spot on & subject matter perfect for stock, except they were captured as medium jpgs ...
"I didn't want to run out of space on my memory stick ... "
The last one might sound totally ludicrous but is a familiar story around here ... The photographer had a $2000 camera and was shooting tons of excellent images each week with real stock potential, if he'd only splurged another $50 on two additional memory devices. (The average point-and- shoot nowadays captures a better quality file than the one this bloke was saving!)
So one last idea here is, if your whole photographic experience is digital-auto, each chance you can, switch off the auto-everything and learn to do it yourself.
Even better, call into the local second-hand shop and pick up an old manual film camera ... They're giving them away nowadays ... And put 1 or 2 rolls of film through it. You may learn more from those 100 shots than a year with your digital auto-everything!
OK, that is just a few general ideas to get you thinking. Next time around I'll cover 1 or 2 more particular elements we see in the fastest selling photos and an easy trick to make sure you get them right every time.
For now, feel free to visit our website and post your own suggestions on what makes a photographer a professional!
About the Author:
Matt Brading is a photographer with GlobalEye Photo Stock Agency who prefers to sell stock photos using the direct contact systems and content-based photo marketing. He also published instant photo web sites using the photo site secrets method.
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