4 Photography Tips To Take Photographs That You Love

 

I love to see folks in the AYP Club diving right in to the Photo Critique group and putting up their photographs, getting and giving feedback. As you’ve heard me say before, this is really important in the process of advancing your photography. We’re working on the 4th Division of photography: Sharing and getting feedback.

I’m pretty dang busy right now but I try to make my way around and see what’s being posted and add my comments, if I feel I’ve got something to say. I’ve made a few observations that I want to pass along:

1. Story

Figure out what your story is, photography is a language (light-writing) so basically you are telling your viewer what you “saw and felt”.

2. Link Photos

In photojournalism you are definitely telling a story–this may be about your family trip to Paris or New York or a walk down Main Street, but it’s still photojournalism. Many times you’ll use photographs to link other photographs in your story.  Daniel Milnor explained this very well. I’d like to invite photographers to make a note if the photo they are posting is a “stand-alone photograph” or is part of a series, or is simply one that links to others in a series.  This will help you get your message across to your viewers.

3. Take one more step

Once you’ve identified your subject, who you’re telling your story about, remember to take another step closer as Neal Menschel told us. You may think this passing your comfort level, good–do it. If you don’t push the edges, you’re not going to grow!

4. Watch AYP Videos

I shot these interviews because each of  these photographers is remarkable in their own way and each has valuable information to pass along. My dream with the AYP Club is to have it fully integrated with our videos and blog posts, so that you have easy access to the wealth of knowledge we’ve gained.  We want to put up a wiki so our community can index the know-how along with other valuable material out there in the photo-world.

In any case, I invite you to

a. dig in to the genre of photography you want to advance in,

b. watch the videos in that genre,

c. then shoot,

d. post for critique,

e. watch, etc!

Now before I leave you on this rainy California day, please do this simple assignment for me: Decide on a story you want to tell (keep it simple at this point), it can be a single photograph with a simple story like “here’s my dog chasing her tail” . Go and shoot it, take that one step closer. Post it for critique.

See your around the club!