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Writer's pictureBrooklyn Dieterle

BEGINNER PHOTOGRAPHY TIPS

"Collect moments, not things." -Unknown.


Happy Monday! It's been a while since we have touched in with the FREE side of BE era. "BE free" was created with the intention to connected with our creative, unique, individual side. It was for the art, music, travel, poetry, books, ect...The times where you let go and are fully yourself. Art has been created for almost 30,000 years. It is a human way of expression. One art form is photography, capturing the moment from the way your eye sees it. Just like how everyones art is unique, everyones photography is unique. Some might find beauty in the tree's branches, while others find beauty in the colors of the leaves.

For those who want to find a new hobby, try something new, or exercise a different form of expression, we are here to help. Today we are giving you 7 basic photography tips. These tips will help flourish your unique expression through photography. So let's begin.


7 BEGINNER PHOTOGRAPHY TIPS

  1. Find what you enjoy taking pictures of: Try it all out, see what lights you up and what you are excited about taking pictures of. Like anything, when you are excited about what you do, you will do it better. Some photographers enjoy taking pictures of nature while some enjoy taking photos of people. Try it all and find YOUR thing.

  2. If you can, invest in a good camera: Most of the time, the better quality photos were taken with a better quality camera. So, if you are serious about becoming a photographer, you should invest in a decent camera. HOWEVER, if you can't afford to invest in a professional camera yet, using a phone is a great way to learn the basics of photography before spending a lot of money on a camera.

  3. Study others' photographs: One of the best ways to learn art, is by recreating art. IT is a hands-on, experinced-based learning process that will teach you the skills you need by practicing them. Just like a fashion designer studies the history of fashion and the designers work, a photographer should do the same. Find a few photographs you love or a photographer you like, and try to recreate a few pieces and learn from that process.

  4. Don't get stuck in your ways: Try it all! If a painter only ever tried using red, she might miss out an amazing piece that incorporated blue. In other words, try different angles, times of days, lighting, places, subjects, perspectives, ect... You might shoot something beautiful that you weren't even expecting to be that great... You are beginning and learning, now is the time to surprise yourself and try out different things.

  5. Find a good editing tool: If you ever scroll on Instagram or Pinterest and say "WOW! That picture is beautiful.. how did they get that?" Here's a secret, very rarely does that final picture you see, look like that before editing. This doesn't mean to edit a photo by changing the placement of things or being excessive with it, this means they touch up the saturation, contrast, highlights, ect... to make the picture stand out. There are some good, free apps for beginners, like Adobe Lightroom, that you can download on your phone and that will teach you the basics. Editing also will help you better your photography because it teaches you things like what exposure works for different photos, and what angle is best to make colors pop.

  6. Practice makes perfect: It's probably going to take awhile before you get the perfect photo, find your style, or maybe even get it the photo focus. In this case, it doesn't take time... it takes practice. If you have the camera but you don't ever practice, you won't ever learn how to use it, but if you practice with it every chance you get, you will pick up photography faster and find your style quicker. Think of it like this, for every 100 photos you take, you might have one really good one. If you only take 100 photos in a month, you only got one good one, but if you take 100 photos everyday or even every other day, you will have 15-30 really great photos.

  7. Accept your mistakes and learn from them: Mistakes are an inevitable part of the learning process, but how you react to them, determines the outcome of your learning. First, you need to accept that your photos will not be magazine cover worthy yet, that takes years of practice, mistakes, and learning. Then, you need to assess what mistakes you are making: is it over-exposed?, is the saturation too high?, is the horizon line straight?, ect... Lastly, you need to LEARN from your mistakes. Figure out how you can fix your mistakes, practice that, and then you will have grown and be one step closer to having a magazine cover worthy photo.

We hope you found these 7 beginner tips helpful and that you will use them to express your self through photography. Have a lovely day and we will see you here on Friday for our next blog post: 10 Breakfast Toast Combos.

REMINDER: "Real people aren't perfect, and perfect people aren't real."

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