The Secret Killer Tip to Better Photos

I watch quite a few videos about photography, and quite often, there will be a killer tip about improving your picture-taking. It could be a different way to think of composition, a new piece of gear, or an improved editing technique. I can guarantee that whilst all those things, and more may help to make your photos slightly better, it isn’t the killer tip you think it was. Today, I am going to let you into a 100% guaranteed way to take better pictures.

I discovered this improvement method by running my Switch to Manual workshop in Edinburgh. During the four-hour session, I help people understand all the technical stuff about aperture, shutter speed, ISO, and much more. We also discuss different composition techniques. Sure, all those learnings are important to taking better photos, but they aren’t the killer tip.

The only way you are going to improve your photos is a secret I share right at the end of the session: go away and practice. Yep, that’s it! No course, workshop, video, or magazine article is going to instantly make your shots better—the only way you’ll see a demonstrable improvement over time is to repeat what you do over and over again.

If I stopped here, this could be pretty short. However, I will give you a few thoughts on encouraging you to add practice to your routine.

Various golfers have been credited with saying, “The more I practice, the luckier I get”. I’ve seen it attributed to Gary Player and Jack Nicklaus. If you read this quote coldly, it suggests that all you need to do is do the same thing repeatedly until you become highly proficient. I live close to the harbour at Newhaven in Edinburgh. If the conditions look good, I might pop down and take a few shots. I know the location well, where the best composition is, the settings that tend to work and which lenses will be good for the scene. Does repeating this shot over and over again make me a better photographer?  I would argue that this is not the case; all I am hoping for in this activity is a slightly better sunset than the last time I was here.

The golfers mean that if you put in the hard work to understand and then hone your skills, you’ll more often than not get the results that you want. What I take from this is that practice isn’t necessarily slavishly repeating something over and over again; instead, it is about putting yourself in situations where you can try out skills that will help you improve.

Join a challenge

My first suggestion is to set goals for yourself. I have participated in weekly or monthly challenges at various stages in my photography journey. They usually work by setting a theme at the start of the period and then submitting photos that meet the theme. I like this way to improve for a couple of reasons. Often, the themes might be a subject matter that you either aren’t interested in or have never even thought about. Not only does this test your technical prowess, but it also challenges your creativity. Whilst technical knowledge is very useful in photography, the best photographs will often have a different perspective that makes it interesting. I’ve been running a monthly challenge for a couple of years for people who have attended my workshops. The prize I offer each month really isn’t worth winning – the best entry in the month becomes the header image on the Facebook Group. But that isn’t the prize – everyone taking part and thinking about which pictures they submit is a winner. The act of taking photos they are applying a thought process to is helping to make them better.

Take photos often

My next suggestion to help improve your photos through practice is to make taking pictures something you do naturally. When new photographers come to my workshop, most will spend the practical element trying to get familiar with where the various buttons and dials are. The more you think about the technical aspects of shooting images, the less time you spend considering the aesthetics of the picture. I’ve been taking photos for a living now for over ten years. However, I have been taking pictures every day for something like fourteen years. It doesn’t matter if it’s Christmas, my birthday, or even the day I got married; I have still found an opportunity to get my camera out and think about capturing something. Often, I’ll challenge myself to try out a new technique that I have been considering, but sometimes, it might just be a photo of daily life. Just the act of training your brain to think about exposure, composition and method will help to make picture taking into a habit. There’s a great site called Blipfoto, started here in Edinburgh, that encourages photographers to take a photo a day – why not try it?

Personal projects

Another way to help hone your photography skills is to create a personal project. There are many ways to do this, but I have found two particularly useful. The first is to consider gaining some accreditation for your photography. I have the letters LRPS after my name – all it took was for a panel of two or three people to look at ten of my photographs and to decide that those photos were good enough for me to become a licentiate of the Royal Photographic Society. I say that was all it took, but it took much more for me. I had to think about the kind of photographs I wanted to take that would show a broad capability of understanding. I then had to actually shoot the images. Part of the assessment revolves around creating a panel that hangs together as a group – that meant attending advisory days where assessors would recommend ways to improve the panel before that final day when I submitted my images and passed the first time. I don’t believe I have ever got a job based on those four letters after my name, but the skills I acquired during that personal project have certainly helped improve my photography.

The second personal project I will touch on is to create a body of work based on a brief you create for yourself. In 2016, Scotland seemed to have some kind of election every twelve months. We’d had the 2014 independence referendum, the 2015 General Election, and, in 2016, the Scottish Parliamentary election. I could have followed the rest of the press pack and taken photos of every leader’s PR stunt before the polling day. However, I decided that for my longer-term learning, it would be good to approach this election from a different perspective as it would help to improve my ability to tell a story with my photos in a more documentary style. I approached a candidate in the election who was running for a party that was unlikely to win their seat in the constituency they were standing in. Over the final seven days of the campaign, I shadowed them, often for fourteen hours each day, capturing images that met my personal brief, which was, “How hard does a political candidate who is probably not going to win have to work to try and win votes?”. The result was a body of work that I am still proud of, and I turned it into a self-published book. It never became a best-seller, but the project made me a better picture-taker.

Finally, all that hard work of finding and taking pictures is not going to be well-spent if you are fundamentally failing to take better photos. Whilst you may think you can be your best critic, you will still have a filter preventing you from critically assessing an image you think has worked. You could ask friends and family, but from my experience, they have never told me I have taken a single “bad’ picture. So, how do you close that feedback loop? Again, there are a couple of ways to do this. Consider joining a local photography club or society. Many of them will run competitions where they will bring judges in from outside the club. Some judges will be harsh in their criticism when it comes to the day points are awarded, and this can put people off submitting entries. Instead, treat it as one person’s opinion. Listen to why they thought what they did and then question whether what they have recommended is valid.  I’ll be honest with you: I left the society I used to be a member of. The reason was that the particular club was obsessed with winning competitions, and if someone showed up without the desire to submit award-winning photos, they were dismissed. Not all clubs are like this, and some run good coaching and mentoring schemes where they will match newer members with those more experienced.

Get a mentor

That brings me to the final suggestion for helping practice improve your photography. If there is a photographer that you like what they are producing, then why not ask them to help mentor your improvement? A good mentor will not tell you what they do and expect you to copy their style and approach. Instead, a mentor will help you develop yourself by suggesting aspects to consider at whatever stage you are at in your photographic journey. But remember, whilst your development is essential to you, your mentor will also have their time pressures – mentoring doesn’t have to be long sessions pouring over images. It can be a focused chat, maybe once a month, to review what you’ve done to improve and discuss the next goal to improve your photography. I use my Virtual Workshops to help photographers who want individual assistance to get better.

I am sorry that this Americano Coffee Break Photography video hasn’t given you the magic bullet to make your pictures better instantly. That’s because there never was a magic bullet in the first place. If you’ve got to here, then you’ve already made the next step in taking better pictures, and now you know what you need to do, practice. But before you start the next stage in your photography journey, subscribe to my channel, like and share my video and sign up for my regular newsletter using the link below.

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