It’s years since I worked so passionate with photography. I read many books and magazines, I attended courses and seminars with well known professionals. I learned. I experimented with different techniques and collected many useful tools for my projects.
And like many you I found myself asking, "what is the most important secret for a photo meeting always all my expectations?".
Let me share with you the answer that I gave myself hoping to give you something useful.
The only important thing in photography, which must walk next to improvement about technique, is to train the way I observe, feel and compose a photo before I shoot.
No cameras are superior to others in making better pictures than others but there are people, technically prepared constantly training their way to watch and observe. They will grow more and more constantly improving their skills.
Look “actively” at the world around us, all the people we meet, actions taken by them, their expressions and emotions, trying to put in our minds an image freezing that specific moment. This is the most important thing.
Most of the time the shoot takes less than a second, the creative process takes much much more.
What do you think is the most important thing?
An example, how many National Geographic photographers do you think are in the right place at the right time? Looking at photos produced the only acceptable answer should be: “it is obvious: everyone!”
National Geographic photographers don’t leave anything to chance and improvisation, and it is not physically possible that their reportages are a collection of lucky photos. In fact, a fortunate photo can happen to anyone, really any of us, but ten or fifteen lucky shoots in the same place, taken in a few days coherently telling a story of landscapes and people is impossible.
This means that there are, along with the technique, methodologies and rules to follow. And once you’ve learnt this method and these rules, you may be sure, applying them all the time you want that you will be always effective, producing the desired result!
At this point you may demur:
"Yes, but they have very expensive cameras that can assure those results!"
A very fitting example is Robert Capa’s one, the world famous reporter, with his photos during the Normandy landings.
Here one of his photos
http://www.skylighters.org/photos/photo2.jpg
This and a few other photos survived a wrong film development made by a journalist. Still, they can testify that a photographer can apply those few rules even in the middle of tommy-guns crossfire, and please note that, while the soldier is lying to protect him from enemy fire, our photographer is standing to shoot!!!
Wherever you will take your pictures, with any camera, I am sure that if you want to learn and apply every day to observe “actively” your surroundings, you will achieve amazing shots most of the time … instead of sometimes like it may happen to you until now :-)
Your comment about what you think and feel is really precious for me. I will truly treasure what you write. If you have doubts, curiosity about photography and think I might be able to help you, do not hesitate to contact me.
If you liked this article or felt that it helped you, please sharing it with your friends and contacts!
With love and sympathy ...
Alessandro Benvenuti
http://www.benvenutialessandro.com/
+39 348 0817704 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting +39 348 0817704 end_of_the_skype_highlighting
What is the use of adequate Depth of Field if there is not adequate Depth of Feeling? (Eugene Smith).
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