Hello, friends & neigh­bors! How would you — yes, you — like to improve your pho­tog­ra­phy? Don’t be mis­led by feel­ings of doubt and inad­e­quacy. The more your pho­tos suck, the great oppor­tu­nity you have for improve­ment. I have no doubt that each and every one of you looks at the pho­tos of some other pho­tog­ra­pher and won­ders just how they did that. Why are their pho­tos so great? What keeps me from reach­ing that level?

I’m not here to tell you that you’ll ever be as good as your idols, but you can be bet­ter than you are today. Yes, sirs & ma’ams, you too can improve your pho­tog­ra­phy with five — count ‘em, five — sim­ple and eas­ily under­stood tips. It does not mat­ter what form or style of pho­tog­ra­phy you like; you can get bet­ter. It doesn’t mat­ter what cam­era or gear you have, you can get bet­ter. Every­thing you need is right here and I’m going to help you achieve improve­ment, if not actual success!

Now, I know what you’re think­ing. That’s a big promise, and I’d like to improve my pho­tog­ra­phy, but what is this going to cost me? It’s a per­fectly rea­son­able ques­tion, but it’s not the right ques­tion. Since I’m going to trans­form your pho­to­graphic world in a very short amount of time, the bet­ter ques­tion is, “What are you will­ing to pay?” How much is enough to give you insight that to trans­form your works of medi­oc­rity into works of art? Would you pay one hun­dred dol­lars? One thou­sand dol­lars? Some peo­ple have gone to work­shops and paid sev­eral thou­sand dol­lars and still not received the infor­ma­tion I’m going to share with you. Just think of the com­pet­i­tive advan­tage these five sim­ple and eas­ily under­stood tips will pro­vide for your pho­tog­ra­phy! Can you put a price on some­thing that special?

I can’t, so I’m going to share these five sim­ple and eas­ily under­stood tips for free! That’s right, you will not have to pay me. You will not have to buy any gear. Your only cost is the time it takes to read these words and absorb their true mean­ing. While the read­ing may go quickly, you could spend a life­time absorb­ing the wis­dom shown here. Over time, you’re going to find your­self in the midst of pho­tog­ra­phy and poten­tially get­ting over­whelmed or con­fused. That’s when you take a deep breath, relax, and heed the amaz­ing advice con­tained in these five sim­ple and eas­ily under­stood tips. With that warn­ing in mind, brace your­self and con­tinue reading!

#1: Patience

Wel­come to Florida — © Copy­right 2011 by William Beem

What makes a pho­to­graph art instead of a snap­shot? Patience! Just because you want a pho­to­graph right now doesn’t mean the sub­ject is ready for your right now. You may have to wait for a sun­rise or sun­set. You may have to wait for a bird to land on a post in the water. You may have to wait for the per­fect wave to crash. Maybe — just maybe — you may have to wait for all of these ele­ments to coin­cide to get a shot that no other pho­tog­ra­pher will get because they weren’t patient enough to let things hap­pen. Maybe they weren’t patient enough to see what hap­pened next. The world will unfold on its own sched­ule, so pick a good spot — be patient — and be ready to cap­ture the moment.

#2: Tim­ing

The Itch — The Itch

Friends and neigh­bors, you’ve been patient. You waited for your moment. It’s time to grab it and make your image come to life. Are you ready? Are you able? That scene may take a long time to arrive, but it can also be over in a fleet­ing moment. Tim­ing is an essen­tial part of pho­tog­ra­phy, but per­haps not on the same scale you’re think­ing about. Many pho­tog­ra­phers enjoy shoot­ing rapid-​fire to get an action shot — spray and pray — and hope they have some­thing good when the action is over. That isn’t con­trol, though. It’s trust­ing your fate to luck.

It doesn’t mat­ter if you’re shoot­ing wildlife, sports, war or a model in a stu­dio. There’s a con­cept known as the peak of action, and that’s the shot you want to cap­ture. You may get it with spray and pray, or you may not. Rather than fir­ing off a blast of shots, think about your sub­ject. Put your­self in the subject’s posi­tion. Look for repeated action. Look for pat­terns, rhythms, or any clues that will help you pre­dict when and where your sub­ject will be at the opti­mum moment to cap­ture the image at the peak of action. Imag­ine for a moment that you’re see­ing a baby tak­ing first steps. What’s the peak? Is it when the foot is mov­ing for­ward, or when that foot is as far for­ward as it’s going to go before it comes down?

A big part of tim­ing is know­ing your sub­ject. You need to know when is the opti­mum time for that sub­ject to arrive in just the right place. That doesn’t apply just to action pho­tos, either. Sea­sons change, and with them, the scenery changes. If I want early-​morning scenes with fog over a lake, I know I’ll have my best chance in my area dur­ing the Spring sea­son. Fog hap­pens when the tem­per­a­ture and dew point are equal, or within a degree of each other. It’s not just a mat­ter of being hot or cool, muggy or dry. There’s a per­fect com­bi­na­tion that needs to hap­pen. Though it may occa­sion­ally hap­pen at dif­fer­ent times of the year, I know when and where it will hap­pen repeat­edly, and that gives me the best time to go for the shot.

#3: Inti­macy

Body Shots — © Copy­right 2011 by William Beem

You may have heard this advice by other names — fill the frame, get closer. I like to refer to it as inti­macy, because that’s what you’re try­ing to achieve. You don’t need to get closer to your sub­ject so you can check out the sharp­ness. Instead, you need to show a con­nec­tion. Some­times that means cre­at­ing a con­nec­tion between the sub­ject and the view. In other cases, like this one, it means show­ing a con­nec­tion with your sub­ject and some­thing impor­tant. Our sub­ject, Con­nie, is a body builder prepar­ing for a com­pe­ti­tion. She goes through a num­ber of exer­cises, of course, but I chose this one to tell her story.

From this per­spec­tive, you see that she’s strong. She’s intent. She’s focused. The story is about her, but the han­dles show a rela­tion­ship that helps define her as the sub­ject. She has a rela­tion­ship with the weights she’s lift­ing. She needs them in order to be the woman she wants to be. We show this rela­tion­ship with those han­dles close to her. That’s the peak of action, when she bears the most pres­sure. That’s when the rela­tion­ship is at its most intense and inti­mate moment. Intimacy helps the viewer under­stand her story.

#4. Light

Jedi Tem­ple of Doom — © Copy­right 2011 by William Beem

As a pho­tog­ra­pher, light is both your enemy and your friend. If you don’t have light, there’s no photo. If you have too much light, there’s still no photo. That’s because an evenly lit photo is lit­tle more than a dull snap­shot. Noth­ing stands out. Noth­ing is spe­cial because you see every­thing. There’s no mys­tery — you see it all. With­out shad­ows, we have no sense of depth or dimen­sion. Shad­ows are cru­cial. Their sense of dark­ness give shape, form and a sense of impor­tance to the part of the photo in the light. I heard a say­ing from Scott Kelby, who heard it from Joe McNally, who heard it from his edi­tor at Life (who I sus­pect may have heard it from some­one else).

If you want to make some­thing inter­est­ing, don’t light all of it.

If there’s any­thing about this photo that gives a sense of mood­i­ness, it’s the absence of light that does it. Those shad­ows give a sense of gloomi­ness, they show the edges of carv­ing along the walls and stat­ues. Those fea­tures stand out because of dark­ness and light work­ing in con­cert with each other. With­out that con­trast, you have no story because it won’t have any­thing to hold your inter­est. It’s just a snapshot.

#5: Story

Kelsey — © Copy­right 2011 by William Beem

I’ve men­tioned this in the pre­vi­ous tips, but those were tools to lead you to the ulti­mate tip. If you want to improve your pho­tos, then your photo needs to tell a story. It needs to say some­thing to the viewer. It needs to draw them in and make them won­der. It needs to piqué their inter­est. Peo­ple look at images that are inter­est­ing. What makes them inter­est­ing? The photo com­mu­ni­cates some­thing to them.

Why is the girl in the water? What is this creepy place? I wish I had her ded­i­ca­tion. Why does this dan­ger­ous beast look so con­tent? Where is this relax­ing scene? There are sto­ries for any emo­tion. If you can feel an emo­tion, then there’s a story to go with it. That’s what you need to cap­ture and share with your viewers.

How many times have you been some­place amaz­ing, taken a photo, and then real­ized that you didn’t cap­ture the part that amazed you? Those are the kind of pho­tos where you tell a viewer, “Well, you had to be there.” In other words, those are the kinds of snap­shots that any­one can take because they don’t tell a story. You have to con­vey the sen­sa­tions and feel­ings that inspired you to take the photo. Maybe it isn’t the whole scene that tells a story. Maybe it’s an inti­mate detail. Maybe it’s the way that detail appears in the light. Maybe it’s a peak moment. You need all of the ele­ments of story-​telling to col­lide at the per­fect moment to make your mem­o­rable photograph.

That’s how you improve your pho­tog­ra­phy. It won’t hap­pen overnight, and maybe you won’t reach the level of your idols. That’s OK. Spend less time wish­ing you took pic­tures like them and more time study­ing what you’d like to improve about your own pho­tos. Don’t over­whelm your­self try­ing to do it all at once. Pick an ele­ment. Prac­tice with it. Take the time to mas­ter it so it becomes sec­ond nature. Then pick another ele­ment and do the same.

To me, that’s the joy of pho­tog­ra­phy. There’s always room for improvement.