The reason why a photo doesn't work is rarely related to the gear you use. And it also has very little to do with the way you are editing your photographs.
When I started, I thought that getting better tools was what was going to make the big change for me.
So I got the better tools. And on the surface, it did look like things had changed for the better. The images were sharper. The sensor of the new camera performed better in low light. And the new lenses allowed me to blur the background just like the professionals do. Every time I would buy a tool, I would feel that I got better.
But then, looking at the work of some photographers I admired, I could clearly see that I'm not there. Not even close.
So then I thought I just needed to learn to edit my photos better. And then the next few years I tried to figure out the editing part. I pushed the contrast. I added more clarity to make the photos punchier, but still, the photos were average at best.
I could go on and on about the illusions that I had and the mistakes that I made, they were more than I could count. But instead, let's focus on what did work. And what does change your photographs.
IT ALL COMES DOWN TO ONE WORD
And that one thing can be summed up in one word. Which is SEEING.
That single mental skill is worth more than all your gear and your editing skills.
You simply cannot photograph something that you don't see. To photograph anything you must see it first.
And you might say, well, I have eyes, I can see, what is the problem?
There is no problem. Just that vision and the ability to see with a photographic eye have very little in common.
When I speak about seeing, it's not about vision, it's mostly about attention.
Let me ask you a question here. When you're out with your camera, how focused are you? Are you 100% engaged with what is in front of you, or are you thinking about something else, or even playing with your phone in between?
When you stand on the street in front of a scene, how much do you actually notice? Do you mind sharing that in the comments?
From my experience working with photographers, even when they are not distracted, the majority notice only the subject. The slightly more experienced ones will see the light or the background around that subject. And only a very few will actually read the whole scene.
And this is the whole difference. It's not your gear, or your editing. It is your ability to see and notice things, and then connect these things into meaningful visual stories.
The images that I have shown you here are all from the same place. They are all small parts of the same scene that eventually came together in a single image.
If I was to focus only on the subject, I would end with the second version.
The lack of exploration would deny me all these other images.
And that ability to see more and connect things together is something that you can develop.
SO LET'S SEE HOW WE CAN DEVELOP OUR ABILITY TO SEE
First, I will give you here a few exercises that you can already put into practice, and which after some time will open your eyes to a whole new world of photography.
You can also download these as a PDF with 30 exercises for 30 days. These are part of my course, but I would like you to have them too. Something small that you can keep on your phone and use when needed.
1. LOOK BEYOND YOUR SUBJECT
The first one, and this is probably one of the most important ones, is to learn to look beyond your subject.
Every time before you press the shutter button, take a second to check what else is there. What is behind the person or object you are photographing, and what is around him. When doing that, try to register as many details as possible.
Only that small change in approach will already improve your photography. Because now you know what gets into your frame and you can decide what doesn't.
Let me give you an example.
Here we can see our subject.
We can see the white birds around him.
Part of them are still, other part are flying around.
We can also see a line of birds on top, they are like watchers, or observers.
We can see that the light is soft and it comes from the left side.
We can see that our subject is wearing a brighter shirt than the background, and that actually makes him pop nicely and makes him easily readable.
We can see the background is made of rigid horizontal and vertical lines.
We can see that he has one of his legs put on the orange crates under him.This elevates him, like he is standing on a pedestal. We can see the cart on the left that creates a diagonal line that points towards our subject.
We can see the distribution of orange colors, and some blue ones.
Orange and blue is always a great combination.
But that is already a color theory lesson.
We can see that there is some water on the floor, and that it reflects some of the flying birds.
And we can see that the texture in most of the scene is kind of rough, the crate surfaces repeating and creating this gritty texture.
There are barely any smooth texture areas here.
We can also see that there is a very rigid structure, all the elements being rectangles, is what creates this structure. The birds are the ones softening it.
Now a question to you. When you are standing and photographing, do you notice all of that? Or are you like, here is a guy and some birds and I'm going to take a photo of that?
If you see only the guy and the birds, all your framing will be around that. But if you notice all these other things, or at least part of them, that will result in a completely different photograph.
There are some more examples from the same place for you to examine in the PDF.
So this is one. To notice as much as possible beyond your subject.
2. LEARN TO UNDERSTAND LIGHT
The next one would be to learn and understand light.
Light, apart from its basic qualities of being soft or hard, has a direction. And when it falls on your subject, it also falls somewhere in the background behind him or on other objects that surround him. You see, subject-background relationship again. Looking beyond your subject again.
You need to learn to see what light does to your scene. To do that, first, be very light aware. Always look at light, even when you are without a camera. And I don't mean just looking at the golden hour light, that is not the only light out there.
Look at light directions. How light behaves when it comes from behind you. How it wraps the shape you are photographing, where the shadows go, what else it touches.
Look at how it behaves when it comes from behind the subject. What does it do to it? Are the subject's facial features visible? If you take the photo that way, how will the exposure look?
Does the subject look like a silhouette? In most cases, it is actually your exposure decision that determines how the subject will be perceived. It is your choice whether to expose for the subject, or for the background. And it is you who decides how the light will be seen at the scene.
Look at how light behaves when it comes from the side. Look how the light and shadow combination in side lighting creates volume.
You see how different types of light affect the photographs in a different way?
Now, I showed you examples. And these are just the very basic ones, light comes in many different tonalities and hardness levels. And it is up to you to learn to see this.
Put a lot of effort on that one. It is an important one. Look at light at any time, not only when you are with your camera. And look at any light. If you can see, it means that there is light there, so learn about it as much as you can.
3. LEARN THE LINES
The next thing to pay attention to is lines. See if you can identify every vertical and every horizontal line in front of you. Then search for the diagonal lines.
See how these lines split the frame and where they lead. Because the moment the eye sees a line in the frame, it follows it. So it's better if the eye follows it to some meaningful place and not just out of the frame.
Then, after you captured the photo, look at how all the lines are placed in your photograph. One line in the wrong spot can compromise the whole frame.
I have a whole article about lines in photography composition and you should probably read that one too, it will get you far deeper than these few words of explanation.
But the base for it is that lines lead, and they split the frame into parts, and each and every type of line is connected to our emotional center. The type of lines you include, and how you implement them in your framing, will have an impact on how the image feels and the viewer's perception.
4. FOCUS ONLY ON SHAPES
After lines we need to understand the role of shapes. The shapes and forms will help you to understand balance.
Each and every frame is usually made from different shapes and forms. These shapes are the image structure. And they set the emotional tone even before light and color do. Yes, light and color are the ones we wrap everything in, but the shapes come first.
Large shapes will be visually heavier than smaller ones. Darker shapes heavier than lighter ones. Squares and rectangles will infuse your frame with structure. And round forms will make it softer, more playful and harmonious.
Dominance of one type of shape will define how the frame feels. And we can mix them to achieve a certain emotional effect.
So what is the best way to look at shapes? First, try to notice the shapes normally with your eyes, but if that doesn't work, squint a bit. When you squint, that washes out the details and leaves only the dominant figures. These are your shapes, these will be the ones that the eye will read first in a photograph.
5. TRY TO CREATE DEPTH
To become better in composition, try to learn to look at what is in front of you in depth.
The majority of photographers photograph flat images. Images made out of two planes. The subject and the background. And this is simply because this is what they are accustomed to look at. Their subject.
And how about the background? Well, it's already there. But usually there is very little thought into that one. We want to change that.
Try to introduce another plane and learn to work with depth and layering. The core idea is to look at a scene with at least 3 planes of depth.
Foreground, something that is placed before your main subject. Middle ground, the place where your subject lives. And background, the stage where it all happens.
That order is not necessarily the only order. Your subject can live in any of these different planes, not only in the middle ground. But the idea is to try to create images with more than just a subject and a background. And to do that you need first to learn to see in depth.
6. WORK WITH SIMPLICITY FIRST
The best way to build up your compositional skills is to try and work with simplicity first. Start with one object and use all the previously mentioned approaches to build the frame around it. When you feel that you mastered that, make it more complex.
Add another subject. An additional subject will make things more complicated. Now you will need to prioritize and decide who is more important.
You can use the Hero concept, I have a whole article about that.
When you feel comfortable with two objects, you can complicate it even more.
But keep in mind, the more subjects you have, the more things you will need to pay attention to. It's not only about the subjects themselves, it's also about everything else around them.
You need very high scene and background awareness to navigate this properly.
But mostly learn when to simplify and when to make things more complex. You might have gotten the idea by now that making more complex images is somehow better, a sign of mastery of sorts.
Well, working with complexity does teach you much more about composition than working with simple scenes. But there is a strong "but" here. It doesn't necessarily produce better photographs.
A better photograph is not defined by its complexity or simplicity. It is always defined by the content, the way it's presented, and the way it resonates with the viewer. Actually, the emotional and engaging photographs are often the more simple ones.
There are usually two reasons to go towards complexity or simplicity. You simplify to make the frame more readable and digestible for the viewer. And you create complexity when you want more context.
7. THE ONE FOCAL LENGTH SESSION
That one thing that will help you a lot is the one focal length session.
I usually suggest sticking to one focal length for a year or two, but I know it's hard for many of you. So just stick to one focal length for a session. One session without zooming, can you make it?
When you cannot change the lens, you start moving your feet, and that is where composition begins. By moving around, you start exploring your subject, and its relationship to the surrounding objects. If you noticed at least some of them in the previous exercise, now you can move around and try to arrange them the way you see fit.
USE THE VIEWFINDER TO EXAMINE THE EDGES
I know that many of you are using the display for shooting, I've got infected by that bad habit as well. I'm blaming the discomfort of wearing glasses and my Ricoh for that. And that does breed sloppy compositions.
But if you want to achieve higher accuracy in your composition, use the viewfinder, especially use it to examine the edges of your frame.
And the reason is the same: attention. We are mostly focused on the central area and we miss the edges, which can bring us surprises that we need to crop out afterwards. And while it is okay to crop, sometimes that something we didn't notice interferes even with our crop and makes the photo unfixable. So it is better to notice the problem and make that decision to fix it or not in the field.
AND MOST IMPORTANT, REVIEW
Review everything that you capture. Try to understand what didn't work. That will also teach you a lot.
All these exercises, and many more, are in my "30 Day Composition Challenge" PDF that you can download for free.
Get the PDF. And most important, do the exercises.
Watching YouTube videos can give you the intellectual understanding of things, but only being out with your camera and trying things will give you the practical understanding.
Photography is much more about developing your eye and practice than using the latest tools. Trust me on that, I have walked the gear path, I know it leads nowhere.
I hope it was helpful.
If you have any questions leave them down in the comments, and happy shooting.