Episode 43 - Beginner photography advice | How to Improve your photography

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Faith & Frames Episode 43 - Beginner Photography Advice | How to improve your photography

On today's episode we're chatting about things that are important (and not as important) for anyone brand new to photography.
With the rise in social media there is a dizzying amount of good and bad advice.
Our goal is to give you a few GOOD tips to keep in mind as you start your photographic journey!

The 1st Tip: Shoot RAW
Start shooting RAW as soon as you get your first camera. I know that sounds daunting, but your future self will appreciate having the RAW images to go back to 6-7 years down the road with new skills and new tech.

The 2nd Tip: Find a Mentor.
Reach out to a photographer that does the kind of work that you do. Find someone that you like the work of and reach out and ask them for tips and tricks. Having a mentor can GREATLY shorten the learning curve to this photography journey.

The 3rd Tip: Shoot Everything.
I know you’ve heard that you need to “Niche down” and you do. However, that comes later. I think it’s a far better use of your time to shoot all styles of photography and take as many different gigs as you can so that you can find out what you enjoy doing and the style that you’re naturally good at. Then, you can niche down and get laser focused on that style.

The 4th Tip: Get a good Website
I know you can use social media as your portfolio, but there’s several risks associated with that approach. One thing we’ve learned is that when businesses start to reach out to you to hire you, they’re going to want to see your website and your website needs to be clear as to “what you do”. This is where you put your absolute best work to showcase in your portfolio.

The 5th Tip: Find Your Editing Style
This is something that takes a lot of time and I think it will always be changing as you grow and progress, but you need to find your editing style. The sooner that you can start to have similar images from session to session, the easier it’s going to be for people to hire you. If your images look the same over the course of 7-8 different sessions, it’s easy for a client to look at that and know that’s the style that they’re going to get from you.

As always, if you have any questions, fell free to reach out to us. We’d love to help answer anything you have questions about. Remember, photography is a journey that has no finish line. You’re always learning and improving and that’s what makes it so fun. Enjoy the process and keep shooting!

Faith and Frame Episodes will air every Monday. We hope you stick around and stay a while!

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Transcript

0:00

get my spectacles on here so you can see so I can see this microphone to talk into it do you have to see it to know

0:07

where to talk to I don't know but I can see it now well there you go problem solved welcome back good morning good

0:14

morning good afternoon good evening wherever you are in life wherever you find yourself watching SL listening to

0:21

us Taiwan talk e you think we got listeners in Taiwan we have to check the analytics I'd have to check some data I

0:27

hope we do that'd be pretty wild I don't know they could understand our not only English but like our redneck Engish you

0:33

would be surprised there is a I know this is just a random fact toy that Garrett knows there is a massive country

0:41

music following in some of the Asian countries I could really they love

0:47

country music I could maybe kind of see that so I think they could probably deer some of our verbiage here they might be

0:54

able to I I I I know too they're they're they would have the aid and help of

1:00

transcripts and captions trouble is is I don't know how accurate they then like the transcript machine caption machine

1:07

can decipher maybe we need to petition googley Spotify whoever to let us be the

1:15

the Southeastern translators Well here here's why I'm going with that I have tried to use Siri on multiple occasions

1:22

yeah she don't she don't like it so I'm thinking if Siri struggles to to decipher what I'm saying probably

1:28

similar engines are the ones that are behind transcript so maybe not getting my

1:34

redneck accent down we could be your translators we could do it if you're out there listening we could do it um meta

1:40

if if if that's something I wish it was a way to turn

1:46

off meta AI oh no I opened up a can by saying that one word yeah I didn't I I didn't mean to go there sorry zuk we

1:53

don't want your AI well it's it's on the B it takes up like half of the page on every post like it ask M no I don't want

1:59

to I'll be honest with you I don't like it I don't want to I just I just don't tell the heck off sorry I just want to

2:05

scroll Facebook yeah sure do just yeah I don't need your AI right now sure don't

2:11

anyways that's neither here nor there no um but it is little mini rant for it is

2:17

on Facebook uh so it is it is there at least yeah and while you're at it go look up some Taiwanese country music

2:23

yeah uh o that'd be interesting I probably wouldn't understand a word going back to that whole translation

2:29

thing but there sure the Melodies would be fun anyways what we're going to talk about today is advice that we would give

2:38

ourselves our younger selves our younger selves or in that case any new photographer our new infantile 6B 9 o

2:47

baby photographer s uh yeah yeah I probably weighed a little more than that when I first seven so I was 87 there you

2:55

go um but when you start photography MH and

3:00

that's one good thing that's happened with social media it's brought awareness to this art yeah that

3:08

uh didn't seem attainable right uh on many fronts due to availability cost all

3:14

those things but photography has grown its user base tenfold yeah uh as a result of

3:22

social media so that means there are a lot of new people getting into it every single day means there's a lot of advice out there some of it good some of it bad

3:29

uh we may be some of the bad today we'll find we'll find out yeah I mean let us know but uh that's what we're going to talk about is advice we would give a new

3:36

photographer because it is exceptionally daunting yeah to uh to

3:43

to yeah absolutely it's hard it's hard to know because there's a lot to it it's

3:48

hard to know what do I need to start with yep so we're going to do that but

3:55

first let's than our sponsor sponsors of today's episode are none other other than us Jared and Garrett here at motion

4:03

Creative Media and our new Blue Collar L folks if you are looking for an easier

4:08

way to put a quotequote filter on your phone video brand new camera video

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4:21

L onto your footage and you are good to go it works universally for phones and cameras nice let us know what you think

4:27

and uh Jared thanks for sponsoring this episode hey thank you thanks for letting me not a problem gladly Mee and ters jar

4:35

get us meet and ters so we're talking advice for our young baby infantile photographer selves today yeah what

4:42

would I tell a new photographer uh and go well where to start's tough because

4:48

again it's it's it's a lot but right I guess one of my biggest regrets is I did not

4:56

start out shooting raw right R aw I don't think anybody does no I

5:03

shot jpeg a little longer than I would have liked and what I mean by that is you're going to hear the word raw uh

5:10

you're going to you're going to hear the the the word jpeg Etc just file structures file structures what you

5:17

would what I would suggest someone do is basically from day one even if you're in

5:22

auto mode Y which that's fine yeah at least change the setting from JPEG to

5:27

Raw yes and why is that well so for me it comes down to if you are looking

5:34

back on your work from six years ago maybe you get a Facebook memory whatever you hate the way that photo looked

5:40

you're like oh I'm a much better editor now my my editing Styles changed a lot I

5:46

would love to put my current knowledge and editing Style on that old composition maybe it was of a building

5:52

that doesn't exist anymore you can't go retake the photo but you have the photo if you have it in a

5:58

jpeg a lot of those colors and things are already baked in yeah so you've got

6:05

you've got a different starting point than you would if you shot it raw down

6:10

to flexibility raw is literally the raw output of the sensor it's going to be flatter a lot more flexible even if you

6:17

made exposure mistakes in camera may have whatever that's going to be way more fixable way easier to fix if you

6:25

shot it in raw so like I would suggest day one start shooting Yeah well yeah cuz on a JPEG if you shot it at 5600

6:33

Kelvin and it actually needed to be 3200 the jpeg is baked like you cannot change that if you try to change your color

6:38

slider it will nuke it yeah but on Raw if you need to change 3200 from 56 no

6:44

problem because you've got all the data there from that file now just flexibility the the Temptation and the

6:50

the the the pitfall when starting out M

6:55

it is it is a much flatter image yeah so it is a little more uh daunting as a

7:03

novice to to go to edit yeah go to edit it that raw image um but I would suggest

7:09

start raw yeah a you're going to become an a better editor quicker and B you're going to love yourself or well let me

7:15

rephrase that you're going to hate yourself less uh when you go to uh tweak that image from six years ago versus it

7:21

being a JPEG I was going to say one of my favorite things to do as of late is go back to my old stuff and re-edit it

7:26

um just and even from like fairly recently I know know lately over on the gram um and on the threads I've been

7:34

digging up uh photos from our Chicago trip back in 2021 ah that was only three

7:39

years ago but even three years later I'm re-editing things to you know what my style and my flavor is now I'm like okay

7:45

it is a good thing that I shot raw because I have that flexibility to do those re-edits yeah so yeah that would

7:51

be where I would start ASAP is possible shoot ASAP as possible um another thing

7:56

and I'm going to follow you up um and this will be Point number two um with shooting raw ASAP as possible I

8:02

would say find a mentor of sorts ASAP as possible yeah got my new camera I'm

8:08

shooting raw yep um but I want to find somebody that can answer my questions

8:14

yeah period like any any and all questions that I have whether it comes to composition whether it comes to

8:20

exposure color theory things like that or maybe just style right find a mentor

8:26

that you can plug into maybe you're a second shooter for them let's say they're wedding photographer and you want to do weddings go be a second

8:32

shooter maybe they're a studio photographer go be their understudy yeah if you're if you're

8:38

looking if you're if you're saying okay great find a mentor how do I do that

8:44

well start with local groups local groups but specifically like approach people that

8:51

you enjoy the work of that doesn't me that doesn't mean that the other people wouldn't be a good Mentor but it makes

8:56

sense to if you enjoy if you like their Style Philip's work yep reach out to

9:01

Phillip and ask him to be your Mentor don't ask Nancy because I mean maybe Nancy's not your thing but Nancy shoots

9:07

macro flowers and you want to shoot Automotive it totally different find someone who shoots what you like find

9:13

someone that shoots the style that you like Bingo ask them to be your Mentor um because chances are if they're doing

9:20

that style well yeah and you like that style they're going to give you good advice to do that style well yeah so

9:27

yeah find a mentor because what that's going to do is they're going to help you get out of Auto right and that's that's

9:35

the natural progression you buy camera it's in Auto you don't understand the exposure triangle shoot it auto shoot it

9:42

raw shoot it auto that's fine and you're slowly going to want to be like oh I

9:47

need more control I need more control I'm getting pretty good results uh in Auto but I think it can be better and it

9:54

can it can so like that person is going to allow you to to bounce questions off

10:00

of them maybe that Mentor will even like come alongside you and say uh help you

10:06

with critiquing help you hey you know what change your apture here yeah let's let's try changing your apture here you know whatever I think it I think it

10:12

boils down to you know the the Wise Old Sage they're going to be able to tell you what changes to make to tell the

10:19

story that you want to tell and and you just gave a pretty good example of like let's just take something as simple as aperture yeah if if I'm shooting

10:25

portraits and I think we mentioned this on on an episode ago but if I'm shooting portra and I want to include some

10:31

context you know for for you know my my subject maybe I maybe I close my

10:37

aperture down a little bit to include a little more of the background or maybe I want to exclude the background because

10:42

it's not pertinent to the story I can open up my aperture right um thus getting rid of the background a little

10:48

bit more so they're going to be able to help you on the creative side of things make those creative decisions and tell

10:53

you exactly how to manipulate your camera to do that well so one of the

10:59

coolest things about having a mentor MH

11:04

is not only can they help you in camera or on set but like they can look

11:11

retroactively at a set of images and give you critiques right and that's one thing you got to learn if you're going

11:17

to start this photography Journey you got to be open to open to critique listen anytime you make art which is

11:23

basically what photography is is art a it's subjective y b you're going to have

11:28

people com good bad they're going they're going to throw their two pennies in there period

11:34

so you've got to be open to criticism and you've got to be able to accept that

11:40

got to be able to take it got to be able to take that um so yeah that's one of

11:47

the best things I think of having a mentor and my mentor early on uh was

11:53

traditionally like a studio photographer yeah um and started in the film started

11:58

in the film world M and help me with digital because that's what I started out with but he was able to help me a

12:04

lot with like things like composition that's something that can happen after the fact I'm looking at your set from

12:10

this family portrait or this family session it's like okay look don't if it

12:15

basically the rule is if it bends don't cut it off don't cut it off don't cut your joints off you know go a

12:22

little lower or or whatever or hey you need to really pay attention to your horizon here you're you're not level

12:28

those are simple position that's thing that that trained eye can see that you as the shooter who's new probably aren't

12:33

thinking about well it's so hard it's subconscious it's so hard like when

12:38

you're first out there doing your thing remember everything yeah it's like okay wait wait exposure uh composition uh

12:46

shut like it's it's so many things so naturally things are going to lapse oh yeah and that photographer that you are

12:52

using as a mentor is going to be able to help you weed through those which don't worry fair warning like those things are going to lapse your whole career uh yeah

12:59

you're going to have brain farts yeah uh I had brain farts yesterday on a production so it happens probably have

13:06

one tomorrow if I keep breathing um but yeah find a mentor that's a great piece of advice yeah it can be intimidating to

13:13

uh to reach out to reach out and a lot of people there's like this stigma that uh if if you're a good photographer or a

13:20

seasoned photographer you're not approachable and some aren't I was say

13:26

there's out there there's some Richards uh but for the most part it's pretty supportive Community yeah I would agree with that find a mentor hit us with

13:32

another one uh starting out once again shoot everything y don't say no

13:39

right naturally what's going to happen this is this is almost inevitably how it transpires every time if you you find

13:45

some things if you are someone who Maybe started out with your iPhone which probably did because it's the camera you

13:51

had y you're like I want to take this a step further so you buy your first camera whatever it is you're going to start to have people reach out and say

14:00

hey you have a camera you got a camera could you come shoot my kids third

14:06

birthday party I would love to have photos but I forget to take photos and I want to be present can you come take

14:12

pictures you just bought a camera and I just started my inhome goat milking at

14:17

4:37 a.m. Farm come shoot my goat milking session say yes to everything yes that's going to be controversial for

14:25

a lot of people for whatever reason shoot everything yeah up until a point because people are saying you got a

14:30

niche down you got a niche down you got a niche down and that is true right eventually eventually eventually you

14:35

can't know and my opinion a what kind of Market exists for XYZ style if the

14:42

market what you like and what you're good at yeah for instance again and I've said this before but like you may have

14:49

this aspiration of shooting these Grand Landscapes well most Landscapes are

14:54

going to be taken at one or two times a day M morning or afternoon sunrise

15:00

well in order to get some of those landscape shots at Sunrise you're GNA be out super duper early GNA be out super

15:06

duper early walking through in the dark or super duper late which back to your car in the dark back in the dark you may

15:12

learn like I don't like this this is sketchy probably not going to make a good landscape photographer but you may

15:18

be the best but there's a market for landscape photography so like you need to shoot everything so that you learn

15:23

those things it's like learn what you like I thought I love shooting cars yeah turns out I don't turns out I don't

15:29

or you may think ah you know what I'm going to be a wedding photographer you may hate being on your feet all day probably not going to make a good

15:34

wedding photographer you don't learn those things right without shooting them without shoo you got to sh shoot

15:40

everything so that you can start to narrow down it's like I love I love this style of Photography yeah now you know

15:47

yeah you know and then at at that point in time if if you do decide to take it from the hobbyist level to a

15:53

professional level I think as a hobbyist shoot anything and everything like it don't matter it's whatever you like and whatever you see but if you do decide to

15:59

take it to a more professional level that's when you can start honing in yeah um because you do it's important to find

16:06

a couple of things that you are absolutely known for yeah um that way people who are looking for that thing

16:12

know that you're the go-to well and the caveat to that is you know it's it's it's a bit of a it's a bit of a scary

16:18

situation it's like are you telling me that I can only shoot Automotive if I become known for a no no professionally

16:23

sure what I'm saying is go shoot whatever you know you wouldn't you wouldn't necessarily post that in

16:30

your uh professional portfolio it's like I'm not going to show this newborn

16:35

session that I did to Porsche and all my F1 photography like it's it's just not what you would do sense no you can still

16:42

shoot it and I suggest doing that I shoot all kinds of things that I never publ size or or like Market essentially

16:49

um so yeah Niche down later yeah but that doesn't mean that you can only

16:55

shoot that bingo bingo so and and on that too um I know in my last point I

17:00

said you know when you take it from hobbyist to professional level I'm going to stay kind of on that mentality here but the minute that you decide to go

17:06

from hobbyist to professional level I would recommend also getting yourself a pretty good website yeah um and and more

17:13

importantly getting a way to drive traffic to that website um with marketing efforts um it's very important

17:19

to have a website in today's environment now yes social media is Big um and I

17:24

think a lot of people consider Instagram even to be their portfolio of sorts but I will say this when you start getting

17:31

inquiries from let's just say larger entities or entities that have larger

17:36

budgets Etc they ask nine times out of 10 where's your website or they've

17:41

already done that research before they or they've seen your website which means with your website and this is where the

17:47

niching gets pretty important you need to be pretty specific on your website what you do and and we've experienced this firsthand um I mean we've paid

17:53

people to tell us hey I don't know what you do I like your website you've got pretty imagery but I don't know what you

18:00

do so find find somebody to build you a website or if you can build build a

18:05

website build a good one learn how to Market it um and and be pretty specific with it the the uh Pitfall there that

18:14

you kind of you kind of touched on and I'll just take it from a tech perspective is everybody's like well

18:20

Instagram and Facebook's my portfolio that's great great post your work there post your I'm not saying don't post your

18:26

work there put your Instagram Link at the bottom of your absolutely here's the problem with it though you are truly and

18:32

I've lost an entire Facebook account that I had since 2009 yep lost it yep I

18:38

got hacked yeah the hacker posted evidently inappropriate things which I still to this day have no clue what it

18:45

was I don't either I never saw those things well here's the thing though you I I tried appeals I tried I tried all

18:53

the routes to wasn't having it he didn't believe you to regain access to that account they said nobody still to this

18:59

day and I never will I'll never have that account again so what's the danger in that well if you if you're only using

19:06

Instagram or any other social media platform as your only yeah source of uh

19:12

portfolio yeah you're literally a hack away or an algorithmic change away from

19:18

that being effective or even reachable what what if that app goes away take all the people who were on Vine Vine was

19:24

massive Vine was booming and then all of a sudden Vine was gone imagine all those folks so so I've heard it a lot of times

19:32

in reference to email list yeah you own your domain you own your website you own your website you own your list yeah

19:39

that's where you need to ultimately be putting stock in now as a funnel the

19:45

easiest and and today at this point social media it's it's free right in most cases it's great top of funnel it's

19:51

a great exposure situation the people who are very serious about like hiring you in the future though they're going to ultimately look for your website if

19:58

they on your website that may be a red flag you may not get reached out to yeah I was going to say especially if you're

20:03

spe specifically on the photography side if if you're looking to get into like agency work like you know people are hiring you to go do corporate gigs

20:09

things like that yeah um they're going to want a website portfolio yeah Bar None So yeah get you a good website and

20:15

Market it there you go drive traffic to it very important Well yeah if you just have a

20:20

website I'm here and uh nobody ever visits it then I would say it's not very

20:25

useful right right not very useful not very useful at all moving on this one is

20:31

interesting okay it's kind of the last it's kind of the last point I guess we'll make our last thought

20:38

here the challenge when starting out in photography you're going to want to

20:44

start editing your images specifically if you're shooting raw you're going to want to start editing your images more than like an Instagram filter right

20:50

you're going to want to take it a step further so you're going to be in Lightroom Capture One photos more than our blue color look whatever you're

20:55

going to you're going to want to start uh Al in your digital pixels

21:01

there finding your style is it's it's a bit daunting yeah

21:08

um and here's one thing I'll also say your style will probably change constantly and what do you mean by style

21:14

Jared what are a couple things that that signate or signature a style so yeah so

21:22

so your style is basically the way that your all of your images are going to

21:28

have subtle similarities hopefully hopefully hopefully you're not overwise all those things right so the

21:35

way that your greens appear mhm should look very similar set to set week to

21:42

week month to month right like that's going to be your style hopefully you you start to become consistent that's the

21:49

goal because that is also something that I think a lot of people book based upon

21:54

it's like I love the way they compose their images actually so much to the point now and I I've seen this on

21:59

another podcast so much to the point now that I know in The Wedding Game specifically photographers are actually

22:06

having to put in a stylistic clause because Brides you know they're hiring

22:11

for your style sure well what that does is that protects you from them coming back and saying well I don't like the way that you edit these I need to

22:17

re-edit I've edited these for this way for years for this style right right so they're having to throw in Clauses now

22:23

but that that's how important your style can become once you start moving into especially the profession Environ well

22:29

so so it's daunting to to land on your style you don't know where to go um I

22:35

would suggest researching photographers yeah that you like you like right and if

22:41

it's in the style that you like it's even easier like for instance um I I have always loved the way that Evan rant

22:51

yeah processes as him process phographer his images his colors are rich they're

22:57

saturated they pop off of the screen and off the page he did not fall victim to

23:03

that Moody desaturated Trend that was on Instagram about three four five years

23:10

ago yeah where the only colors that you saw were orange and black he stuck to he

23:15

stuck to his guns and his images have always been very consistent yeah that is

23:21

Evan's style same with like one of my other favorite photographers to watch on YouTube James pops oh yeah pops good now

23:29

his his uh his comes into color but it also comes into exposures mhm and he if

23:36

you watched any of his videos you'll understand he explains like a lot of times his Skies he let them go hot they

23:41

almost look blown yeah they go hot they almost look blown they weren't captured blown because I've seen his raws and

23:47

he's talked about this multiple times he raises them he raises them and it's his style and he'll explain exactly why he

23:52

says look if it doesn't add to the subject then in my opinion it subtract s

23:58

from the yeah it's not a part of the story so like if this Sky being beautifully exposed and colored

24:06

subtracts from the person in this photo then it needs then it's it's right who cares how beautiful it is or how

24:12

beautiful that blue is or whatever his whole thing is like no it's going to be it's going to essentially be an element

24:18

that's not in the photo you know and that's consistent all the way up into Hollywood I mean there's a lot of directors and DPS in Hollywood where

24:24

same thing like you'll see Windows go hot you'll see Skies go hot because they are not worried about that as a part of

24:29

their story if it's a part of the story sure it's going to be there but if it's not not there but find your style um

24:36

find the way that you like to edit compose and process your images or

24:41

somebody else and then try to emulate that yeah absolutely emulate but don't copy like and and and a lot of people

24:48

will sell Lightroom presets that's a great way to good starting point it's a good starting point what you're going to

24:53

need to quickly learn though is like if you bought this preset from say James Pops I don't he sells presets but let's

24:59

say he did sell presets maybe he does let's say he sells presets you're going to start by a

25:06

slapping that on your photos and calling it done and calling it done because it's like oh this looks good but what you're

25:12

going to want to learn to do manipulate it is is understand how it's achieving

25:18

the look that it is and you're like you know what for where I live yeah this doesn't

25:24

work this color isn't it's not it's I don't live in Dubai I don't live in Eastern Europe that's

25:30

another thing to caution if you if you are constantly being fed work from say

25:37

out in California from photographers out there or in uh the the uh Utah or something

25:43

like that you need to understand they don't really have greens there right they have all but if you're a

25:49

photographer based in East Tennessee Yeah by George everything's green except for right now CU we've not had rain rain

25:56

or in the fall we got a lot of color a lot of color so you may need to like proceed with ction in the sense of if I

26:01

bought this pack from this dude in California it may not be a one toone translation uh for my photos here in

26:07

East Tennessee or I'll save you 20 bucks right here um because I've seen these L packs and going back to that trend of a

26:13

few years ago of like all you're seeing is orange and black and everything else is gone I'll save you 20 bucks you just rock all them saturation sliders down

26:19

and you're there yeah you're there for free anyways but again find three four

26:25

five photographers that you enjoy the work of and reverse math it what you're going to learn is like okay why do I like James's editing

26:33

style why do I like this gu why do I like this this and this you're going to slowly start to see similarities it's like oh their skies are a little warmer

26:41

or you know their colors are this right it's the way they do their greens Etc you're going to start to learn those

26:47

things all those things just become the ingredients to your pie yeah that's that's the way I like to look at it if

26:53

if I like if I like this guy's pie feeling I'm going to put his pie feeling into my pie if if I like this guy's

26:58

crust I'm going to make his crust for my pie the quicker you can land on your

27:04

style and the more consistent you can be that's a big thing I I it's and I look

27:10

back at all my old work and I look back at new I currently see new photographers work set to set there's so much

27:16

variation and I know that that they're just they're just trying to dial it in but the quicker that you can learn your

27:21

style uh and be cohesive the better I would we' talked about Trends before

27:27

another word of caution avoid Trends in my opinion now if you like the way that a

27:33

trend uh handles this certain color that's something that you can maybe implement but like Trends are going to

27:39

come and go B you find something that's Timeless find something that's that's where I always try to land is something

27:44

that's Timeless I I the the last thing that I want is someone who paid me money

27:50

to photograph whatever 10 years from now looks back and it's

27:55

like oo I look like Skittle wow why was the well sweetheart that was the TR that

28:02

was the thing back then right be something you know try to be something Timeless that's something that I would

28:08

try to to to to caution you Timeless and consistent Timeless and consistent which this just popped into my head on on

28:13

consistency specifically and obviously other photographers do this we do this um but once you find like let's say a

28:20

set that you really like make yourself a preset that way you're not editing from scratch every single time yeah make

28:26

yourself a preset and let that be your starting Point uh for whatever set you've got coming down the pipeline that's that's something that it it

28:32

helped me tremendously the minute that I started creating my own presets yeah um

28:38

that gives you a base that you know is going to be consistent every single time you can tweak it from there yeah you can

28:43

tweak it from there uh but it's just a good starting point uh and every set's going to be different based upon time of

28:49

day all the colors in the back like all those things it's not season it's rarely going to be a complete like Dro and go

28:55

it's never going to be a one for one a one for one but you could at least have consistent got your um because again

29:02

like if I look at if I look at um say Bonnie's work I know we talked about her

29:07

a lot lately her images are consistent yes every single

29:13

time color composition all of those things and so that's important

29:20

because it it's important because if someone is looking at your work and they're wanting to give you their hard

29:27

hard earned dollar for for photographs they're going to want to basically have them you know uh

29:37

placed in as a variable well they want your style to be represented from what they saw I saw this set of images I need

29:43

you to substitute me essentially in that because this is this is what I love I

29:48

want this on my wall I want this for my memory um so yeah the quicker you can land on your style mhm and get it

29:55

consistent and get it consistent the better agreed agreed the better uh it's

30:00

also really important this is kind of a bonus tip I would also suggest look back at your work let some

30:08

time transpire that time variable varies but like 6 months 6 weeks whatever look

30:13

back at your work and give yourself honest criticism give yourself an audit give yourself

30:20

very honest criticism don't I mean you can give yourself Grace if you want to but this is your chance to improve in my

30:26

opinion right it's like okay what do I not like about the way that I did this set six months ago um or I mean

30:35

use your customer feedback if you're if you're sending out sets and you're getting people asking for re-edits um

30:41

there may be something that either there's a communication issue and you've not communicated your style onto what

30:47

they thought your style was y or maybe there is some room for improvement um use use feedback yeah I can look back at

30:54

send it to mentors have them give you feedback that's I used to literally share cataloges Lightroom cataloges with

31:02

uh Steve Tucker he was my mentor and he would go through and he would pick

31:07

through like six images that he wanted to offer advice on yep and that was so

31:13

helpful because he was able to say maybe try doing this different here

31:19

compositionally or whatever and and I had it in my own work I'm like okay yes I could have done that why did

31:26

I not do that let mean catalog this do this better the next time just give give

31:32

yourself an audit but be honest that's the big thing that's and if you can't be honest with yourself send it to

31:37

somebody somebody that will give you honest somebody that will be honest with you and and by honest I don't mean mean

31:44

not ugly but very objectively looking at your work yeah like hey you're it's a

31:50

little soft here y little soft here I see you shot it at f1.4 was that because somebody told you you needed to shoot

31:55

everything wide open Maybe you bought that 1.2 lens by golly you're going to use every single one of them aperture

32:01

blades just you know maybe we're going to open them the heck up stop that down a bit you know uh those things come with

32:08

experience when I first bought a my the first lens I bought was the nifty50 1.8

32:14

that sucker lived on 1.8 it well it lived on 1.8 aperture for a long time

32:20

until I realized this isn't necessary I was going to say you do your first you do your first uh session where you've

32:25

got like a family of five and Dad's in focus and everyone who's like 2 Ines behind him they're just totally gone

32:30

yeah you learn those things you're like oh I need a little more depth field here just because this lens can do this

32:36

doesn't mean I have to does mean I should or should there you go so yeah uh

32:41

hopefully we'll kick that out again hopefully this video falls into the good

32:46

advice section because there's a lot of good and bad out there these are just things that we've experienced that have

32:51

helped us along the way um and that we would feel or would help others there's no yeah there's no blanket right there's

32:58

no BL beginner photography ad or just photography advice period you'll hear people say Niche down Niche down yeah

33:05

that eventually eventually that's not good well in my opinion that's not good advice to give a beginner no no no no

33:11

that's not good advice to give a that that comes down the road once you work on style interest Market things like

33:16

that so this was geared to hopefully yeah help a beginner help set a path forward for a 8 pound 7

33:23

o baby photographer Garrett yeah what would tell yourself that's what I tell

33:29

myself Jared speaking of telling people things there are some things that our audience can tell us what are those uh

33:35

if they liked this yeah or if they didn't or if they didn't like this again going back to criticism being able to

33:40

take it all we can take it yeah I can take it we can take it I can take it I'm pretty thick skinned not going hurt my

33:46

feelings I can also delete it if you're ugly um I mean I I'm free to let you say what you want to I don't care public for

33:53

yeah just leave us review um if you have something that you would tell ADV or a

33:58

beginner photograph in the comments below com I'd love to hear some some feedback maybe something we missed but

34:03

you know what something I really struggle with starting out yeah this was it give Garrett some advice yeah I'm

34:08

open to it and stars and bars we also enjoy feedback any feedback if you've like this video want to hear slse more

34:16

like it in the future consider subscribing uh also maybe you know a beginner photographer uh sh them a link

34:22

yeah send this over to them this hopefully was helpful I know it would have been helpful to have heard the things that we talked about today for

34:29

myself and we didn't get technical we stayed away from like the triangle and all that that's a whole another whole

34:34

another discussion whole Nuance absolutely um but yeah hopefully this was helpful I think it will be Jared on

34:40

that note um here's the hard part oo uh we will see you in the next one hey did

34:47

not make that hard y'all have a good one see y'all

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Episode 44 - "Girl Dad Talk" Feat. James Buchanan

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Episode 42 - Best PORTRAIT Photography Lens for BEGINNERS 35mm vs 50mm vs 85mm