The four pillars of photography
The four pillars of photography.
Some weeks ago I bought some secondhand gear from someone who wanted to become a wedding photographer.
He had only started a few months earlier and the Godox AD200 Pro and AD100 Pro were not even used at all! These are people who think photography is easy. Well it's not. But it is also not that difficult either.
In my lectures I talk about my work as a photographer and how I learned photography in a relatively small period of time. Still a lot of photographers starting out think it is only pressing the shutter button on your camera and easily make money.
When people ask me how long it takes to become a good photographer I always tell them it takes between 3 and 5 years and that is not a lie. You have to photograph with a passion. Learning photography never stops.
There is so much involved in how to make a good picture and you learn by doing.
Let me explain.
The first important and probably the most important pillar is "content". If you cannot show something interesting your photo will just be a snapshot. Nothing more and nothing less.
If you photograph a person (portrait photography) you have to make sure it looks interesting to the viewer. Sometimes beautiful eyes can be enough to make the photo work and stand out.
When a young woman just stands there without any expression or beautiful pose the photo will be just one out of the millions. The content of your photo is extremely important.
This is an example where content is extremely important. I also choose the make it a black & white picture to make sure the colors of the trousers are not distracting. It is certainly technically a difficult photo. I used on camera flash using a Godox V1 with dome to spread the light.
But what is content without a good “composition”. Let's say you capture a beautiful model on a very basic white background but she is not filling the frame at all.
Even if your model is stunningly beautiful with the right pose and expression the photo will not have the same impact for your viewer compared to a nice composition.
This can be a full body shot but also a close up portrait photo. Composition is something you can learn but some people just have it by nature.
For this photo I used a higher angle and a 50mm lens. This makes for this picture a huge difference compare to using a 85 mm lens. The colors I used are also monochromatic.
This is Claire. She was the first runner up of Miss Belgium in 2023.
The third one is “knowledge, experience but also gear.”
But let me start first with the importance of knowledge. What if you do not know how a camera works? What if you don't know how to set your white balance? What if you do not know how your flashes work? (trust me I came across photographers who don't even know HSS exists or what lightformers do)
What if you do not know how to set the focus point of your camera? I even know photographers who still don't fully understand the photographic triangle and how light behaves when using omnidirectional light.
You need to learn a LOT. There are so many things to learn from the basics of photography to very extensive light setups (depending on what you photograph).
To cut a long story short. This takes time and a lot of practice. Every successful photographer in this world was not born with all photographic knowledge and experience so don't panic and slowly get better as a photographer every day.
When I hear professional successful photographers telling people gear is not important, why do they use very expensive Hasselblads & Broncolor gear? please tell me.
I would not be able to take photos without my flashes, light formers, light stands and a good camera and lens. You can start with very simple gear and when you get better you can start investing in better flashes and lightformers.
Don't forget you can buy excellent strobes from Godox at very affordable prices. You can buy an AD200 Pro for 350 Euro and when I tell you one of my favorite lightformers is the Smallrig RA-D55 costing 100 Euro (Vat inc) then you know what I mean. Compared to your expensive camera and lenses this investment is relatively small.
It all depends what type of photography you are into. A landscape photographer for example does not need to invest in flashes (strobes) while a sport photographer needs to buy an expensive tele lens to be able to photograph a football game.
But experience is not only all technical stuff but also how to guide models. How do you make them feel comfortable? What is, for example, a nice pose?
For the picture below during a workshop I used 5 flashes.
The last one is “post processing.”
When you see a breathtaking picture a lot of post processing has probably been done to improve the photo. Even with the most beautiful light the photo can always be improved by the basics in post processing and that is dodging & burning.
Let's say you have photographed a beautiful model at sunrise using a flash. There is no existence of a lightformer only illuminating your model. The floor will also get a touch (or a lot) of light. If you do not want that then you can easily improve the photo by darkening the floor.
There are many things you can improve. When I started out as a photographer I always thought I had to capture the things as they are but I was wrong. To give you an example, I once took a photo of the city Gent (Ghent) and at that time there were a lot of construction cranes in the back.
These are temporary so they can (should) be removed.
Don’t think Lightroom is the only program you need. Though you can do a lot with it, Photoshop is still by far the most impressive photo editing software available. (I use Capture One Pro instead of Lightroom by the way.)
For this picture I used the 4 pillars of photography.
1. I have a beautiful model wearing a blue dress and there is some movement in the picture. The content is there.
2. I made sure the compostion is how it should be with enough room on top because this would be lateron a cover of a magazine so the people of the layout have enough room for text.
3. I could never have made this picture in my first year as a photographer. This was shot at 1/50 of a second using the knowledge of flash duration. You only have 10 minutes to make this photo and then the light changes dramaticaly.
4. The photo was post processed in both Capture One and Photoshop. It takes a few years time until you start to see what can be improved and you also need to know how to do it. Trust me. This is not an easy picture.
Thanks for reading and see you soon in one of my workshops.