My working list of photography principles

I am a (very) amateur photographer. These are my notes to self as I continue to play around with landscape photography:

  • F8 and be there. The classic axiom is right: the most important rule of photography is to show up and take tons of photos. There is no substitute for reps. I put aside my telephoto lens in favour of a pancake lens that fits in a small sling bag, and I’m now much more likely to take my camera on outings I wouldn’t normally consider.
  • Think harder, shoot slower. The harder I work to compose the scene in my mind, before even looking through the viewfinder, the better the final photograph tends to be.
  • Light is everything. This is an annoying reality, especially for landscape photography, but light conditions make or break good photography. Some days are easy mode, all sunbeams and halos, others are extremely difficult, overcast and flat. Many locations require multiple visits.
  • Learn a lens, learn a location. My photography has improved since committing to a single lens and internalising it’s strengths and limits (my 16-50mm kit lens). I suspect it would improve further if I committed to a single prime. Similarly, I get better results with each subsequent return to the same location.
  • Things that feel beautiful are rarely photogenic. Photography is a highly abstracted form. Many things that look and feel beautiful to human senses seem muddled and unattractive through the camera, lens, and vice versa: the Venn diagram of overlap is far smaller than I had realised.
  • Landscapes need deliberate interest. Pleasing landscape photography places undue weight on concepts like strong leading lines, subject/background distinction, obvious focal points and foreground interest, local contrast. People make excellent subjects in landscape photos, and photos of classic panoramas without any foreground interest usually wind-up flat and lifeless.
  • Look at lots of photos. Second only to taking many photos is consuming many photos, and beginning the slow, unconscious process of internalising different compositions and colour palettes.
  • Throw away most of your photos. Digital photos are cheap and easy to create, and the easiest way to curate a decent portfolio is to shoot prolifically and throw away almost every photo taken. I love this quote from Fred Lyon: “the wastebasket was much more important than the camera.”
  • Good editing won’t save bad photos, and inversely, good photos rarely require much editing to coax out their brilliance.