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Five Things Professional Photographers Don’t Want You to Know

Tips to be a Professional Photographer

By Eugene GabrielPublished 7 years ago 4 min read
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Five things Professional Photographers don’t want you to know

Ten years ago, a well-known travel guidebook used to pay their photographers £10,000 to shoot all the images for their country guides. A year later, the rates had dropped up to 50%. Nowadays, guess how much they pay? Not a sausage.

And whose images do you think they use now? Yours, of course. They get sent in droves of images from all around the globe, and if they get used, a free copy of the guidebook comes back your way.

Competition in the photography market has never been fiercer. With stock agencies now accepting images and videos from smartphones, you don’t need a load of expensive kits to start selling. The market is flooded with pictures being traded for cents, or even for free. The world of professional photography is in crisis.

Decades ago, you had to ‘do your time’ before you called yourself a professional, meaning an expensive stint at University - learning how to process film, print in darkrooms, shoot in a studio, doing projects, studying history, printing portfolios, learning various camera types, how to sell your work, and get a loan to buy lights and kit. Exhausting. Nowadays, we have Instagram and Lightroom presets, which can make an average photo look half-decent. There are hoards of websites you can upload your work to for sale. You can book yourself on one of the widely available intensive photography holidays, quickly learn how to use your equipment, and understand what kind of pictures you’re good at — in a week.

That said, some of that ‘time’ is still paying dividends. Professional photographers still have a few tricks up their sleeves – things they don’t want you to know – that’ll ensure they will still stay ahead of the game.

1. They don’t worry about the technical.

You can shoot a million pictures that are perfectly exposed, sharp, and with beautiful colors, but utterly boring. You don’t need to be technically proficient to take a good picture. Ever wondered why your iPhone pictures are almost always better than your posh camera? You’re doing it without anxiety.

2. 95% of what they shoot is unusable.

How many images do you see in most professional photographers’ online portfolio? Twelve? Twenty? Years and years of shooting, and only a handful? Less is more; you don’t need to flood Facebook with 50 pictures of your latest holiday. Just one will do.

3. The film will be back.

Trends come and go. Soon, you’ll need to just fall on your camera, and it’ll kick out a wonderfully sharp, colorful, perfectly processed shot. Yawn. Where’s the challenge in that? Even now, nothing looks like film — or is as challenging to use. Just ask the professionals (the ones who are well trained on how to use it). It will be back.

4. They don’t use zooms.

Photography is an active art form. Its goal is to bring the viewer into a situation in an affecting and visceral way. You can't do that if you're just standing in one spot. But that's just what you'll end up doing if you need to operate a zoom lens.

On the other hand, a prime lens — one with a fixed focal length that cannot zoom — will make you a better photographer. That's because it forces you to "zoom with your feet," move closer to your subject for close-ups and scuttle backward to go wide. Prime lenses also tend to be much cheaper than comparable zoom lenses. Without moving parts, all the money goes toward great optics. ‘Doing time’ pays off again.

5. It’s essential to make mistakes.

In 1864, a lady called Julia Margaret Cameron — aged 48 — applied to become a member of the Royal Photographic Society. She was accepted, but her contemporaries were quick to criticize her work as being out of focus — which she said was done deliberately. Instead of including flaws most photographers would discard as mistakes, she embraced them. She is now widely recognized as one of the most important portrait photographers of the 19th century. Moving forward a hundred years, a young (and nervous) Annie Leibovitz found herself on assignment for Rolling Stone Magazine to shoot John Lennon. After taking a few shots, she stopped to change her film, took a test shot to wind on the film, and then continued shooting. That ‘test shot’ made the front cover — an unguarded moment and one of the most famous images of Lennon ever taken. So, don’t discard your mistakes. Go with it.

About the Author.

Eugene Gabriel has always been fascinated by Travel and the effects on life. He also guides his readers about travel and ways to make it more entertaining and adventurous. You can also follow him on twitter @eugenegabrielj.

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