20 Essential Photography Tips For Beginner Photographers

Starting out in photography can be really confusing. There is so much stuff to learn, so many things to do, and so many resources to read, not to mention the insane amount of people screaming opinions at you all the time. It’s hard to fight through all the noise.

To make matters worse, there are so many resources out there that — while they may have great intentions — can often guide you down the wrong path, lead you to dead ends, or influence your mindset in a particular way. For example, if you put too much emphasis on gear or settings or focus on tips that are very domain-specific to a particular category of photography and not pertinent to you, you may not learn anything valuable to creating good photos.

In the video above, I aim to solve that. This video is the answer to all of the common questions I get from people who are in their first few years of photography. It’s not necessarily for people who are absolutely green and will be more useful to someone who has a firmer grasp on photography, but even if you are in their first few weeks with a camera, you can definitely grow into these tips.

These tips lay the foundation for solid photography skills and will help you set your basics up correctly. I’ll give you just enough detail to tell you about the point, but if you want to go deeper into the subject then, you know what to Google next!

Here are the first 10 points I mention in the video above:

  1. Photography is 70 percent about what is in the photo, 20 percent how you take the photo, and 10 percent how you edit it.
  2. The real secret to getting better at photography is vision.
  3. Understand what “good” looks like as fast as you can.
  4. Look to other forms of visual art for inspiration.
  5. Style isn’t something you should really worry about at the beginning.
  6. Understand the basics of the exposure triangle.
  7. Photography “rules” are a bad way to think about them.
  8. Take a lot of photos, make a lot of mistakes, and learn from all of them.
  9. Create a habit to work on skills daily.
  10. Get a firm grasp on the importance of light.

If those points look interesting to you, then check the video above for the explanations of each point, as well as the next 10 points that I think are important to understand.


About the author: Pat Kay is an award-winning travel photographer and multi-disciplinary content creator based in Sydney, Australia. With a passion for travel and adventure, Kay specializes in exploring the contrast between nature and urban, through landscape, cityscape, aerial, lifestyle, and street photography. He has worked with many of the world’s top brands such as Sony, Adobe, Microsoft, Samsung, Nike, Adidas, Ford, Toyota, Lexus, DJI, Razer, Instagram, and more. For more from Kay, follow him on Instagram and subscribe to his YouTube Channel.

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