People’s interest in photography is growing larger than ever before. Photography used to be something that only a few people did except for, taking pictures of your family, friends, or perhaps, something that you used to do on your holidays.
When digital photography came along, the ability to learn photography became much easier. However, it also created a sense among many that you can learn everything about how to take photos just by looking at other people’s work and doing what they do. The problem with this is that everyone has different tastes in terms of their style of taking photographs which means not all styles are equal.
I spend a lot of time answering questions from people that want to learn photography and I’ve come to learn that the most dangerous question in photography is “What settings are you shooting at?”. The reason why this is the most dangerous question in photography is that it can lead you down two different paths that will define how you learn photography and either expand or define your limits. Let me explain.
The most common reason why someone asks me that question is when I am showing someone how I would take a picture. They see the results and they want to replicate the photo exactly and so they are going to copy what you are doing in order to get the exact photo that I captured. Quite often they will ask to stand in the same place as you so they can re-create a copy of the photo that I just exposed. I used to get a little annoyed at this since I did all the work and they simply get handed the information and all they have to do is essentially push a button and they get the results of all my hard work.
This doesn’t seem to bother me anymore but I do get concerned for a different reason. You see, when I am trying to teach someone the principles of photography, I am trying to get them to understand why I have those settings. In fact, they should have an idea already of the setting that I am shooting at if they do in fact, understand the exposure triangle.
Unfortunately, most of the time, they don’t take this approach. Instead, they memorize the settings so that they can try to re-create the same photograph sometime in the future. In my opinion, this is the wrong way to learn not only photography but any other skill. The reason is that memorizing a process that you don’t understand, simply lets you do something as long as the conditions are right. Once those conditions change, the photo will no longer work as expected.
This is not just an issue with photography but with any other skill. In the past, I used to work in the IT industry and the same thing used to happen there. In some cases, some of the support staff used to have a database of problems with solutions that they used to reference. When the problem was not in the database, they used to get stuck and did not know what to do. This is why I always advise people that are interested in learning about photography to always learn the basics. I always point them towards the exposure triangle and get them to really understand what each of those components actually does to a photo. I explain that the three components can be used to balance each other out and get a good exposure for your photo.
Copying or emulating other photographers when you are learning photography is a great way to learn. But, instead of asking what the settings are in order to replicate a photo, you should try to determine what the settings are, before asking the question. This is the best way to learn photography because you can compare the answer to what your settings are.
As you get better and better in photography, you are going to get a much better rate at reverse engineering an image to try to figure out what settings the photographer was using when the image was captured.
Having the ability to dissect an image is a great skill because it allows you to start with the end in mind. You see, when you get an idea for an image, you will start to see the image in your head and you will start to note down all the little details about the photo. In your head, you will know exactly what the photo is going to look like. But now, you have the skill necessary to execute the shoot and get the exact photo that you can imagine in your head. If you didn’t have this knowledge, you would most likely end up with an image that can still look good but may not look anything like the image that you intended.
This approach to learning photography should be applied to all other aspects of photography. During the editing of your images, you will know exactly what each slider in Adobe Lightroom will do before you make any changes.
The idea is to know in your head what the photo will look like and then create it using the tools that, because you know them well, will let you arrive at the final image. People that don’t follow this approach will not have the ability to set the look of the image. Instead, you will see them flipping from preset to preset trying to get something that they like. By learning all the skills needed to capture your image and edit your image, you will never find yourself in this limiting environment, and you can then use preset for inspiration rather than having the preset set the final look of the photo. I would encourage you to learn the basics so that the next time you ask someone “What settings are you shooting at” is only to confirm that you already knew the answer.