Photography is one of the most popular activities in recent years due to mainly social media and the ease of access to a smartphone with high-quality camera functions.
The need to capturing the beautiful pictures for important events like wedding or business exhibition has created job opportunities for photography hobbyists who have honed and grown their skills through years of practice.
As per Wikipedia, photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film.
Technically, photography is the process of creating images by capturing light using a photosensitive surface such as a photographic film or an electronic image sensor. The art comes from the use of light and creating the image in mind with the tools in hand. In short, we can actually define photography in three words; vision, imagination, and seeing.
Professional photography is a complicated activity that needs much more technical knowledge and experience to execute as more often than not, there is no second take in a professional setting. Beginners can attend a photography course to achieve the required experience. A good photography course helps amateur photographers learn everything they need to know about professional photography; from the tips and tricks to the mistakes they should avoid.
Here are some of the common mistakes that photographers make and the ways to avoid them.
Photography Mistakes
1. The Shaky Frame
One of the most common problems faced by photographers taking photos of moving objects is blurry images.
Sometimes, a photo comes out blurry or slightly unsharp, and the photographer is unsure of why it happened despite trying their best not to shake the camera when pressing the shutter button. A blurry image can be the result of a slow shutter speed. When the shutter speed is too low, the camera shake reduces the image’s quality and sharpness.
One of the ways to avoid this is by using a rule of thumb of using a shutter speed that is at least equivalent to the focal length of the lens you use.
Nonetheless, this slow shutter speed setting can be used purposely to create an amazing photo depending on how you want the photo to turn out.
2. Confusing Composition
Arranging elements in a photograph is something tricky to do and has become a challenge for amateur photographers. It takes some time for beginners to learn how to arrange the elements in their camera frames to give them harmony. When they don’t know what they are doing, they create a composition that completely confuses the viewer when looking at their photographs.
Luckily, some simple guidelines help beginners manage and arrange the elements in their frames based on human perception:
· Subject Size: Subject size is one of the most crucial factors in composition. The size of objects or relative size of objects determine what the subject is in the frame. Size tells how much of the subject will be on the frame and determines the purpose of each object. It can rather catch the attention or push it away, so photographers must be careful about it.
· Eyeline: Eyeline is the direction in which a person looks and creates a leading line. Eyeline guides the viewer’s eye toward what they are looking at or the composition. The subject looking off the camera and out of the frame creates confusion, and having the subject looking toward the other part of the frame brings the viewer’s eye back to the image.
· Tangent Lines: Tangent lines, also known as vertices or vectors, are imaginary lines that are created by the objects in the frame and guide the viewer’s eye toward the desired subject. It is a compositional technique that is extremely powerful and creates a bold effect in composition.
· Perspective: One of the most important factors in photography is the perspective and point of view. Your image must have an exciting point of view. Perspective can give interest to an image or make it boring and stale. Don’t be lazy on the compositional front and take your images from a daring, unique, and strange perspective.
3. Missed Focus
One of the biggest photography mistakes is the missed focus. When you use autofocus and let the camera choose its focus point, it is more likely to focus on the wrong part of the camera frame. Missed focus is an issue that can be impossible to extremely difficult to fix after the fact, so photographers must nail their focus in the field.
An easy way for getting accurate focusing is using the camera’s spot autofocus mode to choose the focus point.
4. Awkward Pose
Not all the people you work with are professional models, and definitely, most of them don’t feel all comfortable posing. Finding online poses and passing them to your model may seem awkward to them and will appear in your photos.
Don’t let them feel awkward and uncomfortable. Instead, use the poses as basic guidelines and focus on your subject. Engage them with eye contact and friendly banter and encourage them to have fun and enjoy the process by being themselves.
5. Lack of Details in Pictures
Usually, this is a problem that beginners deal with. When a beginner doesn’t know how to manage everything in a photo, it ends up with a messy photo, a bit like an out-of-focus where the whole image lacks details.
Getting good detail in images requires a lot of things to take care of. They also need a lot of light; they have to be in focus and make sure that they use a proper shutter speed. A slow shutter speed causes the camera to shake and ruins the whole detail in a photo.
6. Not Having the Proper Distance From the Subject
The first thing that is important in photography is the subject. The subject is what photographers must take care of it and set every element based on it. Before start shooting, photographers must know what is their subject and why are they taking a photo of it. Then they must manage the elements based on the subject and use a proper distance.
Distance is a key factor, and missing it causes a huge mess in pictures. Having a proper distance helps the subject to catch attention in the first place.
Photography is a complicated activity that needs lots of knowledge to handle. It is a tricky activity that causes photographers to make lots of mistakes. Photographers must be careful with all these small mistakes and find a way to avoid them. If you are looking for a professional photography course in Singapore, speak to our consultant today to find out more about our Diploma in Photography & Digital Imaging!