If I had to start photography now, I'd do this
You don't know how to edit photos.
You don't know how to use a camera.
You don't know how to compose photos.
And... you might know you don't know what to learn exactly...
I've made this Letter to help you with this.
This is a step-by-step guide on what would I learn - and in what order - to start mastering photography.
Let's start, my friends.
1) Start believing
Whether you think you can, or you think you can't - you're right.
This is one of my favourite ever quotes. It's from Henry Ford.
And I wholeheartedly believe this to be true.
If you tell yourself you can't ever be good at photography, you won't be.
If you tell yourself you can be great at it, you can.
It all starts with the right mindset.
You must understand our brains are flexible.
You can change the wiring of your brain, literally.
Let's say you want to learn Mandarin Chinese, it might sound difficult.
I'm not saying it's not. But it's possible.
You can learn it.
I don't care if you are 10 or 100 years old.
It's been studied over and over again human brains can make NEW connections no matter the age.
Sure, the younger you are, the easier it is.
But why would you stop learning even when it's harder??
Check out this video. Here you can literally see 2 neurons connecting together.
Watching that video made me believe even more we can truly re-wire ourselves.
So my point is - you can achieve anything - and learn anything - IF you believe so.
If you don't believe you can improve, you won't get good. And you'll quit soon.
2) Practise
After you believe you can improve, I'd start practising.
Going out and photographing is the best way to learn the basics.
Throw yourself into the unknown and start photographing with manual settings.
Some of your photos will come out horrible.
That's how it was for me too.
My photos weren't sharp. They were overexposed. And back then, I had no idea what I was doing.
But going out as often as possible, helped me improve.
I'd maximize time for this before worrying about what camera or lenses should you buy and so on.
Start photographing with what you have.
I started out on my family's Canon EOS 500D with 18-55mm F3.5-5.6.
Once I knew photography was something I wanted to commit to, my family got a new camera for me:
a Sony a6500 with a Sony Zeiss 16-70mm f/4.
Taking more photos and making mistakes is one of the fastest ways to learn.
Don't underestimate this.
I've taken tens of thousands of photos in the last 6.5+ years.
Do you think I'd be as good as I am now if I had only taken 100?
Take more photos.
3) Learn what camera and lenses are good for your needs
Once the time comes that you know this is something you want to invest in, learn about cameras and lenses.
What to buy?
This depends on what you want to photograph.
If you're into landscape photography, having an amazing autofocus system doesn't matter that much. Often our subjects are static.
The same - if you're not planning on doing video. Then you don't need 4k 120 fps.
But if you're a wildlife photographer, then autofocus is more important.
And if you want to take some video too, you need to factor that in.
So 1st know what you want to shoot.
Then, ask yourself in what conditions will you shoot?
If you photograph in low-light, then it'd be good to go with a camera that has a full-frame sensor.
Full-frame cameras allow you to get much better quality photos in low-light scenarios.
Some good full-frame cameras on a budget are:
Panasonic Lumix S5
Sony a7 II
Canon EOS RP
Lenses: If you're photographing in low-light - OR you're photographing subjects that require a massive shutter speed:
Opt-in for a lens with a small F-stop number.
F/4 is enough for Golden Hour, for sure.
But if you want to shoot at night, go for smaller than that.
I use a Laowa 15mm, F/2 for that.
4) Learn settings - Shutter speed, Aperture and ISO
Shutter speed, Aperture and ISO work together to come up with your exposure.
Shutter speed determines how long your exposure will be.
The shorter the shutter speed, the darker the image will be.
That's why when photographing at night, you'll want to have a longer shutter speed.
The aperture is the size of the opening in your camera lens.
Aperture is also known as The F-stop.
The smaller the F-stop, the smaller the amount of your photo will be in focus.
But the smaller it is, the brighter your image will be.
ISO means the sensitivity for light.
The higher the ISO, the brighter the image.
The higher the ISO, the noisier the image.
The higher the ISO, the less information you can recover in the post.
Have ISO as low as possible.
Start out with your Shutter speed and Aperture. Set them first.
They often tend to make the largest impact on how the image will look like:
Such as whether there is motion blur - and how much of the photo will be in focus.
The ISO will bring noise, sure. But you can remove it in the post, or at least some of it.
But you can't change your shutter speed or aperture in post.
5) Learn composition
This will make the biggest difference to your photos.
I see so many focusing on technical camera things - thinking it'll make a difference.
Sure, it might make some sort of a difference.
But honestly, I don't think I'm that good with the technical side of things.
Because I don't think being good at that matters a lot.
What matters is knowing the fundamentals, editing and composition (and colour, which we will dive into in a bit.)
Composition is something I've dedicated a lot of time to learning. And still do.
There are many things to cover. Too many for this singular Letter.
But I'd start learning the following things:
rule of thirds
leading lines
repeating patterns
how to make your subject obvious to your viewer
The last one of those is something many beginners struggle with.
Often, in their photos, it's not clear what they're photographing.
And sometimes, they don't know themselves what they're photographing.
(Been there, done that.)
This advice sounds over-simplistic, but it helped me so much:
Ask yourself what you're photographing before you take a photo.
(Credits to Mads Peter Iversen from whom I heard that advice the 1st time.)
6) Learn colour theory
Understanding what colours work together can be very useful.
Complimentary colours are something I love using. They are something you start to notice in many photographs, and paintings when you know what they are.
Such as the use of blues and oranges. And the use of reds and greens.
They work well together.
Learn colour theory. And what the colours mean.
Blue implies serenity. Yellow happiness. Red anger. And so on.
This is why I love using blues - as they bring the serenity feeling.
And the greens of the Northern Lights imply growth, rebirth, and renewal.
You can use colours to your advantage to make people feel what you want.
7) Learn editing
Photography is 50% of making good photos.
Editing is the other 50%.
Some ask me how to take good photos without any editing.
Is it possible?
Certainly.
But why would you not want to edit, at all?
I understand if you don't want to edit much.
But not editing at all is foolish.
Why would you let the camera do editing instead?
A photo is processed by you, or the camera.
So why not process it yourself?
(I get it if you need to send photos to the client fast. This can be the case with sport and event photographers.)
You can also fix mistakes you made more easily - such as underexposing a photograph. You must shoot in RAW format to make the best changes.
Learn Adobe Lightroom. And later Photoshop - if you feel the tools on Lightroom aren't enough.
I use both.
Both can be slowly learned step-by-step from YouTube. But you can also get 1-1 coaching or buy courses and so on online.
Buying Lightroom Presets is a great way to learn too. That's what I did at the start.
I loved the look Peter McKinnon had in his photos. But I couldn't figure out how he got the look.
So I bought his presets. And I learned a ton from that.
I'm working on my own presets. If you want to make sure you don't miss them when they launch, join the waitlist here.
How do I start learning this all?
I see you have 3 options:
1) Learn on your own - practise and watch YouTube.
This is the free way to start. That's how I started - and would recommend it if you have no budget to invest in your photography, yet.
2) Buy Presets to Lightroom to understand what changes certain sliders do better. Or buy courses, ebooks and so on to fasten your process.
3) Get 1-1 coaching from a photographer you look up to. This is the most expensive way, but the fastest way too.
I offer it too. Respond to this email with MENTOR - and let's chat about how I can help you improve the fastest.
I hope you found this Letter helpful.
Feel free to forward this to your friend if you did.
If you were forwarded, you can subscribe here.
Till next Saturday,
Hugo
P.S. Whenever you're ready, there are 3 other ways I can help you:
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