Digital Photography—Luck Is No Substitute for Skills

Good digital photography can be a result of luck, but luck is unreliable. It occurs randomly; you can’t control it. As long as you rely on luck for the occasional fantastic picture, you are fooling yourself and those you try to impress with your photos. Skills are required to take control of the photography process, so you take the picture you imagined, and not just the one you happened to capture.

Examine your and your photos, according to the following criteria, to determine if you are luck photographer:

You shoot many more photos than are necessary, so you spend more time at your computer looking for the good ones.
You must spend more time than the job requires because the only way you can be assured that you shot the picture you wanted is to shoot hundreds of images.
You don’t feel that you’re in control of the process; and if you’re a professional, then you can be sure your customers recognize your unease too.
You can’t duplicate the luck photos that are good. You don’t know what settings were used.
You don’t know those settings because you’ve never even read the manual or the many how-to digital photography articles at PhotographyTalk.com.
Of those hundreds of images you took, you only show a small percentage to clients. They know you took many more pictures, so they’ll probably insist on seeing them, which will only reveal that you’re not much of a photographer.

Recommended Cameras:

Nikon D500 | Nikon D3300 | Canon EOS Rebel T5 | Sony A7RII | Canon 7D Mark II

Skills Equal Control and Confidence

You stop being a luck photographer the day you decide to learn how to operate your digital camera like a professional. It’s as simple as that. There are five basic elements to developing digital photography skills. Listed below them are the PhotographyTalk.com articles that will help you learn even more than the information in your manual.

Lighting: You’re guaranteed to shoot many bad images as a luck photographer when you don’t understand the natural light of the sun and how it changes throughout the day. Of course, good portrait photography in interior settings is impossible without the skills to shoot under the available light or to use artificial light sources.

Beginner Photography—Control Direct Sunlight for Better Pictures

Digital Photography—How to Create a Home Studio

Digital Photography—You’ll Take the Best Pictures of Christmas Lights During “Magic Time”

Digital Photography—How To Use Light to Enhance Portraits, Part 1

Digital Photography—How To Use Light to Enhance Portraits, Part 2

Digital Photography—Understanding How Your Camera Reads the Light

Digital Photography—Gray Days Are Not Necessarily Bad Days

Digital Photography—There’s More Pictures to Take During Twilight, Part 1

Digital Photography—There’s More Pictures to Take During Twilight, Part 2

Camera Modes: Your digital camera includes many tools, in the form of various exposure modes and shooting modes that were developed to help you gain control of the photos you shoot and be confident the results are what you expected.

Digital Photography—Taming the Three-Headed Exposure Monster, Part 1

Digital Photography—Taming the Three-Headed Exposure Monster, Part 2

Digital Photography—Taming the Three-Headed Exposure Monster, Part 3

Digital Photography—Taming the Three-Headed Exposure Monster, Part 4

Digital Photography—Taming the Three-Headed Exposure Monster, Part 5

Digital Photography—Your Digital Camera Has More than One Shooting Mode, Part 1

Digital Photography—Your Digital Camera Has More than One Shooting Mode, Part 2

Digital Photography—How Auto-Focus Functions Work (and Sometimes Not Work)

Digital Photography—4 Reasons You Should Learn the Basics in Auto Mode

Posing Techniques: There’s nothing wrong with candid photos of your children at play or the spontaneous excitement of a floor filled with people dancing at a trendy club. If those are the only kind of digital pictures you take, however, then you are relying on luck again. Ask your subjects to pause their play or dancing for a moment, so you can purposely pose them to capture more compelling and interesting images.

Portrait Photography—20 Tips for Better People Pictures, Part 1

Portrait Photography—Posing Tricks to Make People Happier You Took Their Pictures

Digital Photography—Step Closer to Your Subject to Tell a Different Kind of Story

Bracketing Technique: As explained in the PhotographyTalk.com article, Digital Photography—How to Use Your Camera’s Automatic Exposure Bracketing (AEB) Function, and many others, bracketing is taking more than one photo of the same subject or scene. The first photo is at the “proper” exposure, the others are slightly overexposed and underexposed. This technique will virtually ensure that the photo you want is among those three or four images instead of the hundreds you’ll have to shoot as a luck photographer.

Self-Control: Even after you’ve acquired the skills to become more than a luck photographer, you must also develop the self-control and discipline to set the camera, use the light to your advantage and take the picture. When you know you have the image you want, then move to the next set-up. That builds confidence and means 80% to 85% of your digital photos will be good. A luck photographer trashes that many before he or she finds the good ones.

Explore the complete library of PhotographyTalk.com how-to articles for more information that will help you turn luck into skills into the best digital photos you’ve ever taken.

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