5 Bad Photography Habits to Drop Right Now
- Read This If You Want to Take Great Photographs
- Capture the Moment: The Modern Photographer's Guide to Finding Beauty in Everyday and Family Life
- Tony Northrup's DSLR Book: How to Create Stunning Digital Photography
On your way to become a world famous and wealthy photographer, you will be challenged by the hazard of developing negative habits that will ultimately slow down your progress or stop it all together. Seriously, no matter what your goals are as a photographer, there is stuff you need to stop doing. Here are five of the worst habits ever.
1. Comparing yourself to others
Comparison is one of the major themes in literature and philosophy and it affects every living person. If you're a photographer, that just means you have one more thing to compare with what the rest of the world does. Comparison only works in moderation, but there is no such thing as moderation when you spend hours looking at great portfolios. By the time you're done getting high with all the eye candy, you'll most likely feel like throwing your computer and cameras out the window because the worm will have already started working in your brain. It's not even fair to compare yourself to other photographers because you have no idea about their backgrounds. Some are already rich others have been studying and shooting for a lot longer than you have, and some are just obscenely talented. If you insist on making comparisons, try to get an honest perspective of where you were two years ago and how much you've evolved. That should make you feel better.
2. Making settings on the camera's LCD
Unless you have to make substantial changes, you shouldn't take the camera away from your eye when changing exposure. You have all the info you need in your viewfinder. A lot of photographers make this mistake and miss important moments that only last a second or two, which is how long it takes to look at the LCD.
(Success Tip #1: Crazy new way to learn photography when you have little time to spare)
3. Not backing up
This is a bad habit that becomes very painful when things go bad. Seriously, back up your photos on a cloud before you risk losing them forever.
4. Not working hard enough
There is a lot of frustration that can build up when things don't start happening and success is late. Should this situation occur, ask yourself if you're doing enough to become successful. Are you sacrificing anything? Are you putting enough time in building a portfolio, marketing yourself, making new contacts and making work relationships stronger? Cause if you're not, it might be time to break another bad habit.
(Success Tip #2:The secret to selling more photography)
5. Acting like a famous artist
Oh boy, I can't tell you how annoying it is when you come in contact with wannabe geniuses full of themselves. I don't even care if their work is good or not, it's the attitude that gets me allergic. You know a photographer like that when you see one, because it will be crystal clear that he has done everything in his power to dress like a rock star to get the attention. He'll also be using some sort of vintage looking camera, but using his iPhone to photograph his food a lot more. Don't be that guy or girl.
These are just 5 common bad habits, but you can be sure there are a lot more. You will identify them as you meet more photographers. The fair thing to do, besides avoiding them yourself, is to let them know that what they're doing isn't right. Just be sure to do it politely, because as we all know, photographers have sensitive egos.