New Year, New Hobby! Getting Started with Photography
- Jan 23, 2023
- 5 min read
Happy new year! I hope everyone had a lovely season spending time with friends and family over the festive period. Do you have any resolutions for the new year? Perhaps you want to exercise more, read 50 books or even start a new hobby. Let me know your aspirations for the year below! This week, I am kicking off the new year with a new blog series for those who want to start learning or want to get back into photography. The internet is an infinite source of information, which can be overwhelming when you’re trying to find where to start with a new hobby, so this series will be bringing you all the basics in one place, making it easier for you to navigate.
This week I will cover three tips to get you started with photography, and share some of the first ever images I shot when I started my journey, just using a phone! Photography isn’t all about having the latest gear, especially when you are just beginning your photographic journey. It’s about experimenting and creating with what you have right now, making mistakes and most importantly, just having fun.
Before I get into my top tips, it is so important to remember that it is not the equipment you are using that makes a good image. Yes, you read that correctly; it is not the camera that takes a good photo! Photographers are constantly asked about the type of camera they use because it “takes amazing photos” when in reality, the camera does not take a good image. There is this assumption that if you buy a high end camera, you will immediately take great images, and when that doesn’t happen, it can leave people baffled as to why their images aren’t like those they are seeing from other photographers.
Sure, the type of camera can help improve the quality and sharpness of the image, and there will be a time where the equipment becomes limiting to your development, but the camera is simply a tool to create an image (did you know that even the first photographic image was created without a camera?). Instead, a good image is created by the person behind the camera. Their understanding of the equipment, their creativity and their knowledge is what creates a great image. Not to mention, they have potentially decades of practice behind them to get to the quality they are shooting now. Photography is not a profession or a hobby where you get amazing results overnight.
I am a firm believer that you do not need a brand new camera, the best tripod or fancy strobe lights to get started with photography. You do not need all the newest gear and technology to get started. Not only because it is expensive, but it will potentially cause you to feel overwhelmed with the gear, and you may be more likely to give up on photography because you don’t know how to use the equipment. Work with what you have right now! In this age, almost everyone has a camera in their back pocket on their phone. If all you have right now is your phone, get to know how your phone camera works, research how everything works on your camera app, and get shooting. If you have a camera, read through the manual and the menu within the camera to understand what each setting does. Once you understand the basics of the equipment you have, you will begin to shoot more confidently.
Now that I have discussed any potential questions surrounding what equipment to use when you get started, let's get onto my top three tips!
Get out and shoot (and shoot EVERYTHING!)
This may seem like an obvious statement to make, but understanding your equipment and reading up on photography will only get you so far. The moment you start putting your knowledge into action and actually start shooting, is when you will begin to develop and improve the most. At University, we called this ‘practice as research’ where we develop our craft and gain a better understanding through doing. When you begin photographing, take images of everything, don’t limit yourself to portraiture or wildlife just because you’ve seen they are popular genres. Go on your own journey, the only way you can discover what you enjoy shooting is by shooting everything when you start!
Think about experimenting in Post-Production
The photographic process doesn’t have to stop in-camera. Try experimenting with different editing styles in post-production (e.g. editing in Adobe Photoshop) and see what you can create through editing your images. Photoshop and Lightroom are just two ways of doing this, however, they can be pricey. If you don’t have this software available, there is the Lightroom App for phones which is free, where you can get to understand the difference editing makes to your images, as well as various other image editing apps available on your App store. If you don’t want to use apps, even the filters and editing sliders in your phone camera app are great to play with! Remember, developing your creativity with what you already have is better than diving in with new gear and new software you have never used before.
Don’t shoot in ‘Auto’ mode for too long
This is a little trickier to get around when it comes to phone photography, but shooting in ‘auto’ mode, where all of the exposure settings are taken care of in-camera, can really hinder your growth as a photographer if you get comfortable with using it. I would recommend beginning to shoot in manual mode as soon as you understand how the exposure triangle works, if not sooner (I will go over the exposure triangle in this series!). Shooting in manual mode gives you far more control as a photographer than shooting in automatic mode, because you manually set your exposure to your preference. This then allows you to be more creative and experimental and you will begin to create better imagery in-camera, which is really helpful for the post-production stage.
That concludes my top three tips for getting started on your photographic journey! The next article in this series will cover the gear I used when I began practicing photography, with more embarrassing photos to accompany it. Whether you are just starting to get back into photography, or have decided to take it up as a new hobby for the new year, starting something and doing it badly is better than not doing it at all. We all start off as beginners, and we all start off creating bad work. It’s not that you're bad at photography, you’re just new at it! So don’t be discouraged, pick up your phone or your camera, go for a walk, and get shooting!
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