This is very good advice, very good

Great advice from Eric Kim:
1. Never stop taking photos.
2. Photos make great presents.
3. Never hoard your photographic insight- share it with the world.
4. Travel and photography are the perfect pair.
5. The more gear you carry around with you the less you will enjoy photography.
6. Make photos, not excuses.
7. Photography isn’t a hobby- it’s a lifestyle.
8. You can’t “photoshop” bad images into good ones.
9. Carry your camera with you everywhere. Everywhere.
10. Only show your best photos.
11. Spend less time looking at other people’s work and more time shooting your own.
12. Capture the beauty in the mundane and you have a winning photograph.
13. Go outside and shoot photos rather than spending hours a day on photography forums.
14. Always shoot in RAW. Always.
15. Just because someone has an expensive camera doesn’t mean that they’re a good photographer.


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Just because you don't take good photos...

Just because you don't take good photos doesn't make you a bad photographer.



What does? Taking a lot of photos makes you a good photographer.

I'm speaking in the personal journalistic sense here.
Beautiful photos doesn't make your life amazing. The memories and stories behind the photos do.

Looking at our photos we have great photos and a great life. But if someone is looking at our photos and thinks their life is not as good because their photos are not "professional" has the wrong attitude about their photos and about their life.

All my terminology is really ambiguous. Let me define my terms for this post.

Good photographer: Someone who actually takes lots of photos.
Bad photographer: Doesn't take photos, and ends up without a photographic record of their life.

Great photos: photos that record a memory
Bad photos: almost anything from a cell phone camera, I hate cell phone cameras, use them as a last resort. But if that's all you have bad photos are better than no photos. Bad photos are photos without a story or a memory in them. You've probably looked through a collection of old photos and wondered why you took a photo of some object. I have. Unless it was your first car, then there is a story.

The moral of this post. Take lots of photos.

How to better use the camera you have

View of Manhattan from Governor's Island. It was such a nice day then and it is so cold now.

This post is inspired by my amazing cousin Candice. She commented on a previous post and said:

Maybe all of your teaching will sink in one day. I have been trying to use it, but sometimes pictures happen so fast, that I forget about 5 good things to do for a great picture.

Maybe I should try to pick subjects that do not move.

Basically Candice represents a huge percentage of people who own cameras and want to get better at taking photos. They wish they could justify buying a really nice expensive camera but can't because the one they have already overwhelming.

My solution is to underwhelm yourself.

Here is my recommended strategy to taking control of your camera. It's a three step plan.

1 Read the manual for your camera
This was the first thing I blogged about here. You don't have to read it all right now, or even this week, just keep it with you. Read through one specific feature at a time. If you don't have your manual the manufacturer probably has a copy online. I found mine on Canon's website.

2 Practice a single feature or setting
Take a photo. Then take the same photo but change only a single setting.
This might be easier in manual mode, when you can change one setting at a time and see what kind of difference it makes. Play with the same setting in different light. If you want to take better photos of a constantly moving toddler, then take a few hundred in a sitting. I guarantee you'll get better. Just don't try to learn the whole camera in that one sitting.

3 Rinse and repeat
Take lots and lots of photos. You can't get better at playing piano just by reading about it on the internet.