Want to take more great photos? Just take more bad photos.

Spread it!

Share

Email This

Just sitting around in the living room playing with a few Nikon Speedlights

This is probably one of my more obvious posts, but I think it’s something that is often overlooked in photography.  You need to practice.  You really, really need to practice.  I stress this during my workshops, but not enough.  This post is about taking bad photos.  We all do it. I do it; sometimes on purpose, sometimes by mistake.  I take bad photos all of the time to check exposure and to see if I like my composition, and then I hit delete.  Don’t think you need to labor over a shot and have everything in place before you hit the shutter button.  Remember, photography is supposed to be fun, so keep it that way.

One of the best features your DSLR has is the delete button.  But, don’t use it too fast and throw away all of that good information.  Let’s use it to learn before we delete.  I’ve had a lot of people come to my workshops and ask about photos or situations where they’ve had problems getting a good image.  It usually goes something like this.

“I tried to take a photo and the sun was over here (as they motion with their hand) and my daughter was over here (now they look like they’re about to hug someone) and it ended up looking washed out and really bad.”  I’ll then say, “Oh, just email the image to me and I’ll take a look.” (If I can see an image, I can figure out what went wrong.)  And invariably they’ll respond, “Oh, I deleted it.”

Not a great photo, but it serves the purpose. Practice! Set your lighting up a few times and when you do it for a real shoot it'll be old-hat.

Don’t delete those!  Not yet anyway.  Use them to improve your photography!  Before you delete those photos you should at least figure out what went wrong so you won’t have to delete the next one (or twenty).  There is value in bad photos, so don’t be scared to take bad photos on purpose.  Without bad photos we wouldn’t appreciate the great ones as much.

Now when it comes to practicing your photography don’t assume you need to go somewhere scenic to practice.  You can practice in your own boring house!  In one of my workshops last week, a participant told me that one of the coolest parts of the class was when she took a photo of her Starbucks’ cup and it looked like something from an advertisement.  And this was under bad fluorescent lighting.  This is one reason why I don’t believe in using exotic or extravagant locations for my workshops.  Let’s learn by taking some bad photos before you head to the beautiful vacation spot that you spent a lot of money on.  If you can learn to take a great photo in a not so ideal setting, just think how easy it’ll be when you’re someplace nice with great lighting.

Now if you’re thinking there’s nothing around you worth photographing, think again.  That remote control makes a great subject.  Will it yield a wall worthy photograph?  No, but there’s a pretty good chance you won’t nail the exposure the first time, which means you’ll have to change your settings until you get it right.  If you can get that photo to look like something that would accompany an ad for some fancy TV, well you’ve just worked through a photography lesson on your own, and it’s time to move on to another challenge (like a dozen eggs or that tomato plant in your backyard).  And you thought you had nothing lying around your house worth taking photos of!