How to do Photography?

How to do photography?

That is one big question! And you’re probably asking something along the lines: “How to be a professional photographer” or maybe “how to take a good photograph?”. Here’s my answer as a professional photographer.

Becoming a great photographer takes time. You can either take an education with the main subject “photography” or spend countless hours learning from other via YouTube. I did the latter. I’ve spend countless hours, days weeks, months on watching YouTube videos about photography! I remember back in 2013 when I did my master how I spend the first half of the day writing and when my brain was all roasted, I fired up YouTube and just started eating information on photography and Photoshop. Over those years, I’ve stumbled upon a huge amount of inefficient videos about photography, which are just a waste of time, but I’ve also seen a few extremely well-made videos full of valuable information. I’ve put these videos together in one playlist.

The playlist is so much more about Photography with capital P than just camera settings and EXIF data. This is all the stuff I wish I knew when I started photography. I am still struggling to apply all this exceptionally valuable information to my own life and career and I know that no matter where you are in your career as a photographer, whether it is as an amateur or a professional, you will benefit from this.

I have put up the playlist in an order I think will benefit you the most no matter if you are an amateur or pro. Starting out with videos about the mentality and philosophy behind modern photography. All the things that need to be cooking in your brain BEFORE even picking up a camera. I cannot understate how freaking important this is. You will probably end up wasting YEARS of your life focusing on all sorts of technical insignificant details such as settings, frames per second, focus stacking, brand discussions, mirrorless or DSLR, amount of 'bokeh' etc. Again, I cannot stress this enough. This is the most important part of photography. After those first videos, I have a number of videos focusing on how to improve your photography. These videos do not focus on settings. They focus on composition, color theory, and storytelling, which are the most important aspects of the different photography genres. When you have rewatched those 3-4 times delving into the history of photography is absolutely essential. There is this stupid discussion going on what a “true” photographer is. For several reasons that’s an ignorant statement, but with a video about Ansel Adams, who is the probably most famous landscape photographer of all time Ted Forbes, who’ve made the video shows how Ansel approached photography. You can take a lot away from his methods and his philosophy no matter what field of photography you are in. I am finishing the playlist off with a couple of videos on business. This is only to get you started, but both videos focus on the philosophy behind entrepreneurship and business for the artist in general and they are extremely valuable to you if you want to make money off photography. The very last video – or podcast – is one on how to become a better human being in the broad sense.

Now as I have said this list is full of amazing insightful information, but sure do explore the channels of these videos. “The art of Photography”, Chase Jarvis and Tony Northrup have a huge, huge amount of information on photography which is worth going through! These videos should work for you whether you own a camera or not and I hope my years of watching YouTube will benefit you!