7 PHOTOGRAPHY MISTAKES I see all the time

in this video what i'm going to do is talk about the seven mistakes and how to solve them that i made all the time when i started and i see in other photos morning everybody fantastic to see you all again so there were seven mistakes that i used to make all the time when i started photography i wasn't particularly artistic um i made so many mistakes as i started to learn photography and looking at other photos and thinking why are they right what have i done wrong how come it doesn't look quite right and there are certain things that i see all the time in other people's photos i get asked a lot as a teacher on my workshops and from people in my master class about how they can improve their photos and there are certain things that the same mistakes that are made over and over again that are really easy to solve so what i want to do is share with you those seven mistakes and in this video it's a little bit different because i've asked people on my masterclass if it's okay for me to share their photos and show some of the mistakes that they've made so that hopefully that can help you now what i would say is that this isn't going to be about focus or camera settings or exposure it's more about composition and how you can get your composition right because that is what's most important for a good photo you could leave your camera on full auto and still get amazing photos but composition is that thing that's just a little bit trickier so they're the things i'm going to be talking about most before i get into the actual photos i would say as well that i did a video here a long time ago probably nearly three years ago now all about the four things that i think are most important to get a good photo and that is subject lighting composition and timing if you haven't seen that go and check it out because it's the basics really of good photos so okay let's get on to the first thing which is not being quite balanced your photos aren't really balanced and a lot of people might not quite understand this so let let me explain a balanced photo is where the elements of the photo just seem to fit nicely together so this is a good example of a balanced photo you can see that everything sort of sits nicely together i think without this tree in here it might not be quite as balanced but you've got you know the house here in the in the middle you've got nice dark area here the tree here just curving around everything just sits nicely and it's really nicely balanced but if you look at this one it's a fantastic shot but just a little crop would balance it up a little bit because i feel that this is quite heavy on the right hand side here so just by cropping in on that and just moving it just down let's try to be clever here so just just moving it down to about there and having maybe a little bit of that just to balance off this side creates a much more pleasing image you can see on this shot here from iceland that the photographer just needed to move their camera down to balance this shot up because you know that there's a need for a little bit more foreground in this image and not so much sky because the sky is quite dominant that blue just draws your eye up on this shot here you can see that the rock on the left hand side is quite dominant and it's not that balanced so your eye it just feels unbalanced you can just imagine it like a scales really and on this one the rock's going to tilt it to the side and it's not going to be quite balanced whereas this shot here from andy you we've got really nice balance in the shot so we've got this tree house here and then this bird just really nicely balances it out and what i find is that to get good balance you can you can draw diagonals through your scene quite often and that can help to balance your image so if you have something in one diagonal try and think about what's happening in the opposite diagonal as well as left and right and top and bottom those diagonals are really important and can help to balance your image and it's why a diagonal line through an image works quite well on to the next mistake that i see all the time and this is foreground and people putting foreground into their images but it not being purposeful so i think a foreground and an image has got to have purpose it's got to have something that adds to the story of the scene and if it's not that dominant and it's a bit too confusing then it can not quite work in the photo so for instance this shot here you can see that the fence is a good idea for a foreground but because the fence crosses over and there's lots of grasses then it doesn't quite work it's not quite dominant enough as a foreground and what ends up happening is the photo looks quite messy again in this shot here you can see that somebody tried to to get foreground we try to put this rock in here but the problem is that the rock blends into the surroundings quite a lot so what you've got to try and do is if you've got a rock like that is you've got to try and find a rock that's going to be a really dominant part of the foreground and so that becomes the feature of this sort of bottom half of the image and that will create a much more dramatic shot again on this this one here of these um hay bales in the field what you've got is a foreground that's not super exciting and and really i feel that the foreground should be one of those hay bales so if you'd have moved a little bit closer to the fork to those hay bales then they'd have made a more dominant foreground and been something that would be more interesting instead of having this sort of letterbox part of the image which has got all the detail in um the foreground's got to have something of interest in so just give you an example of that here's an example from phil of a good foreground so you know he's really thought about the the actual um where he's placing these rocks they're quite um prominent and they set off the scene it's still half the bottom of the image but he's got some really nice diagonals through this foreground as well that are actually working really well to sort of draw your eye through to the tree and i think that works incredibly well and then this tree is you know a quite dominant subject within the image so here's a few other examples of really good foregrounds as well if you can get foregrounds like that in your scene it can make such a big difference so really think about that and make be really purposeful with your foreground in your image and whilst we're on foreground let's go to the third point the third mistake that i see all the time and that is the foreground just sort of dropping off i've spoken about this before it's where the foreground just um doesn't connect with the mid-ground and the distance of the image so here's a good example of what is actually a really nice foreground and an amazing sunset but i feel that the connection between the foreground and the sunset and the distance doesn't quite work we almost have like this drop off here that sort of you know takes your eye down in in into the bottom but doesn't connect you through to the bottom so what would have been a good idea here is maybe just sort of wandering around and um and maybe just standing here and then photographing in this direction where you might have been able to see down into this valley here that foreground connection is really important so here's a good example from jerome of an amazing sort of heather path and you can see that he's also created a really good diagonal line going through and an s curve and it takes your eye through into the scene whereas this one here with peter it sort of almost works but there's still that sort of drop off um you know i'd have liked to just maybe see that just turned a little bit further to the left and you'd might have just had a better diagonal um which would have created a nicer drop off in into the scene on to the fourth point and this is about not having a compelling subject in the scene and i think it's important for a landscape shot to have a compelling element in the scene and that compelling element doesn't have to necessarily just be a lone tree or something like that it could just be the river winding into the distance it could be just the mountain and the and the actual clouds going over the mountain but i think it's important to have an area where your your eye rests is probably the best way to explain it so if you look at this image here from reagan there's some amazing cloud formation which is captured really nicely but i feel that your eye doesn't quite rest in the image you know there's not a compelling part of the image to go to now that compelling part of the image could just be a part of that cloud formation but at the moment we've got this blight area to the left-hand side that sort of draws your eye away and again from this shot here from andrey i i feel that you know that the subject of of this pier is probably lost a little bit so your eye doesn't quite know where to focus there's a little bit of competing tension between the reeds at the bottom left and the pier on the right hand side again on this shot here from hans you know it's amazing this grasses and these mountains in the background but for me i feel that i don't know whether you've taken a photograph of the mountains in the background or these grasses and the actual trees in the foreground and mid-ground and i think it's probably important to either use a longer lens on this shot or um just find one tree that's really nice and make that that the compelling element in the scene with the background mountains the sort of secondary player in the scene if you see what i mean that that compelling element that that part of your image where your eyes sort of rests on it is quite important now it doesn't necessarily have to be one element in your scene and and this is a good example here from kai of this woodland you know it's it's a it's a really fantastic woodland scene and all these trees blend together to create this compelling element of of you know of this snow that's stuck to the side of the trees and it looks really really fantastic okay on to the fifth thing and if you got this far through the video then um if you've liked it please give it a thumbs up and and like it below that i really appreciate that it makes a big difference to me and helps the video do better um okay on to the fifth element and which is all about wrong light so so there's no such thing as bad light there's just wrong light so actually you know if it's flat light then you you know you're best to probably go and maybe shoot some woodland or um just shoot a scene in a different way and a good way to explain this is probably by looking at a few images so first of all let's have a look at this image here from david now this is a really nice scene with river going through into into the background but i feel like it's been taken in in the wrong light and because it's like probably around about midday um it's a little bit cloudy it's probably waited for the sun to go behind a cloud which is a good idea um but that the light is very flat and you don't get any definition within the trees so they become sort of sort of black smudges either side of the river i feel like if the light was a little bit lower here or if it was a little bit misty then it would bring out the information the trees like this one here from steve where you know he shot a similar scene here but in just slightly different conditions where it's totally overcast there's a little bit of fog in the air and that brings out some of the information within the trees and it just works better as an image whereas this one here um you can see that it's quite sunny and bright and you have lots of things that are competing for your attention it's almost like it's too contrasty the scene so so what happens is the things like the wall and the clouds become very strong elements in the scene and compete for your attention whereas if you shoot this at sunset or in mist or in more overcast conditions then it'll sort of tone everything down in the scene and it'll blend together a lot better so really think about that and really try and shoot a scene that you shoot all the time in different lighting conditions and you'll be amazed at the difference it makes it's such an easy thing to change but makes such a big difference and i see that in the same mistake made all the time in in people's photos i've just finished with this one because it is really important this point this is a shot from gavin which is a really nice composition but i feel that the light lets it down because you've got a shadow here that sort of isn't great it interferes with the side of this rock um and this blue sky is very dominant and draws your eye whereas if you'd have had a stormy or overcast or even raining conditions then this rock would have blended in a little bit nicer you could have had some nice side light on this rock and it would have transformed this thing because the composition is actually quite nice it's the lighting that's letting it down okay onto the sixth point and that's all about an image being too complicated or too cluttered i see this all the time in photos and it's something that's actually quite easy to overcome okay so let's have a look at an example of an image like this so here's here's a scene um and you can see that in this scene that um there's lots of things going on so we've got some grasses here we've got this boat we've got this um fence we've got a river here and then we've got a actually a really nice sky and i feel that all those things in the scene are competing for your attention you've got like this blue here you've got this quite um defined uh fence here and i feel what needed to happen in this particular shot is focus on one so either go really close to the boat and make the boat a big part of the shot or go into the fence and make that a leading line into the rest of the river or go down to the river and look at the shore of the river but just focus on one element and make that you know the star of the show so again on this shot um you can see that from gavin that the mountain in the background is there is pretty fantastic um but then you've got this sort of foreground and then you've got this mid ground and you've got sheep on the foreground so there's quite a lot of things going on and actually you tell you're showing the viewer too many things my friend mark littlejohn who's an amazing photographer i'll link his um instagram profile make sure you go and check it out some stunning photos always says that the viewer tells people too too much and and needs to hide something away um and i i really agree with that if you look at his work he shoots a lot with a long lens and gets close in on the subject so for instance on this shot from gavin you know perhaps just getting close in on that mountain in the in the distance would have made a big difference and getting close in like you can see from these shots here from mark littlejohn has made such a big difference to the simplicity of the scene and and got rid of a lot of probably what was a lot of complicated things going on around him and just focusing on just certain elements in the scene it's quite a hard thing to do because you want to if you if you're in a big sort of vista you want to show everybody the vista certainly for me i shoot wide angle all the time but if you're struggling with composition then going with a long lens makes such a big difference to improving your composition because you can just hone in and simplify that scene so give it a try and hopefully you'll be able to get some of the shots like marks that i've just been showing there which are pretty amazing okay the final thing is just thinking about the edges and the corners of your shots um and this tends to be the crop a little bit as well so you know when you're actually taking the shot just thinking about you know is there room to just get a little bit more in in the image and then i can crop a little bit later because it's you can always crop but you can never add more so for instance this shot here from mar of the golden gate bridge is an amazing shot it really really is i mean i've tried to take the golden gate bridge from from down there when i used to live in in there and it is actually quite a difficult location to shoot because you want to show more on the right hand side of this image but it's it's quite tricky but i feel that this image does need more on the right hand side because it's not quite balanced you know the bridge just feels a little bit um towards the side of the image and i feel that if you just said a little bit more then that would add to the image also just show less sky and that immediately improves this this image as well you know again on this shot which is a lovely shot you know it is taken in perfect conditions in lighting conditions that are just absolutely perfect but we've got this tree trunk here which draws your eye a little bit too much you know it's it's got quite a heavy visual weight because it's so dark and it's drawing your eye but again just cropping this out and just thinking about those corners is all you need to do to make this image better so thinking about your corners thinking about what's happening in the corners and the edges of your image can make a big difference and change your photos quite dramatically so just go around the size and just think what you can change so i hope you've enjoyed that i want to say a massive thanks to everybody from mastering the art of landscape photography course for entering photos for this and allowing me to talk about your photos i know that's probably not the easiest thing to do because you know i've been a little bit critical about some of them but hopefully that's helped you guys as well uh if anybody's interested in taking mastering the art of landscape photography there's a link in the description with a discount code as well um and there's a facebook group everybody shares their photos so it's a really good group of group of photographers i just wanted to finish by just showing another photo in my calendar which is still available to pre-order and delivery free worldwide which is this one here called beach baubles um which was the shot that i took when i was in iceland and it just shows that sometimes you just shouldn't follow rules or anything like that you should just try and experiment a little bit and this was something that i was trying to experiment with i was actually trying to get the beach in focus and the rock out of focus it focused on the rock not the beach and then um presented this to me so it was a little bit of luck um but it came about by just experimenting and doing something a bit different um i i i shot it with a 70 to 200 lens and it was on f 2.8 focused on on on this c stack it's super simple it just shows that having some interesting foreground creating something that's really simple and makes it makes a good photo and i think the fact that the color palette is almost monochromatic just just makes a big difference as well and if you look really closely you can see all the birds around the sea stack it was a pretty amazing morning in iceland with james and the rest of the workshop team anyway that's it i hope you've enjoyed it if you're interested in the masterclass or the calendar the links are below thanks for watching until next sunday [Music] bye [Music] you

Channel: Nigel Danson

Views: 1,464,341

Rating: 4.938633 out of 5

Keywords: photography, photography mistakes, photography tips, photography for beginners, photography basics, improve your photography, nigel danson, Nigel Danson photography

Id: ZHnNyKQsdLw

Length: 19min 33sec (1173 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 09 2020