7 Photography MISTAKES that are EASY to avoid
So in this video i go through seven more mistakes that i've made myself and i see other photographers make all the time morning everybody it's fantastic to see you all again so i'm really excited one i'm getting out more doing more photography i don't know if you saw my midweek video i was by the coast with the new nikon lens that was fantastic we had some amazing light i made some mistakes myself in that video if i'm honest the photos weren't amazing but i was in a little bit of a rush what i want to do though in this video is go through your photos i asked on my newsletter for photos to critique and also in the masterclass facebook group and i got loads of photos too many to go through but i tried to pick some that sort of fitted to some categories of mistakes that i see all the time really now if you haven't seen the video that i did before um then you can check it out here i it's nearly had two i think it said two million views which is incredible um and a hundred thousand likes so i think people liked it i wanna go through some different mistakes now though and um sort of reiterate some things i've also said before so i'm going to get straight into it i've got my ipad here and hopefully i can go through these images i think um the first thing to say though before i do that is these are my opinions critiquing photos is very subjective um more often not i'm wrong so you know take it with a pinch of salt this is just my opinion on these photos um i feel like um it is helpful though to get people to critique your photos so you know if if you do anything from this just ask somebody else for some critiques i always think that's useful okay on to the first mistake and that is just not allowing people to be kept in an image and having lines with an image that lead you out of an image so this is a good example here from joe robbins um it's a lovely scene this lake and he's got some nice foreground here but i feel that that there's just if you look the lake just goes out and this line here just goes off the edge of the frame and i feel that that sort of leads you out in this direction and joe if anything you could have just moved maybe a little bit to the left and tried to get a little bit of a gap here i think that would have just that small thing would have created a difference in in this image here's another one this is from andre um i'm probably saying all these names wrong this is a lovely shot of a waterfall i really like you got this moving water going through here but because you've got the the fern and the rock on the left-hand side here your eye sort of goes here follows the water and there's nothing to keep you in on the right hand side so if anything just having something down here maybe in this bit so you have sort of a triangle to sort of keep your eye into the image would really help i think just another bush here and then your eye would go between these three items and this water would run nice and neatly but at the moment i feel like it just drifts out of the right-hand side okay on to the next one this is henrik goosen again the same mistake i mean i say mistake loosely but um because it's it is a nice image but i feel like and there's probably a reason you couldn't do this hendrick but if you just move to the left a little bit again i think that your eye gets led out to the left of this frame here um on on the left-hand side so i definitely think that this is one where you probably could have just maybe gone a little bit forward and moved a little bit to the left and it would have just created a more central part for this waterfall and i think that would have really helped just a few examples of things i think worked really well i mean this is an amazing avenue but it's interesting this because there's no real diagonals in it apart from on on this image if you look there's sort of a diagonal leading there and a diagonal leading there and there's also a bit of a diagonal there and there i feel from the trees and that all leads you to this central area here which i think works really really well okay on to the next one and this is from stephen and this is a brilliant example i think of just again leading your eye and keeping your eye in the image and the reason that this works is because we've got this tree here on the right hand side so your eye goes down this path and if we didn't have this tree i feel like you'd lead out of the image here but this tree almost is it's a bit like um pinball you your eye just sort of gets bounced back into the hook here beautiful leading line here i have to say this is an image that was posted on the facebook um masterclass group and i pinned this because i just thought it was such an amazing shot another example of just keeping your eye in the image and what works is is this shot here from gerard i feel that you know probably would gerald if i was critical of this image i'd say nice to have it in better light but what i really like is this path leading you in and then the two houses opposing houses work really well to sort of almost sandwich your eye in the middle so you sort of come in and and that's really nice this gate on the right hand side here is just a little bit distracting but yeah this this works really really well um okay on to the next mistake and this is probably the most common mistake that i see photographers make and it's just having the camera horizontal and not pointing it down a little bit more or pointing it up as well but it's mostly pointing it down and i feel like it's because you want to try and get a reasonable amount of sky in or you think the sky is quite interesting which can be valid but i think there's a few images i want to go through here which could be amazing if you just pointed it down so this one is um i think it's a quang in the isle of skye and this is from peter and it's lovely light the clouds are amazing but i just feel just pointing your camera just a little bit down get a little bit more foreground and a little bit less sky which actually the tops a little bit boring i think you know just more foreground around here would have would have really helped so another great example here and you know we've got a bit too much sky and just need a little bit more at the bottom just to get a little bit of space often when you have objects like this and they're close to the edge you just want a bit of space around them so i feel like beautiful beautiful image but it would have just been improved just a slight bit if you turn the camera down again with this one probably not so much with this one but this is from um arthur and arthur has done a good job of again getting some nice light here but i feel like these grasses just need a little bit more space and again pointing your camera down would have been the same again same for this one as well um from david i feel like the reflections need space on the bottom you know that if you could just take some of that sky and put it on the bottom i feel like this image would be just a little bit better the other advice i give if you're taking shots like this is if you're taking a panorama it doesn't mean you have to take the biggest panorama you can for so for instance in this image i feel like just cropping it to sort of maybe here and then maybe just a little bit in there i feel like this um just creates a slightly even you could even get rid of the snow cap mountain and just have this island and i think it would be really nice but i'm going to get on to that a little bit of time so this image here from julian i think it's a good example of where you don't need to point the image down this is a great use of um negative space so this negative space here and this one person if the person wasn't it i don't think it works quite so well but we're trying to create a sense of isolation tell that story of how remote it is and how vast it is by having that one person and then that vast open um sky and the sky is very dark so it leads you into the image i think works incredibly well so um great shot that i really like it and then this is another good example of just simplicity where you know you've just got the camera angle at the right level you don't need any more on the bottom there's a nice balance between the sky and the bottom but the thing that i think works for this is because you have got that rainbow so there's a need for that extra sky because if you you don't want to cut that rainbow out um you want to give it room to breathe in the sky there's a lot of elements about this shot here from mark that i really like you know the simplicity of it that the just all the elements of it are very simplistic they almost feel like they've been placed or painted in in the scene um and it's actually quite uh a difficult location to shoot this it's blue torn in the lake district so yeah i really like that so if you're liking this video so much then it really helps me if you give it a thumbs up probably won't get to a hundred thousand like we did in the last mistakes video um but you never know and um i tell you what if we do i'll give away a nick on camera so if we get to 100 000 likes i will give away a z7 camera and also if you're not subscribed to the channel and 40 45 of people watch my videos on then there's a subscribe button below massively appreciate it if you consider it okay on to the next images so these are images that i feel um are where you've just included a little bit too much um again so this one also is a little bit dark so i'm just going to quickly just brighten it up a little bit um and i talk about dark images in a minute but i feel like this one's just a little bit dark it just needs just a little bit more contrast but i feel that this image these two trees aren't adding anything to the composition so if i just move that to there this shadow's okayish because it sort of doesn't detract your eye it draws your eye into the image if anything it creates this nice diagonal here but you could probably just crop that in i mean it's personal taste really where you end up having it but i feel like just having a more simplistic image is is good it's the same with this just a simple crop on this just to add um you know usually less is more just getting rid of these trees on the left-hand side here i feel like they're not adding a lot to the image um and i feel like this is a bit better you might need to crop in on the right as well um maybe about there so great shot vasa i feel like just that crops just a little bit better i feel like this gap on the left hand side to this tree it feels like you more purposely place that tree you know usually less is more in photography um it's difficult because you see all these amazing things you want to include them but less is usually more this is a good example as well where you've got a shot which is actually quite nice you've got this river and you've got some nice light but i feel like just going in a bit closer in this image drastically um changed it so if i just go in and just shoot there then we've got a really nice fence that goes in there and this just creates a much more simplistic image you can see here that i've got a really nice sort of s-curve going through now this is a much stronger line you can see this waterfall it just works a little bit better than that more complex crop um as we had before here it's a really nice image mike thanks for sharing it this is a good example here of a shot that works really well there's nothing too complex about it we just shot these trees nicely backlit it looks fantastic okay the next thing is just moving left or right it's a really simple tip but it's a mistake i've seen all the time this is such an amazing scene to shoot it is a really nice image as it stands at the moment but i think you could just elevate it a little bit just by moving to the right hand side you'd have done two things there one i feel like this diagonal would have been further over to the left you'd have got rid of these two rocks which i feel like a little bit distracting and then also these rocks would have been further to the left and would have created a more diagonal line between the the mountain and the top and and here so just moving a little bit to the right would have meant other things moves to the left the mountain would have stayed pretty much the same maybe to the left a little bit and this image would have worked so much better this is another example like that this is one of mine actually where um i feel like i should have shot sort of diagonally through this this way here and i would have actually got these rocks and this in and not this rock and this there's just too much in the scene so if i just move to the left i think it would have been better but i was getting carried away i was running around like headless chicken like we all do but i feel like that would have improved her okay the next um mistake i want to talk about and this is something i've done all the time all these mistakes are to be honest um and i still make these mistakes but um it's about use of sun in your images and making sure that if you do have the sun it doesn't become a distracting element in the images i feel like in this one it's almost okay but because it's blowing out it just draws your eye to it um and you know it draws your eye to it quite strongly um i feel and i know it's difficult to do this but i feel like that balloon over the sun would have worked because you've got some sun coming through the balloon i suspect it's probably difficult to do that because they're flying low and you need it to be lower to do that and you don't want to drop off a cliff but positionally i feel like just not having that sun so bright maybe you could have moved to the left and shot away from the sun a little bit um that would have helped um it's the same with this but slightly different i feel like the sun works in this image but i just think the processing just isn't quite right and this is something i see all the time where people are blown out the sun and they haven't blended the sun into the surroundings there's a photographer that i would go and look at with two photographers really mass peter everson is really good at it and actually a three photographers nick page is good of it and daniel corden's good at it daniel corden's images are so good he shoots a lot into the sun but the way he edits it and creates that soft feeling is just so nice this image i've just edited quickly and can you see how i've just softened down that sun there um hopefully you can see that just on here i've just softened it down a little bit and that works really really well um but i like this image this was from fleming so thanks a lot for sending this in it's a really nice atmospheric image the next one again it's just probably this image i would have got lower use the sun to backlit the dog here but not have the sun in the image this is from ramona which again it's just nice use of light but just i just don't think you need the sun i think it's all about the dog and this haze down here i can't really crop it because i think you needed to go lower to get this shot but i feel like this is the shot on here the sun doesn't need to be in the shot is what i'm trying to say just using the light is often more important than actually having the sun in the shot here's a good example from jim um of i think it's bamboo castle and it's it's using the sun um and shooting into the sun but having something in the way so it's similar to the thing to i was saying with the balloon we've got bamboo castle in the way here we're just using the glow of the sun behind bama castle and this is a beautiful beautiful image you know it's got a nice lining it's got another diagonal in here and it just looks so nice so yeah i really i really really like um this image thanks jim okay the next mistake is something i did talk about in another video a while back and this is just thinking about your edges again it's a mistake that comes up so often when we were judging the world landscape photographer competition we discounted quite a lot of images because there was just distractions on the image on the edges so this one here this is a shot from stuart i think with woodland photography what i would recommend is not going through the middle of a trunk at the edge of a frame usually that doesn't work you know if you look at good woodland photography um from people like mark robbins you i'll put a link down to mark's work below you'll find that he doesn't do that that often um i try um not to do that as well sometimes i do but very very rarely i feel like it's distracting your eyes led to this tree here so i think in this image i would have moved around to the left a little bit um and trying to compress the space between that diagonal tree fall and that really nice tree with um the the i think it's a beech tree with the leaves this image is again another good example of that where we've got the sky at the top and you can probably get rid of that sky i don't think it adds anything to the image i think it's just distracting but i feel like then you need to just get rid of these posts um but i think you know just having that simplistic image works so much better so thanks julian for that shot i i really liked it um it just needed that crop this is a really good um example of an image where i know what you're trying to do you're trying to frame the image it's a little bit dark so we're just going to brighten it up a little bit um so i know you're just trying to frame the image um but the key thing here is that this doesn't become a frame it becomes a little bit of distraction this is really nice on the right hand side here we've got this tree that's nicely framing the image this tree is beautiful here we've got a nice corner here you know we've got nice layers but this is just a little bit distracting now we can crop that out um but you could have had that tree in but i just think you need more of it i think cropping it out is better i feel like this is a stronger shot even though it's a little bit unbalanced now um i just feel like it's just it just feels nicer to look at than than the one with the distraction on okay the next thing i want to talk about um is a mistake and i think it's a mistake with people's brightnesses of their monitors i think everybody turns a monitor a little bit too bright again i've done this before you edit something you look at it on your phone you think why is it looking so dark or more importantly you print it out and it looks dark i print a lot so i make sure that my monitor is set to the right brightness and a lot of the images that i got for for review were just too dark so this one's a good example you can see that um it doesn't look too too bad but there's a lot of really amazing information in here that if you brighten i can do two things to brighten this up i can brighten up the display so if i just go and brighten up the display then you can see more of it but that's not the right way to do it the display set about right um it should be probably about you know you can you can up a lot of things on this and that is probably more like the brightness level it should be the reason that's important is because you want your work to be seen by others in the correct way you might look at it and it might look fine on your monitor but when somebody else looks at it on instagram or on your website and they've got their monitor turned to the correct level then or you're going to print it then it's going to come out dark so the really really good mistake that um a good mistake how can you have a good mistake but a good thing to think about and this is an image from scott i really like the image scott um i i would i'd crop that tree out at the top though i feel like it just doesn't need that tree or you just need um you just need to get a bit more of the trim you know again this was another shot that we had that was just you know quite dark i presume that this looked really good on a monster but obviously it's too dark this one was too dark so definitely something to think about okay the final the final mistake and before i tell you the final mistake um i've still got some calendars left by the way and i've decided that i'm just going to continue with free postage so even though pre-orders have finished now if you want one of these um pre-orders are are starting to go out next week by the way um and and any orders that are placed now will will go out around about the same time then i'm going to do free postage worldwide there isn't that many left so if you do want one then you probably need to get to the link below quite quick okay final mistake so this is all about just foregrounds and just having a little bit messy foregrounds but making sure that the foreground's there for a purpose it's not messy um and it's and it's just leading your eye through to the actual main part of the image so if you look at this image here so this is a beautiful shot of these um clouds rolling over the hills this is from myamoto i've said that completely wrong sorry um but the best part of this image is this part here so this bit at the back so i feel like the sky and the foreground should be leading you to that bit at the back and i'll show you an example of um a shot i i took that explains how you can make that happen but that means that this shouldn't be distracting or there should be just one element in it that your eye looks and then leads through to the rest of the image but the problem is that this rock here is quite dark it's quite contrasty and your eye goes to that rock all the time and because it's not separated it's sort of connected to the bush behind then yeah that that doesn't quite work um a simple way of doing it is maybe moving down to the water or finding some grass that's nice and clean or just concentrating on one rock this is another example from jeremy and again you know especially when you've got dull conditions like this you've got to try there's no real amazing thing in the background so you've got to make the foreground the star of the shot so what i would do is try and find some really interesting rocks get quite close on them having them come up from the bottom of the frame and look at and so you can see the texture of the rocks you can see the barnacles on the rocks you can see the seaweed the lines of the rocks that that's that's what will improve a shot like this it's often very difficult to do that and it's something that i struggled with for quite a long time and i still struggle with it i take lots of shots like this i'm not criticizing you jeremy i'm just trying to point out something as i would do in my own photos this is a good example from arthur where i feel like he's got that really really well you know this isn't detracting from the lighthouse it just leads your eye in it's beautiful in its own right but it doesn't detract it just leads your eye in and it's nice and simple and this is an example of mine that i wanted to show you where all the info all the detail is the in the middle of the image the bottom top of the image on trying to draw your attention away from that they're drawing your eye into that it's darker at the top it goes to light there's a line that leads in this grass doesn't draw your eye away from it and that helps just to create this more simple image okay that's it for this week before i tell you how to get your photos into another critique like this i'm going to be doing something else that's a little bit different um then i want to tell you about this week's sponsor and that is squarespace you know all about squarespace they're an amazing domain name and website provider they allow you to build your online shop share your portfolio and just write blogs and you don't need any technical skills that's what's so good about it i absolutely love it it makes my life so easy to run a photography business but also i used it before i did all this just to share my images they really are easy so if you're looking to build your own website or you're looking to set up a domain then you can use offer code nigel to get 10 off or go to squarespace.com forward slash nigel make sure you check them out so to get your photos into another critique video which i will be doing then you need to be signed up for the newsletter or you need to be a member of the masterclass um because i share things like this quite often on the masterclass group and to do that there's a link in the description for the newsletter and also there's a discount code for my masterclass as well that's it it's been quite a long video thanks ever so much for watching and until next sunday or maybe tuesday you never know bye
2022-09-26 23:40
