Photography is a craft we traditionally spend years learning and practicing. What if we could shortcut all that and have some “hacks” that would let us make great images with little work or training?
The click bait
It seems like I am getting more and more click bait like this (actual names redacted to protect their anonymity, and to not support their sales offer):
| Most photographers spend years trying to figure it all out on their own—slow progress, scattered tutorials, lots of frustration. But what if you could skip that? What if this is the year you jump straight to clarity, consistency, and results? That’s exactly what the [program name] gives you: the proven system that pros actually use. |
If you’re at the bottom of the learning curve this seems attractive. Who wouldn’t want to be able to leapfrog to the top of your game with little effort? This would save years of hard work.
For a little money, I could buy my way to success, fame, and fortune. I could become a respected artist quickly. What’s not to like?
There are 2 things: there is no secret knowledge, and it still involves a lot of hard work and learning.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Secret knowledge
It is a popular and successful sales pitch to insinuate that there is secret knowledge known only by elite practitioners in a field. If someone shares this secret knowledge with you (for a fee), you, too, can be one of the elites.
The problem with this is that photography does not rely on secret knowledge. Rather than being a closed league, like a guild, the field is very open. Most photographers readily and openly share their knowledge and insight.
Why would they make all this knowledge available? I think it is for 2 reasons.
First, many photographers rely on workshops and book and tutorial sales to supplement their income. It is just a reality. The number of people who live solely on image sales is relatively small.
Second, they know their knowledge is not secret. It does not need to be closely guarded, because it is wisdom based on years of experience. Every photographer who has been in the game long enough basically knows the same things. Most of the ones I know are eager to share their experience and help others benefit.
Learning required?
Are there “hacks” you can use to get you where you want to go faster? Maybe. Depending on where you want to go.
If you are the family photographer, there are simple things you can learn to make your images more enjoyable. Making yourself aware of the lighting and how to control it, framing the subject more deliberately, using shallow depth of field to isolate, and seeking a “decisive moment” are techniques to raise yourself above the norm.
Or if you want to make your vacation pictures less boring to others, there are “hacks” that can be used. Learning to see and use the light, actively looking at what is going on all around your frame, use wide and close and high and low views. Culling out most of your shots will help a lot, too.
If these are the kind of specific goals you have, then certainly learn the “tricks” and be satisfied. You will take better pictures but not be an artist.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Results or creativity?
So, what is the goal? Many people, probably most people, only care about getting a decent shot to put on social media or in a memory album. I do not criticize this at all. That is where their values lie. Learn some simple techniques that will improve your photos.
But if you aspire to be an artist, if your goal is to make creative and interesting images that express your point of view, that is an entirely different path. If you go to photography school, you will learn techniques like I described above. Probably in the first semester. Then you will be pushed onward to learn actual image making.
Creativity is hard. You must know the basics of the craft very well, but then you must develop your own unique way of seeing and have something to say. It goes far beyond just being able to take a good picture.
Are there shortcuts?
The ad I quoted talks about “slow progress, scattered tutorials, lots of frustration” being involved in the way photography is usually learned. Maybe they have synthesized a program that guides a person through this messy time. Or maybe they just have a rigid program to follow to make a novice a clone of the instructor.
I believe. that learning to be a creative photographer is hard work. Personally, I don’t think there is a reasonable shortcut. A good mentor can help immensely by pointing things out and giving good feedback. But you still must do the work. It is long and frustrating and sometimes you want to give up. We want to be progressing faster, but we don’t seem to be getting there yet.
Henri Cartier-Bresson famously noted “Your first 10,000 photos are your worst.” That is true. It does not, however, mean your next 10,000 will be great. As someone who has shot many multiples of 10,000, I know that it is a long and difficult road.
But we keep pushing, because something compels us to do it. Psychologists tell us we learn more from failures than from successes. As aspiring artists, we generate a lot of learning opportunities. And we do learn. Practice and ruthless evaluation eventually pays off.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Doesn’t AI do the work?
An elephant in the room these days is AI. Won’t AI provide the shortcuts we want? Can’t we rely on it to make our images better?
Yes, we can. It already happens every day with AI “enhancements” when we take a picture with our phone. And there are many AI “enhancements” that can automatically be applied to our images in Lightroom or Photoshop or whatever your tool of choice is. It will only get more powerful and more pervasive.
If your goal is to make your image better, then yes, it will be glad to do it for you. But you didn’t do it. And by letting AI do it, you didn’t learn how to do it better next time. We become a tool of the machine rather than it being the other way around.
If our goal is to become a creative artist, my opinion is that this is going the wrong direction. An artist is responsible for all the creative decisions in making an image. We delegate some simple things to our tools, like when I put my camera on Aperture mode and let it choose the shutter speed based on the aperture I selected. That is a simple technical calculation, it is not taking creative responsibility for the image.
Maybe AI is one thing driving the resurgence of photographers shooting film and doing chemical darkroom work. They remain firmly in charge of all aspects of their image.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Look back
Sometimes looking back helps us look forward.
In my blog I have given some glimpses of my culling and evaluation techniques. I will not describe them in detail, just to say that I do not use a basic 5-point ranking scheme. My images must go through several rounds of critique and editing to progress up to my top set. The ones I would be proud to show anyone.
Recently I was going back through to catch up on my backlog of hundreds of images that are still “in progress”. It is a time to look realistically at each image and decide if it deserves to be promoted to the next level.
An interesting thing occurred. Having to revisit these hundreds of images, I couldn’t help thinking that I have been making some pretty good and occasionally creative pictures. I shoot so much that I sometimes forget to look back and see the arc that is traced by the past. It was encouraging.
Art is hard
Becoming a better picture shooter is easy. Becoming an artist is hard. It involves lots of learning and practice and self-examination. And suffering. At least the mental suffering of falling short of your expectations. But even then, there is no certificate, no award ceremony, nothing to tell you that you have arrived. You keep pushing and reaching forward.
It takes time and effort. I do not believe there are any magic shortcuts that will get you where you need to go. Put in the work. Put in the time. It is worth it.
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