Mistakes Aspiring Photographers Make and How You Can Avoid Them

Mastering photography is challenging. Lighting, camera settings, composition, and post-processing — there are so many concepts. And experts on the Internet giving varying advice don’t do any favours. 

Given such a situation, it is easy and totally normal to make mistakes. The good news? A lot of these mistakes are avoidable by following some tips and best practices.

Here’s a closer look at six mistakes aspiring photographers make and how you can avoid them:

1. Not Taking Enough Photos

Taking images is free. And it’s always better to have extra photos of a subject than not enough. Many novice photographers take one or two photos of a scene or a moment and think they’ve got the perfect shot. This leads to disappointment when they’re browsing through their images later on.

So, what can you do? Once you’ve gotten the shots you want, try other angles. Look around and try different camera settings. Be patient, and you’ll have numerous extraordinary shots to choose from.

2. Not Understanding Your Camera

Buying an overly expensive camera won’t automatically teach you how to take good photos. Know the ropes of your new system. Pay close attention to all the technical settings of your camera and try them out.

When a photographer doesn’t know settings like aperture and shutter speed, they are likely to produce poorly exposed photos with incorrect depth of field, motion blur, or excessive noise. You might also notice images with a distracting lack of background separation.

The best thing you can do is take a photography course. It is designed to help you understand the ins and outs of your camera, allowing you to bring your creative vision to life.

3. Unrealistic Colours

Changing colours in photography is a highly creative choice. But when the colours don’t represent the subject’s true hue, your photos appear unrealistic. 

Many beginner photographers try to make their photos look like paintings. This is usually done by raising the saturation slider a little too high. The bad news? It makes your images look fake.

Always try to work with an image’s natural and subtle colours. Set the white balance manually to match the light source and ensure accurate colour representation. 

Post-shoot image processing is necessary, but avoid taking it too far. Work with RAW files as they contain more colour information. They will also give you more flexibility during editing and correcting white balance.

4. Lack of Subject 

Novice photographers often try to incorporate too much information in their shots. This is especially true with landscape and nature photography. Lack of a subject or a point of interest makes the shot appear cluttered and confusing. What exactly are you trying to show? Where should the viewers focus?

Here’s what you can do: When taking landscape shots, have a focal point, be it a rock, a bird, or something in the foreground. The same goes for street photography. Remove unnecessary information from the frame and make sure the subject stands out.