Making it Second Nature

There are many folks out there who know how to handle a camera and hang out their shingle as a photographer.

When it comes to photography though, it’s not only about the camera gear and getting a decent exposure. There’s an equal amount of skill in:

1. Mastering composition of the image that has visual impact
2. Mastering posing of individual and groups in industry specific ways that create a flattering presentation
3. Mastering lighting in a variety of different locations and situations
4. Mastering retouching and producing a high quality image file from a capture
5. Mastering color management from capture and throughout the entire workflow
6. Mastering printing, design, mounting, web presentation – creating the product the client actually buys

Those are only the technical skills required to provide a professional grade product every single time. Then there are a few more related to client engagement, promotion, marketing, crew management, location management, copyright, accounting, etc. At the end of the day what many people think photography is about – getting that exposure in the camera, is really only 10-15% of the total picture.

The challenge is that there are so many aspects, it becomes overwhelming at the beginning, and it is impossible to focus on all of that at once. While on set, there are really only so many things the brain can focus on at once before it overloads and creates a chaotic frustration that prevents anything good from coming out. So the best approach, as with many things in life, is to set realistic expectation but always have to goal to be better than your previous best result, and focus on one element that will be improved. The rest of them have to remain on auto-pilot to prevent brain overload. But in order to turn on the auto-pilot and have good results, they have to become second nature.

Once you have taken a few thousand well exposed images, the basics of exposure will become second nature, and the brain is free to focus on lighting. Once the lighting has become second nature, there’s brain capacity left to improve posing and other aspects.

While at the master class last week, one of the other attendees commented that he had taken the same class previously, but that this time he picked up a whole new set of details he was unable to absorb the previous time, because he was still pre-occupied with the more basic principles. That is very true for everyone in their photographic journey – some folks just have a head start of a few decades in the process resulting in many more things being second nature than for the rest of us.

The key is to keep working on it daily. Take every opportunity to practice and improve one of these elements of the process. They don’t become second nature through reading, but only by doing and constant repetition.

This afternoon I was making a print of an image I captured of a senior two weeks ago. I really liked the image. I have worked on posing technique for a while, and read several books, practiced it, watched others. It is one of the things that is not second nature for me yet, and where my results also aren’t always good enough and predictable enough to meet my expectations. Reviewing a few posing guidelines I saw at the master class, and looking at this image now, it doesn’t pass the test anymore. It’s a 2/3rd view but the head is turned to far and the nose is extending past the cheek line. While the average person may still enjoy the image, it now bothers me to no end. So more work remains to be done in raising the bar. Practice, practice, practice.