That's a really solid answer. I have a BFA in photography from Art Center College of Design. I worked as an assistant and lab tech for Norman Seef and spent nearly 20 years as a full time pro back in the film days. I'm so glad you mentioned how important professionalism and personality are to getting and keeping clients. You can be a great photographer but if you're hard to get along with, clients will look elsewhere. I can't imagine working as a pro in the digital age. Competition was fierce when I was a pro, but nowadays it seems to be insane. Also clients don't want to pay at the same level they did in the past. I went back to school and got a BS in Computer Science and I'm finishing up a successful second career. Photography is still a passion and I'm having as much fun as I've ever had.
I've been doing photography for 50 years, but I'm not an advanced photographer. IMO, an advanced photographer specializes in one or more areas of photography and becomes knowledgeable and practiced in those areas. Like any other field I would recommend beginners become knowledgeable over a broad range of photography, including history, before specializing. Then, if possible, find a mentor in the field in which you want to specialize to see what that field is like in real life. Notice I haven't mentioned gear. Gear are just tools you use to get the job done. And highly personal choices. Good luck to any one wanting to pursue photography either as a hobby or career. It's been a lifelong joy for me.
I'm stuck at the intermediate stage. I'm slowly building my gear and lighting. I'm trying to increase the amount of time I spend taking pictures. I'm thankful that I have a full time job but it makes it hard to find time to practice portraits. Plus my children are sick to death of having their pictures taken.😊 One day I'll feel confident enough to start a portrait business. I enjoy your videos, keep up the good work.
NAILED IT, very information packed with a well laid out thought process of levels. As you explained each, my memory was flooded with each level of experiences I went through, each area I had to learn, each problem solved..... and the day, that someone said, I knew that was your photo when I saw it. And Now, people actually reach out to verify my photos on social media when they see them, especially when the poster failed to credit me with the image. The biggest moment was when that happened with a magazine (happened multiple times), but that first time someone saw my photos in a magazine, sent me the link and a copy and I had to reach out to the publisher to get credit and paid... I knew Photography was now my career path.
Spot on, took me lot of years to become advanced as you describe it - it cannot be just learned, it needs to be lived, experienced. You have to do hundreds of photoshoots and spend thousands hours working on photos to get there.
Wow, Just a short couple of years ago I was a beginner. Made it all the way to advanced without really realizing it. Today three magazines came to my home in the mail. One of the magazines is a national distribution and has my photography on its cover. I have shot five covers now for this magazine, and the current issue is full of my editorial work. From front page to back page. I sometimes still feel like a beginner. It all happens so fast. Loving the journey. ❤📸😁🙏
Probably first time I don't fully agree with you. What you said was a lot about equipment but I would wrap it differently: BEGINNER: have a camera, is not using M too much or at all, shoots JPEG; INTERMEDIATE: knows his gear, understand composition and exposure, thrives for sharp details, is doing some degree of editing over his RAW files; ADVANCED: is able to work with whatever he has, has an artistic vision and can manipulate environments and subjects to reach his goals, and is telling stories already; + PRO: has customers
David you hit topic right on the nose. it the eye of the beholder your image has to catch since there are so many ways an image can affect someone. Plus it also come down to the person creative skills on the subject. It not easy at first but as one gains their skills and knowledge more creative they become . thanks David
Fantastic video, David! Probably one of the most informative videos I've watched (and I've been a long time subscriber). Hope you have a safe and Happy New Year! -Joe
Thanks to your previous video on Photo Mechanic, I was able to move forward with organizing my photos and I gave myself a couple points for that. Thank you for all your tips! I appreciate them.
I think I'm mid intermediate, but I didn't know what a fixed aperture lens was! So I looked it up! I need to organize my images, get a consistent work flow, and have consistent editing. I'm also working on telling stories.
Excellent. I don't think I can add anything that you didn't cover. I'm glad you mentioned having backup gear. I see supposed pros all the time with one camera and one or two lenses. I was at a fashion shoot a couple years ago and a newspaper photographer had the shutter go out on his camera after 2 or 3 shots. I couldn't believe he didn't have a backup. I loaned him one of mine but he was a Canon shooter and I use Nikon so I'm not sure what got. To be a professional, you have to think and act like one.
I'm not an advanced photographer; I'm an _advancing_ photographer. Every time I take pictures and examine the results, I learn something. Every time I shoot in a different venue or with a different body or lens, I learn something. A better title would have been "Are you viable as a _pro_ photographer?" Having advanced skills and being paid to apply those skills are too different things entirely. This comes across as more prescriptive than descriptive. It's phrased as "you're doing" such and such, but it honestly rings more like "you _should be"_ doing such and such. And of course, doing that requires having more and better gear. In short, it's a very thinly veiled sales pitch. But of course it is; it's coming from a photography equipment retailer.
I love it.. according to your speech I fit somewhere between intermediate and advanced... but (always a but) sounds like i still have a few things to polish off... like asset management. (working on this, but building a NAS can kinda be a thing when on a tight budget) I want to say one thing, I love working in photography and do take gigs. my work can be identified as mine, and I play to my strengths vs weaknesses. that said I try to keep my day job separate/symbiotic from my photo work. I like the consistency of a day job supporting my habits, but hate the constant hustle of making it my primary source of income. At the end of the day photography is a compulsion whether the money is there or not. do those obsessed people like me have our own catagory
I would argue having the technical skills are secondary to being a visionary of one’s work. Way back when I was an assistant, I worked for a few well known photographers, including one from Magnum and one from VII, that only knew the basics of exposure and relied on assistants for the rest. Yet, they had a very defined vision of what they wanted from a photograph. I also know lots of extremely technically savvy photographers who don’t know if they want to shoot landscapes or headshots and haven’t really been able to make photography work as a career. So yeah, define who you want to be before investing in gear.
Thank you David, Helps me nail where I am sort of sitting on the no mans land again. Not a beginner any more, sat in the Beginner/improver area and getting into "Improver" different scale to you but the checkpoints are the same. Never going to make any money but thats not the issue 😊 As long as I can move forward thats ok with me Cheers, Dave B who does it for fun Haha.
Great video! I'd also like to emphasize the fact that someone can be an advanced photographer but not be a professional photographer, since the moment you begin treating it like a business/'hustle' it no longer becomes a "thing to do to relax from the 'real' job"
One part is that an advanced photographer is able to shoot in manual mode for everything. I’ve seen to many photographers quit a location because something is not working correctly on the camera… I shoot in manual mode…. I don’t use anything auto features… Good question
Fair assessment tbh! Everyone should be able to identify where they are, if they want to move up or stay as is. Insurance probably should have been mentioned too
About 55 years ago, i sat with Richard Avedon. I showed him my photos. He said that he likes to look at contact sheets so that he can see how you arrived at that great photo. How can you do this in the digital world? How can you evaluate somebody's work today when they only show their best work?
I guess I'm lying in-between intermediate and advanced. But I believe using manual mode is more adequate for beginners to intermediates. I used to shoot manual mode when I was learning about the exposure triangle, nowadays I rely on my custom modes. It's just way more time efficient.
I agree with the majority of your descriptions and the way they sort people into the questioner's catagories. There will always be those that don't quite fit into anyone's brackets. At the conclusion of the intermediate secttion you imply that there is nothing wrong with staying at this level and not mastering the medium. If "mastering" the medium requires me to turn my enjoyment into work, my hobby into my job, my pleasure into my taskmaster then yes, I will happily and joyfully remain an intermediate photographer.😉
Smart and insightful as always David. I have to say though that there is one aspect that bothers me a little. The entire video seems to look at those levels as though they are all steps on the same path, which is from beginner to working pro. Fair enough. I mean, it seems today nearly everyone who picks up a camera thinks they are on that path. There is no group, chat room, or online forum I have seen where people aren't asking the inevitable "how much should I charge", or "when do you know you can start charging"? The assumption seems to be that if you are going to become a well developed intermediate or advanced photographer, that means you're charging people and running some form of business. In fact I don't think that needs to be the case. I used to offer guidance to beginners on some online groups until one day I was accused of not being a photographer because I don't have an online presence (social media). That's true, I don't, and that's because I feel no need to. But I realized at that point most of these beginners weren't really interested in learning about photography, they were trying to sort out how to make money from it. After about 37 years as a photographer I work when I want and for who I want, but I still do most of my work for the sheer enjoyment of creating images. I fit "most" of the criteria of an advanced photog, but I don't spend much time on the business aspects of it. I own adequate gear and lighting to do the work I want to and I earn part of my total income in that way - have done for years. I also do a lot of charity work and fundraising for youth sports. But that's not what makes me advanced. I'd really love to see a world where photography itself returns to it's place of prominence among photographers rather than this constant quest toward making money from it. That's just me though.
i think that all the bels and whistles on camera's are just that, bells and whistles. the camera is that to a photographer, what a pen is to a writer. a tool to create your idea's. the most important is what is in front of the camera and how you manipulate that to a great image is the art of a photographer. knowing how your camera works is like knowing how a car works. What the pedals, steering and knobs and switches do. a good photographer can oparate it's camera like a car without thinking about it. but it uses it different, in different situations like driving a car in a town, mountains, snow, mud etc calles for different ways of operating the car. the same goes for different styles, light and situations for photography.
I would like to think I am well into being an intermediate photographer with no intention of monetising my hobby. However after my performance yesterday trying to fold up two oval pop up background after doing some family portraits I think I am back to beginner!
Excellent, as ever, save... This answer was (quite understandably) skewed toward the question. However, it failed to address other genres. For example, as a primarily outdoor photographer, I try never to use artificial light. Sometimes in these deep-Winter days I do need it (eg shooting fungi close-up) but I'd always prefer natural light. I never really want to be shooting indoors, though I have tried that. Apropos a specific style. Over the years, I have heard this so often. But, aside of generally being an outdoor photographer, I deliberately try to specialise in no particular subject. I think my style should suit the particular subject, environment, time, light and mood at the time and marry theses to what I want to say. I fully-appreciate this is not suitable for commercial photography (products, weddings, portraits, etc) but it "works" for me. (When I say "Works," sure I make plenty of cock-ups and might only develop 1% of my photographs but I do not want any formula). In post-production, I used ACDSee and Topaz Photo AI and various other things (eg Nix). Again, not standard but not because I want to "rebel," rather because these things suit me (I have used Adobe but hate LightRoom - it may be better now but when Adobe launched the subscription service, I did try it) PhotoShop is better - but why the two products? Any why import all images into LR? I have never understood these inconveniences. I never use anyone's batch-processing tools - every image is completely different, right? (Not quite true but my similar images might be weeks apart). I also don't know why the fuss over learning a camera's focusing? I almost always use centre, single-point focusing. I used to half-press and re-compose; these days I use back-button focusing all the time, then re-compose if necessary. The only exception is shooting birds in flight - then a focus-clump can be useful. That is not a big part of what I do but I do shoot them quite differently from most subjects. To the original questioner: You seemed to suggest advanced toggers might use more camera-facilities. Well, perhaps - maybe in a studio especially. However, I would suggest that, yes advanced toggers should know their camera's capabilities but then almost forget them and concentrate on the basics (exposure triangle, focusing - for sharpness or blur!, subject-background interactions, contrasts of shape, form, colour and light (It's Ansel Adams time again!) and interest). Generally ignore most gizmos and make a good, coherent image, de-cluttered (unless you want the clutter) and one that engages people. In short, the real gizmos to tweak are not so much on a camera but in the composition. [NB Some gizmos are helpful: my camera is too primitive but, for example, auto focus-stacking can be very helpful - eg see Gavin Hardcastle's latest vid from Iceland where his Hassleblad automatically focus-stacks from close flowers to a distant mountain - brill facility. So, in conclusion, for my type of photography (omnivorous outdoor mainly) I would say any decent camera would do - the real way to advance as a togger is to learn composition and the basics of how to exploit that. Good luck!
I consider myself an intermediate photographer. Photography is my hobby. I have no intention of making it a full time job or making money. However, I want to be an advanced photographer. What one or two suggestions do you have for me to achieve that level?
If your camera is always on M mode there is a high chance you are a wannabe advanced photographer, not the actually advanced. When you advance past that you will see the value of aperture priority or shutter priority modes, depending on the needs.
The question should be are you a GOOD photographer? I imagine a lot of people watching this will consider themselves advanced due to the amount of second-hand gear knowledge and received wisdom they've picked up in forums, and because they own some high-end lenses. But the portfolio, and the depth of the portfolio...?
Hi, David Have to disagree on terminology. There is a mix-up on the definition between an Advanced photographer and a Professional one. In this video you lumped the two together. The definition of a Professional is a person who makes more than 50% his/her income of that trade. It has nothing to do with the person's skill level. Cheers :)
I like this video, because it places me somewhere between intermediate and advanced photographer. Which is better then expected 😂. I also want to add that the difference also might include the speed of solving problems encounered during shoots. I noticed I grew faster in this overtime.
That's a really solid answer. I have a BFA in photography from Art Center College of Design. I worked as an assistant and lab tech for Norman Seef and spent nearly 20 years as a full time pro back in the film days.
I'm so glad you mentioned how important professionalism and personality are to getting and keeping clients. You can be a great photographer but if you're hard to get along with, clients will look elsewhere.
I can't imagine working as a pro in the digital age. Competition was fierce when I was a pro, but nowadays it seems to be insane. Also clients don't want to pay at the same level they did in the past.
I went back to school and got a BS in Computer Science and I'm finishing up a successful second career. Photography is still a passion and I'm having as much fun as I've ever had.
This video came at a great time… it’s like a clear roadmap for developing my skills.
Thanks David!
I've been doing photography for 50 years, but I'm not an advanced photographer. IMO, an advanced photographer specializes in one or more areas of photography and becomes knowledgeable and practiced in those areas. Like any other field I would recommend beginners become knowledgeable over a broad range of photography, including history, before specializing. Then, if possible, find a mentor in the field in which you want to specialize to see what that field is like in real life. Notice I haven't mentioned gear. Gear are just tools you use to get the job done. And highly personal choices. Good luck to any one wanting to pursue photography either as a hobby or career. It's been a lifelong joy for me.
I'm stuck at the intermediate stage. I'm slowly building my gear and lighting. I'm trying to increase the amount of time I spend taking pictures. I'm thankful that I have a full time job but it makes it hard to find time to practice portraits. Plus my children are sick to death of having their pictures taken.😊
One day I'll feel confident enough to start a portrait business.
I enjoy your videos, keep up the good work.
NAILED IT, very information packed with a well laid out thought process of levels. As you explained each, my memory was flooded with each level of experiences I went through, each area I had to learn, each problem solved..... and the day, that someone said, I knew that was your photo when I saw it. And Now, people actually reach out to verify my photos on social media when they see them, especially when the poster failed to credit me with the image. The biggest moment was when that happened with a magazine (happened multiple times), but that first time someone saw my photos in a magazine, sent me the link and a copy and I had to reach out to the publisher to get credit and paid... I knew Photography was now my career path.
Spot on, took me lot of years to become advanced as you describe it - it cannot be just learned, it needs to be lived, experienced. You have to do hundreds of photoshoots and spend thousands hours working on photos to get there.
Absolutely the answer is that everyone must hear it,
Thanks David
Wow, Just a short couple of years ago I was a beginner.
Made it all the way to advanced without really realizing it.
Today three magazines came to my home in the mail.
One of the magazines is a national distribution and has my photography on its cover.
I have shot five covers now for this magazine, and the current issue is full of my editorial work. From front page to back page.
I sometimes still feel like a beginner. It all happens so fast.
Loving the journey. ❤📸😁🙏
Another great question and another great video. Love your show thank you.
Probably first time I don't fully agree with you. What you said was a lot about equipment but I would wrap it differently: BEGINNER: have a camera, is not using M too much or at all, shoots JPEG; INTERMEDIATE: knows his gear, understand composition and exposure, thrives for sharp details, is doing some degree of editing over his RAW files; ADVANCED: is able to work with whatever he has, has an artistic vision and can manipulate environments and subjects to reach his goals, and is telling stories already; + PRO: has customers
Brilliantly said.
David you hit topic right on the nose. it the eye of the beholder your image has to catch since there are so many ways an image can affect someone. Plus it also come down to the person creative skills on the subject. It not easy at first but as one gains their skills and knowledge more creative they become . thanks David
Wow, I thought I was a beginner but, according to this, it seems I am an intermediate photographer. Thank you for this video.
Fantastic video, David! Probably one of the most informative videos I've watched (and I've been a long time subscriber). Hope you have a safe and Happy New Year! -Joe
Great video David! Those intangibles are critical.
Thank you DB
Excellent video with excellent insight. Keep up the good work David.Take care and be safe. Andy
Thanks to your previous video on Photo Mechanic, I was able to move forward with organizing my photos and I gave myself a couple points for that. Thank you for all your tips! I appreciate them.
I think I'm mid intermediate, but I didn't know what a fixed aperture lens was! So I looked it up! I need to organize my images, get a consistent work flow, and have consistent editing. I'm also working on telling stories.
Fantastic information
I'm about to enter the intermediate level as per your description
Excellent. I don't think I can add anything that you didn't cover. I'm glad you mentioned having backup gear. I see supposed pros all the time with one camera and one or two lenses. I was at a fashion shoot a couple years ago and a newspaper photographer had the shutter go out on his camera after 2 or 3 shots. I couldn't believe he didn't have a backup. I loaned him one of mine but he was a Canon shooter and I use Nikon so I'm not sure what got. To be a professional, you have to think and act like one.
I'm not an advanced photographer; I'm an _advancing_ photographer. Every time I take pictures and examine the results, I learn something. Every time I shoot in a different venue or with a different body or lens, I learn something.
A better title would have been "Are you viable as a _pro_ photographer?" Having advanced skills and being paid to apply those skills are too different things entirely.
This comes across as more prescriptive than descriptive. It's phrased as "you're doing" such and such, but it honestly rings more like "you _should be"_ doing such and such. And of course, doing that requires having more and better gear. In short, it's a very thinly veiled sales pitch. But of course it is; it's coming from a photography equipment retailer.
I love it.. according to your speech I fit somewhere between intermediate and advanced... but (always a but) sounds like i still have a few things to polish off... like asset management. (working on this, but building a NAS can kinda be a thing when on a tight budget) I want to say one thing, I love working in photography and do take gigs. my work can be identified as mine, and I play to my strengths vs weaknesses. that said I try to keep my day job separate/symbiotic from my photo work. I like the consistency of a day job supporting my habits, but hate the constant hustle of making it my primary source of income. At the end of the day photography is a compulsion whether the money is there or not. do those obsessed people like me have our own catagory
I would argue having the technical skills are secondary to being a visionary of one’s work. Way back when I was an assistant, I worked for a few well known photographers, including one from Magnum and one from VII, that only knew the basics of exposure and relied on assistants for the rest. Yet, they had a very defined vision of what they wanted from a photograph. I also know lots of extremely technically savvy photographers who don’t know if they want to shoot landscapes or headshots and haven’t really been able to make photography work as a career. So yeah, define who you want to be before investing in gear.
That cleared up a lot of things for me. I now know roughly “where I stand” and where to go from here.
Thank you David,
Helps me nail where I am sort of sitting on the no mans land again.
Not a beginner any more, sat in the Beginner/improver area and getting into "Improver" different scale to you but the checkpoints are the same.
Never going to make any money but thats not the issue 😊
As long as I can move forward thats ok with me
Cheers, Dave B who does it for fun
Haha.
Great video! I'd also like to emphasize the fact that someone can be an advanced photographer but not be a professional photographer, since the moment you begin treating it like a business/'hustle' it no longer becomes a "thing to do to relax from the 'real' job"
This is a very good explanation. I feel I am in that intermediate range but leaning towards Advanced Moreso than beginner.
One part is that an advanced photographer is able to shoot in manual mode for everything. I’ve seen to many photographers quit a location because something is not working correctly on the camera… I shoot in manual mode…. I don’t use anything auto features… Good question
Fair assessment tbh! Everyone should be able to identify where they are, if they want to move up or stay as is. Insurance probably should have been mentioned too
So well said.
Thank you for the information!!.
This is a great video to get out of the imposter syndrome mindset. Thank you. 🙏
Thoughtful, helpful, and fun. Thanks!
About 55 years ago, i sat with Richard Avedon. I showed him my photos. He said that he likes to look at contact sheets so that he can see how you arrived at that great photo. How can you do this in the digital world? How can you evaluate somebody's work today when they only show their best work?
Thank you❤
I guess I'm lying in-between intermediate and advanced. But I believe using manual mode is more adequate for beginners to intermediates. I used to shoot manual mode when I was learning about the exposure triangle, nowadays I rely on my custom modes. It's just way more time efficient.
I agree with the majority of your descriptions and the way they sort people into the questioner's catagories. There will always be those that don't quite fit into anyone's brackets. At the conclusion of the intermediate secttion you imply that there is nothing wrong with staying at this level and not mastering the medium. If "mastering" the medium requires me to turn my enjoyment into work, my hobby into my job, my pleasure into my taskmaster then yes, I will happily and joyfully remain an intermediate photographer.😉
Great video! I guess I'm more advanced than I thought in this... just need the clients now 😅
Smart and insightful as always David. I have to say though that there is one aspect that bothers me a little. The entire video seems to look at those levels as though they are all steps on the same path, which is from beginner to working pro. Fair enough. I mean, it seems today nearly everyone who picks up a camera thinks they are on that path. There is no group, chat room, or online forum I have seen where people aren't asking the inevitable "how much should I charge", or "when do you know you can start charging"?
The assumption seems to be that if you are going to become a well developed intermediate or advanced photographer, that means you're charging people and running some form of business. In fact I don't think that needs to be the case. I used to offer guidance to beginners on some online groups until one day I was accused of not being a photographer because I don't have an online presence (social media). That's true, I don't, and that's because I feel no need to. But I realized at that point most of these beginners weren't really interested in learning about photography, they were trying to sort out how to make money from it. After about 37 years as a photographer I work when I want and for who I want, but I still do most of my work for the sheer enjoyment of creating images. I fit "most" of the criteria of an advanced photog, but I don't spend much time on the business aspects of it. I own adequate gear and lighting to do the work I want to and I earn part of my total income in that way - have done for years. I also do a lot of charity work and fundraising for youth sports. But that's not what makes me advanced. I'd really love to see a world where photography itself returns to it's place of prominence among photographers rather than this constant quest toward making money from it. That's just me though.
i think that all the bels and whistles on camera's are just that, bells and whistles.
the camera is that to a photographer, what a pen is to a writer.
a tool to create your idea's.
the most important is what is in front of the camera and how you manipulate that to a great image is the art of a photographer.
knowing how your camera works is like knowing how a car works.
What the pedals, steering and knobs and switches do.
a good photographer can oparate it's camera like a car without thinking about it.
but it uses it different, in different situations like driving a car in a town, mountains, snow, mud etc calles for different ways of operating the car.
the same goes for different styles, light and situations for photography.
I would like to think I am well into being an intermediate photographer with no intention of monetising my hobby. However after my performance yesterday trying to fold up two oval pop up background after doing some family portraits I think I am back to beginner!
Well said. As per usual!
Customer service skills, knowing your target market and knowing how to shoot in manual or just knowing your equipment 🙃
Good hang/soft skills are pretty important 👍
Depends on the genre. Mountains don't talk back :)
Excellent, as ever, save...
This answer was (quite understandably) skewed toward the question. However, it failed to address other genres. For example, as a primarily outdoor photographer, I try never to use artificial light. Sometimes in these deep-Winter days I do need it (eg shooting fungi close-up) but I'd always prefer natural light. I never really want to be shooting indoors, though I have tried that.
Apropos a specific style. Over the years, I have heard this so often. But, aside of generally being an outdoor photographer, I deliberately try to specialise in no particular subject. I think my style should suit the particular subject, environment, time, light and mood at the time and marry theses to what I want to say. I fully-appreciate this is not suitable for commercial photography (products, weddings, portraits, etc) but it "works" for me. (When I say "Works," sure I make plenty of cock-ups and might only develop 1% of my photographs but I do not want any formula).
In post-production, I used ACDSee and Topaz Photo AI and various other things (eg Nix). Again, not standard but not because I want to "rebel," rather because these things suit me (I have used Adobe but hate LightRoom - it may be better now but when Adobe launched the subscription service, I did try it) PhotoShop is better - but why the two products? Any why import all images into LR? I have never understood these inconveniences. I never use anyone's batch-processing tools - every image is completely different, right? (Not quite true but my similar images might be weeks apart).
I also don't know why the fuss over learning a camera's focusing? I almost always use centre, single-point focusing. I used to half-press and re-compose; these days I use back-button focusing all the time, then re-compose if necessary. The only exception is shooting birds in flight - then a focus-clump can be useful. That is not a big part of what I do but I do shoot them quite differently from most subjects.
To the original questioner: You seemed to suggest advanced toggers might use more camera-facilities. Well, perhaps - maybe in a studio especially. However, I would suggest that, yes advanced toggers should know their camera's capabilities but then almost forget them and concentrate on the basics (exposure triangle, focusing - for sharpness or blur!, subject-background interactions, contrasts of shape, form, colour and light (It's Ansel Adams time again!) and interest). Generally ignore most gizmos and make a good, coherent image, de-cluttered (unless you want the clutter) and one that engages people. In short, the real gizmos to tweak are not so much on a camera but in the composition. [NB Some gizmos are helpful: my camera is too primitive but, for example, auto focus-stacking can be very helpful - eg see Gavin Hardcastle's latest vid from Iceland where his Hassleblad automatically focus-stacks from close flowers to a distant mountain - brill facility.
So, in conclusion, for my type of photography (omnivorous outdoor mainly) I would say any decent camera would do - the real way to advance as a togger is to learn composition and the basics of how to exploit that. Good luck!
Awesome ❤
Why couldn't you use B-rolls? or at least overlay?
The technique means nothing till you have the vision to use it.
I'm a night event photographer and I think communication is very important and also building the vibe
I consider myself an intermediate photographer. Photography is my hobby. I have no intention of making it a full time job or making money. However, I want to be an advanced photographer. What one or two suggestions do you have for me to achieve that level?
I am. 2% of the time. Other than that. I walk around snapping pics of stuff.
Pro= getting the job done no matter what the situation.
This made me feel good that im well into the intermediate stage and no longer a beginner. Imposter syndrome is real lol
Thanks David. I would suggest the advanced shooter doesn't shoot everything, unless, like you said his name is McNally.
If your camera is always on M mode there is a high chance you are a wannabe advanced photographer, not the actually advanced. When you advance past that you will see the value of aperture priority or shutter priority modes, depending on the needs.
The question should be are you a GOOD photographer?
I imagine a lot of people watching this will consider themselves advanced due to the amount of second-hand gear knowledge and received wisdom they've picked up in forums, and because they own some high-end lenses. But the portfolio, and the depth of the portfolio...?
Hi, David
Have to disagree on terminology. There is a mix-up on the definition between an Advanced photographer and a Professional one. In this video you lumped the two together.
The definition of a Professional is a person who makes more than 50% his/her income of that trade. It has nothing to do with the person's skill level.
Cheers :)
What separates a pro from an amateur...a deadline 🙂
I am such an amateur :(
The answer is simple. Proper retouching and color grading
I like this video, because it places me somewhere between intermediate and advanced photographer. Which is better then expected 😂.
I also want to add that the difference also might include the speed of solving problems encounered during shoots. I noticed I grew faster in this overtime.
Me? No.
gear gear gear ... oh dear
no i am absolutely not advanced.
First here ❤
Well worth a like click. I was #300, -- BAK --