Stop these COMPOSITION MISTAKES and improve your photos
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 มี.ค. 2023
- Are you not happy with your photos? In this video I go back and look at some of my photos and explain how they could be improved with these simple composition tips.
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NIKON GEAR (Main STILLS camera)
Current landscape camera - Nikon Z7 - geni.us/nikonz7
Awesome telephoto lens - Nikon 70-200m f/2.8 - geni.us/nikon70200
Great ultra-wide angle lens - Nikon 14-30mm f/4 - geni.us/1430mm
Hiking mid lens - Nikon 24-70mm Z f4 - geni.us/nikon2470
Sharpest mid lens - Nikon 24-70mm Z f2.8 geni.us/2470mm28
Very long lens - Nikon 500mm F5.6 - geni.us/nikon500mm
FILM GEAR
AWESOME DRONE - geni.us/dji_mavic3
Nikon Z6 - geni.us/z6nikon
Nikon 20mm Z F1.8 - geni.us/nikon20mmz
Nikon 24mm Z F1.8 - geni.us/nikon24mm
Nikon 50mm Z F1.8 - geni.us/nikon50mmz
Nikon 85mm Z F1.8 - geni.us/nikon85mmz
OTHER PHOTO GEAR
Clever camera strap (peak design) - geni.us/PDstrap
Microfibre Cloths - geni.us/microfibre
Rab Downpour Pants - geni.us/rainpants
Awesome sensor brush - geni.us/brush4sensor
GorillaPod - geni.us/Kb9mV
The great printer I use Canon P1000 - geni.us/cIIc
Great bag for hiking - Tenba 24L - geni.us/orPwh
Great bag for travel (carry on) - Tenba 32L - geni.us/tenba32l
Super light Benro Travel Tripod UK - geni.us/Benrotravel
A must have for tripod (L bracket) - geni.us/myLbracket
Lightweight tripod - Benro Mach3 Carbon Fiber Tripod - geni.us/benromach3
Paper I use for all my prints - Fotospeed - geni.us/fotospeed Use DANSON10 to get 10% off your paper.
I am late commenting but this is so so useful! We learn best from our mistakes, apparently. But when someone as talented as Nigel is willing to share his mistakes, it speeds up our learning process almost exponentially. Thank you!
Good reminders here Nigel. I sometimes cringe looking at my old photos…. The scare thing is, Instill find many cringe worthy photos I still take to this day! 😮. Thanks, and as always, keep snapping!
The learning curve and mindset changed over your last years and this is so fruitful for all photographers. Never stop developing yourself! Challenge yourself at any time.
Just 3 hours ago I was walking my dog on some property and some guy asked me what I was doing on his property. "I'm just scouting out some prospects for my photography," I answered. He looked at me quizzically for a moment and then grinned and said, "Carry on!" I know for a fact that he was not the owner of the property as the real owner had done some work for me in the past. I get home and am watching different YT videos and yours comes on and the tip at the end saying to 'leave your camera, leave your tripod in the car' and just look into the composition brought it all together for me remembering earlier.
Made us all feel better. We probably all got images that were good then, but they never were.Thank you
Seeing your "average" shots is very encouraging for the normal mortal 😅. So there is hope for improvement!
I really appriciate your analysis and your tipps.
Great tips - thanks Nigel!
This advice is pure wisdom for anyone wanting to be a better landscape photographer!
Love your channel Nigel. As someone who has only just started on my photography journey, you really do help simplify things. Every time a video of yours pops up, it always inspires me to get out with my camera.
Reviewing your less satisfying shots is very useful. Of course I like them (almost) all but I get your point. Thank you.
An excellent tutorial, Nigel. With the Yellowstone shot, the bright highlight in the bottom right catches my eye and won't let go.
Thanks for another coffee with Nigel Sunday morning.
I watch all of your videos. Personally, this is one of the best. I really like how you critique your own work and intertwine tips and ideas on how to improve. Keep doing these as I learn a lot from this type of instruction.
8:48 "Absolutly useless, is it not" 😂 Love your way to give your self critique, and nice to see that it actually IS hard to get that one great photo.
Great tips. I often find …… rocks are just rocks ……. or flowers are just flowers. When I’m at 24mm or wider my compositions often become a hot mess. Thank you.
I'd be more than happy with some of your 'bad' photos Nigel, thanks as always for giving me the motivation to get out there and continue my journey.
One mistake I always find myself making is rushing to take that shot. Need to work more on that. Thanks for great advice
I can't count how many "palm-to-forehead" slaps I've done looking at my images from the past... (sometimes that past was just minutes ago...). I've had a camera in my hands for the last 5 decades and your vids always inspire me to pick it up and go hunting... perhaps for my next palm-to-forehead slap? We learn by doing; and "we" (photographers) are our own worst critic. Love the vids and your teachings - looking forward to your next video! Cheers!
It's sometimes a good reason to reconsider your photographic work. Thanks for your illustrative video.
I specialize in photographing beautiful flowers with effects lenses which is great fun. However, when going over them some time later, doing what you demonstrate here, I find how maybe I could have made the picture better. I will do this especially now that I've watched this video, and take greater care in taking the initial photo. Truly, this video is good for everyone, no matter the subject matter of each photographer. I've learned a lot watching your videos. Thank you for all you do to help us to improve our photos.
We get badly misled by our bodies in two ways. Firstly, we see in 3D but photograph in 2D. Secondly, our brains "zoom". These two factors cause us all to try to photograph an image that isn't really there! :-)
Thanks for the video. Good tips.
It like you are digging through my files! Alas, so many errors made - and yet to be made!
Whilst you put out very high quality content each week. I think this in terms of my learning is the best yet. It really, in such a practical way has helped me in thinking about composition. What would be good if whilst out in the field in real time you could show compositions of a scene or subject that someone may take aka your early photos and then recompose the shot to show and explain how it works so much better.
This video was so very helpful. The more photos one takes, hopefully we do improve, and I love seeing you critiquing your early work.
Nigel, thank you. That was probably the best composition advise, captured so succinctly, that I have watched.
Thanks for such an honest look at composition errors. Am guilty of pretty much all of these. Good reminder for tomorrow when I go out to photograph vast valleys & power stations 🤔
Thanks for all of your help. I went to Maryland’s Eastern Shore recently and you were in my head every time I took my camera out.
Отличное видео. Много полезных советов. Спасибо Найджел. Жду новых выпусков. Удачи Вам!
I agree, Nigel.
Less is more. My favourite of this video, trees shown at 9:30
Enchanting
Great bunch of tips and Advice. Slowing down is something I have to do, I always seem to be rushing...
So, twenty years on you've made some progress. That's always a good thing.😉
I'm guessing the Maui shot was a snap of that "Oh Wow" moment after you've climbed the steps to the observation area from the car park, you're cold and out of breath because of the altitude, and you see the massive Haleakala crater for the first time. Anyway, that's the way I felt. Great discussion! Carry on! 👍🥂
This is why I love your channel: Every time, it feels like I can learn something new and jot down a few notes about other lessons I've learned on landscape photography. Plus, I really enjoy the way you share your experiences with us, the audience. :)
Thanks for sharing, to take time means also to arrive on time and when in Iceland don't have an overcrowded travel plan (hard thing to do since there's soo much to see). My personal tip would be to always look around and behind for other compositions than the main event.
Thanks Nigel - I find these compositional review videos soooo helpful!
Love the extended ending - boom!
I very much enjoyed the reflective look back Nigel. I'm slowly going through my 6000+ 35mm slides when we lived in Germany in the '80s. Oh to be able to go back and take some of those photos again, but, I actually am pleasantly surprised when I look at some of them and think "wow, pretty good for a know-nothing" 🙂 I appreciated your thoughts about how to reshoot, or minimize, or get that different angle, be it left-right or up-down (one aspect I need to do more of, still!) The challenge remains is can I have that conversation in my head when I'm actually 'clicking' the shutter? Not so much about the tips or the rules, but that introspection of how can I 'see' it differently-now, how can I capture the light in a more effective way-now, etc etc. Thanks again. Great session.
This is great. Practical advice with illustrated examples is such useful guidance for visual thinkers. Thanks for this.
Oh this is so good. Some of the early photos remind me of my current ones. So just 20 more years. 😀
A great one, Nigel. Watched it three times. Learned a lot. Thank you!
Very helpful tips. Always looking forward to your videos.
Thanks Wolfgang
Such great learning. Thank you Nigel for sharing your wisdom. Always so interesting. Keep it up!
As a hobbyist, I still find it useful to review images I've taken in the past, even going back years, to see what I could have done compositionally to improve the image. It's a great self learning tool and thank you Nigel for covering this topic. It truly does assist in making you a better photographer.
Just the other day I was looking thru some photos of my Dad's shop that I took in 2006 and as I was looking at all the tools that he had, I was thinking to myself, "That's where I got that hammer, that tape measure, that Amprobe, that mortising machine, that tool, that other tool, etc..." I inherited all his tools within a couple years of that time. He was a woodworker. I have all my photos stored on my computer and I go back thru some of my photos to see where I have, and still need to improve also.
This is a super useful video. I really struggle to get good photos and your ideas about where the problems might occur really make sense.
Great video, thank you for sharing..
Watching and enjoying it from the other side of the planet. I keep making the same mistakes…
Great video which lays bare exactly the mistakes I am making currently. That last tipp of yours is gold.
I enjoy these types of videos. It reminds us that are just staring out that photographers like yourself also stated somewhere and have taken plenty of average photos through the years. I was surprised how many of the photos you showed I actually thought how to make it a better shot before you came with a tip. Must be learning something then.. 😂
Thanks again Nigel.😊
Thank you once again for your brilliant insight and guidance.
Your shame is our gain, thanks again. You've helped me so much
Thanks for sharing, a great sesion can identify with all you have shown, only hope I remember the tips about how to improve. Learning so much from your generosity.
Fantastic video Nigel! I can't wait for your book to come out!
I'm new to this hobby. I will enjoy and learn. Thank you.
Really appreciate the honest and discussion, so helpful!
Many useful tips reinforcing the things I need to be paying more attention to when shooting!
Excellent and clear advice. Thank you for being willing to show your mistakes, it gives the rest of us hope that we can improve :)
Excellent tutorial with case studies. Thank you so much, it solved one of the major confusion.
Great!
This is exactly what I suggested you to do a couple of weeks ago.
I was very curious about the way you look back at your previous work.
Thx!
Good tips, especially the last one.
Nigel, that really is one of the most helpful composition vlogs I have seen for ages. Maybe because it talks to so many of my own failings. I want to work on this in the coming year ( improving my composition that is) and your last tip I think really is one I need to implement first. I also find I see everything as a big picture wide angle view and struggle with isolating using a longer lens…more vlogs in that as a topic?
Loved this video. I thought some of your early images were amazing. You can see the growth though and it's good to get tips to help us grow. Thank you!
What a lovely episode this was, a bit nostalgic for "old" iceland there, I think you could be a better guide on iceland for me than myself, even though I live here.
So timely for me Nigel, thanks! I too find that I take far too many images similar to your examples, and your suggestions for improvement will certainly help my compositions. Also, thanks for sharing yours - gives hope to us mere mortals that you sometimes make / made the same mistakes. Your closing thoughts on waiting & observing - I recently read "Change the way you see, and the things you see will change" and found that, once I got my head around this statement, and then applied it to my photography, it does indeed make a big difference. Thanks again, until next week.
It’s something that we could all do, go through our old photos and see where we have improved and what still needs work. Thanks for sharing again Nigel
Stay safe 🇦🇺
Nigel, I must say that I really, really like THE WAY that you teach, as well as WHAT you teach. You are so comfortable in your profession that you demonstrate with your own early shots and are happy to criticize them; you don't put yourself on a pedestal and say: 'look at my images, look how great I am!' Instead, you review your previous images, highlighting the mistakes you made and then show the progression with your more recent work. Secondly, WHAT you teach: many creators on TH-cam, focus on 'PS magic' to transform images; however, if the composition is wrong (sub-optimal) there is little that PS can do to help. Simply, stopping looking for the composition, perhaps eating that apple, to get the feel for a place and then composing the image that captures how we felt about a location is such a key skill IMHO and one that you teach so well. Many thanks :)
Great tips and great pictures.
The tip about taking time to absorb the landscape reminds me of holidays in Sweden with the kids and ex-wife.
When we stopped along the road, I went observing the landscape and after 15 min or so there was the obvious question "Can we go now?"
Uuhhh???? Why? Look at the landscape how beautiful it is... Yeah yeah... we've seen it, come on lets go.... And after 30 mins we leave with a couple of mediocre shots.
Oh and the picture al 16:40 reminds me of LEGO set 648. hahahaha
I kinda get what you’re on about but must admit this novice is overwhelmed. I do begin to feel what you’re getting at though. Looking forward to more of your work.
I think I’ll need a sort of hovercraft to access the proper compositions.🙂
Seriously, your perspective is very intriguing and your before and after examples are like a light switching on. Thanks
Helpful! Thank you Nigel!
Great honest knowledgeable content with real ways to improve composition. Thanks 🙏
Thank you so much for these wonderful videos. I am enjoying them so much.
Thanks for sharing Nigel! That last tip is the most significant to me: Just look at first and don’t shoot!
Than ks Nigel, fantastic tips.
It is so good to see, that even great landscape photographers have a learning curve and they also shot pictures that haven't been great!
Great tip about taking time before getting your camera and tripod out, I heard a very good photographer recommend using your mobile phone as a viewer for this which helps you 'see' the shot and where best to set your shot. Then get your camera and tripod out. From memory, the photographer was a guy called Nigel Danson, you may have heard of him? 😀🤣
Great advice Nigel. Loved this!
Great tips as always, Nigel. Thanks for all of your excellent content.
I’ve really enjoyed watching this one Nigel. I enjoy all your videos, but seeing where you were 10-20 years ago has given me confidence and inspired me. Thank you as always, Richard Harris
Great video Nigel. It’s good to see how these images could have been improved with a small change in composition. Your honesty in your own critique is refreshing. Keep up the good work 👍🏻
Really enjoy your composition videos, thanks.
Great video. Thanks. 🙂👍
Thanks for watching!
Really enjoyed the walk through memory lane. A really effective way to demonstrate what to think about. The best part of the video is the reenforcement that everyone starts somewhere and always room for improvement.
Love the look around tip! It is actually true.
I have a thought that I always try to remember when I'm hiking and shooting photos: "Remember that people almost never look back!"
One of the coolest photos I had in Iceland was just that: some guys had stopped the car to shoot at a landscape on the right. I stopped to do the same... But I remembered "people never look back", and there was a whole family of sheep on a hill with a foggy mountain on the background.
I remember so many cars saw me and stopped to have the same photo... the sheep just scattered and I was the only one that had it :')
Great video as always. I hear your voice in the back of my head every time I’m hiking. Thanks for making me a better photographer.
Most enjoyable and quite informative. Composition is the main thing I am working on this year. I look forward to your new ebook on the subject, Nigel. Cheers.
Thanks for sharing this video with us. I am sure its quite humbling to show us some of your photos from 10-20 years ago when you were where many of us are today in our walk. It’s wonderful to see the progress that you have made in your art and it gives us all hope that if we continue to work on our craft that we can see similar progress.
It can be hard, but so helpful to look at your past pictures and see how you've improved over the years, what you are doing better at, and what you can still improve upon.
As ever, fantastic video. Your compositional tips are always so practical and intuitive, you genuinely inspire me to get my camera out and try your tips. Thank you so much. 👏
Great to hear!
As always, very informative and honest reflection. I like how you get me energized to improve without getting discouraged. Be safe!! Mike from Chicago
Very interesting to see some of your older photographs! And your self review is very helpful. I never take time to watch my first pictures taken with my dslr. Thanks to this video, I'm going to take that time; surely it will help to evaluate my evolution.
What a amazing video, I have only been doing landscape for a few years and this one, if you’re honest with yourself as a photographer is so true of all of us . The journey we are all on at different stages of our lives . Look back and laugh at those first images. Then look at you’re progress. Loved your honesty. Keep up the great work.
Excellent tips, thank you!
Thank you ... very informative and enjoyable video !
Extremely helpful information. Thanks
Hello! Amazing work! The landscape you took really hits the soul! Hope to see more update on Bilibili too, 😂 guys are hunger for your work!
So educational! Thank you very much
I agree with the 6th option Adam. I just purchased my first printer after watching yours and Gary Goughs various vlogs about printing, and it really does put the physical icing on the photography cake!
A good set of reminders here...thanks, Nigel! In a way they are all connected by a need to slow down, see in detail what's around, and think. I need to remind myself of this all the time, and I'm not always successful at at that. Scouting a location in advance helps with that, since it reduces the headless chicken mode when the great light is only around for a few minutes.
It is reassuring that even the most experienced of photographers have this experience. We all probably take too little time finding the right composition at the taking stage and instead substitute quality with quantity in the hope that we can make some images. But, that is part of the journey. Finding those compositions at the editing stage by being critical is what guides you later with your finger on the shutter release. It is a circular and iterative process.
You’ve come a long way baby!
Observe the scene first. Something I fail doing but hope to get better at. I'm amazed at how brilliantly you've critiqued your own photos which at first look one would never have known they weren't perfect in the first place. You are really good at composition. Thank you for passing your knowledge onto so many of us aspiring photographers. Hope your recovery is continuing to good movement.
Thanks I love these tips