In today’s post, I’m giving three tips for anyone who is interested in becoming a photographer, whether you want to be a hobbyist photographer or a professional photographer. That being said, if you plan on going down the professional route, these tips will be much more important for you.
Now, to get started in photography, like many things, you can go down the traditional education route. You can go to TAFE, you can go to college, or you can even go to some universities, where you can study photography. You can get training and you can even get qualified as a photographer. That being said, photography is one of those jobs that you don't actually have to be qualified for.
Technically I am not actually qualified as a photographer. I was first introduced to photography while studying film. In learning how to frame shots, how to use lighting, and other filming techniques, a lot of what we learnt about capturing film we learnt through photography. So, I am trained as a photographer, however, I am not officially qualified as a photographer. For either of these jobs, photographer or videographer, qualifications are not important for you to actually get started. All you actually need is to know what you're doing.
1) So, with that in mind, my number one tip for anyone who wants to get started in photography, and this is actually the same tip for videography, is do not focus on technology. A lot of people think that they need to have the most technologically advanced equipment or the most expensive equipment just to get started.
This is simply not true. Of course, if you are wanting to get started in photography, then you need something that you can take photos with. However, you don't need a fancy, high grade camera in the beginning. If you are wanting to become a professional photographer, then eventually you will need a higher quality camera, like a DSLR.
Honestly, any kind of camera or even a phone will work in the beginning. Like I said, going professional means you will eventually need to invest in something more expensive, but you can work up to that.
2) My second tip is definitely going to be more important for professional photographers.
As a hobbyist photographer it doesn't really matter whether or not you ever nail down a style, however most professional photographers will at least at some point have to nail down a specific style or specific niche.
As a hobbyist you can keep experimenting with style all you want until the day you die. It doesn't really matter.
However, as a professional photographer you will eventually need to niche down. This means picking a specific style. The best way to find the style that works for you is to experiment with different styles in the beginning.
There are many different styles of photography out there and you can never know for certain what is going to be the best one for you or which one you're going to have the most success with until you try it. Whatever it is, the more you experiment the more you'll learn about photography just by doing.
This actually leads on to the third tip I have for anyone who wants to get started with photography, and it is going to be a bit of a Captain Obvious moment.
3) The third tip is: learn the basics.
Yes, Captain Obvious!
I will clarify what I mean.
Like I said before, while you don't have to be qualified to be a photographer you do need to know what you are doing, especially if you're going to be a professional photographer. If you're going to be taking photos of people, for example, if you're going to be a portrait photographer you need to at least know the basics of what you're doing.
What I mean is, there are three basic skills and knowledge points of photography:
Framing = How to actually frame a shot
Angles = How they work and how that will affect the photos you're taking
Lighting = How lighting works when you're taking a photo
Like I said earlier, to learn these basics you can go down the traditional education route and you can go you can study at college or TAFE or university. You can do a course, or if you don't want to go down that route you can get online. There is so much out there. Videos and blogs like this.
So, those are my three main tips for anyone wanting to get started in photography.
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