Photography Habits (That Outperform Fancy Camera Gear)
In my opinion and personal experience, the following habits, approaches, or ways of working are more effective at elevating your photography than any amount of expensive gear. It doesn't matter if you don't have the lenses you dream about or that fancy set of magnetic ND filters.
This is not a ‘‘gear doesn't matter post’’ - but these 4 points can be done whatever level you’re at and with whatever camera setup you’re using.
1. BLENDING GENRES
Blending genres is one of the most valuable photography tips I can offer. This involves taking techniques from one genre of photography that you love or tried in the past, and applying them to another.
For example, I try to incorporate elements that I love from street photography, like spontaneous moments and everyday life, into my nature and landscape photography. Instead of always focusing on grand, sweeping landscapes, I've been exploring how humans interact with nature and capturing smaller details that often get overlooked while out in the big vistas. I find this gives the landscape photos I take another layer, and that’s when some images turn into the perfect result.
Another example would be my background in e-commerce and lifestyle photography which taught me the importance of capturing details and intricate moments to back up hero images. I've applied this knowledge to genres that don't typically feature close-ups or lifestyle shots, and now my photo sets and client work is much stronger.
If you haven't experimented with different photography genres, I highly recommend giving it a try. You might discover new styles or approaches that you love, or you might learn valuable lessons that can be applied to other areas of your work. Either way try your best to carry everything you learn from all genres of photography around in your back pocket, because you never know when you might need to call upon something that might seem like it doesn’t relate to your main medium.
2. EVERY WEEK
The next habit that has improved my photography a ridiculous amount is making sure I photograph something new every week. Wether that be one photo I take thats new to me, or visiting an entire area I’ve never been to before.
I know we can all run out of locations or places to go, so failing that even just re visiting somewhere you have not been for years is as good as a brand new location, the chances are so much has changed (and you’ve gotten so much better at photography since your last visit) that the photos you come away with will be completely different.
For me this is the main way to keep the creative spark fresh, I get pretty tired of photographing a place after I’ve been to it 2-3 times because I thrive and work best when exploring and encountering new experiences at each turn.
I know photographers who go to the same handful of places on rotation year in year out, to the point where I can basically predict what they're going to photograph and post in each season, of every year. Which I guess theres nothing wrong with but I always like to compare photography to music artists, if musicians put the same copy and paste album out every year for 5 years in a row, It’s not exactly that exciting is it.
Making it a habit to constantly explore unfamiliar territory with your camera will probably see you photographing stuff across a much wider range of subjects and help you build up a diverse portfolio to showcase that you’re not just a one trick pony who takes the same composition at your local hotspot whenever theres a raging sunset.
3. PHOTOS THAT RESONATE
This next one is something that I realised a few years ago while having a photography identity crisis, and it allowed me to push through a long period of feeling unhappy and blank with the work I was creating.
Go in search of images, themes, places and subjects that resonate with yourself, instead of photographing stuff you know is just generically considered epic or beautiful by the masses. Once I started implementing this into my photography, I noticed how much more enjoyment I was getting out of my personal work and how I was becoming way more connected to my photos again.
In my case, for the most part, I’ve stopped hunting down dramatic insane vantage points and views that I could take a photo of and most none photographers would look at and say, wow thats an epic place, what a view, scenes, vibes, mood. all of the buzzwords. And instead I starting really researching history, diving into corners of the world where I can take photos that either have a richer story behind them, or can be appreciated by people who really know how to consume photography, and break down photos.
Wether it be a pier at risk of demolition that has 100s of years of industrial history tied to it, or a location that plays a major role in my childhood in terms of the memory's I have attached to it (shout out to mum and dad who would take us to the little Yorkshire coastal villages pretty much every single year of our childhood).
Granted I don’t always come away with or take images that other photographers are going to find amazing, but as long as I connect with them and feel like they belong to me, then thats exactly what I want out of using one of these electronic boxes with glass attached to it. The last thing you want is a hard drive full of photos that you don’t care about, or you feel nothing towards when you look at them.
The moment you start taking photos to impress yourself is the moment you will start making the most progress. Well.. at least that’s what I’ve found anyway.
4. GET OFF YOUR PHONE & ON YOUR DESKTOP
Lastly to wrap up this post, want to share a habit that has significantly improved my photography skills and kept me inspired: how and where I consume other people's work.
I've made a conscious effort to seek out photographers whose work interests me, then I’ll actually sit down at my desktop computer, with a coffee, and visit their website. I view their images properly, slowly, read their blogs or any stories they might have on there, rather than you guessed it, scrolling down social media and glancing at photos for the grand total of 1 second.
To be honest, I spend the least amount of time possible on instagram. I don’t find it inspiring at all, not because theres no good work on there, but because its far too distracting, too easy to get side tracked and well, its on your phone. Alongside the website visits I follow and watch more practical long form videos on youtube, view and read more photography photo books, and look through other photographers long term projects.
This way of consuming content might be considered quite old school and outdated but you will learn way more about photography that you can carry over into your own work, than you ever will scrolling apps on your phone.
Plus, people putting their work out there on websites, creating long form youtube videos and really putting the time into showcasing their work how they want it to be seen, need US more than ever to fight the 2 second attention span world that were now living in.
Slow down, don’t get distracted by reels and fight videos, and turn consuming other peoples work into an actual enjoyable pass time, and you will see the knock on effects in your own work.
