The PHOTO MISTAKES Beginner Photographers Make

I imagine you sitting on that bleak peak, waiting for the light to arrive, passing your time knitting that excellent Aran. Well done all 'round. Great channel and all the best from a cabin in a swamp in a rain-forest in New Zealand.

Absolutely amazing video! Nigel you're amazing

Another awesome video! Thank you!

Great tips, thanks! Now, an odd question -- what "Markup" app are you using to walk through your photos? There are a bunch of similarly-named apps out there, with widely differing function sets.

Very useful info about needing to know WHY your photos are unsuccessful to be able to improve. one thing I would add, if your struggling to figure out the why, trying comparing the bad photo to one of your good ones. Or someone else's good photo. This way you can look at the differences to identify elements that make an image look good or bad.

One of your best yet in my opinion This video really resonated and deals so well with issues that will be common to so many of us. It takes real discipline to avoid being 'lost' in the experience, slow down, and really think hard about the compositional elements. Great piece of work. 👏

Thanks! 👍🏾

"...watch the scene for just 20 minutes" well... I guess I've got work to do since I get frustrated after 2. lol

Great video, great points ! Took some things from this video for sure, learned alot. At the end of the day though photography is subjective, personally I feel alot of his photos he was critical on were good. What one may think of as "ok" may be an amazing photo to another :)

Dang, the no so good photos are way better than my best photos 😁

SUGGESTION: show us the images for a short while before you tell whether you are using as an example of mistake(s), or of success(es), and even before what aspect you are talking about.

I think it is too easy to pre-judge an image based on what one has been told before seeing it.

A lot of people are saying how much they agree with you; would that be affected by this change of order of doing things?

I am very much a beginner in having my photos assessed in competitions. Some interesting comments I have had:

- "Exposure well controlled": the judge did not know that the photo was taken in totally automatic mode with a cheap (about £150) camera.

- "not enough space around the main subject; feels squashed": I had not realised the "squashed" issue before, but then I decided I liked it!

- another judge, about someone else's photo, suggested cropping the foreground, and keeping the "3 trees" in the background. I thought the foreground was the interesting bit, and that "3 trees" was a cliché.

I found that the judges, and the long-term photo club members as well, were often appreciative of unusual photos, because long-time were often "stuck in a rut": comments like "I've taken that photo myself" and "at that viewpoint you can see the 3 marks on the ground of previous tripods [maybe be not literally]".

Really enjoyed this. Great tips & easy to understand explanations. Thank you

me seeing the failed photos and thinking they look great

Thank you! You gave me so much to think about and put it all into context. I now understand the concept of negative space because you explained it so well and showed us the other elements that come into play. I can’t wait to go back out and take photographs exercising the concepts I learned here.

Thankyou Nigel..great revision and reminder to be intentional when viewing potential landscape scenes.

Nice one.. It's informative. But would have love you to also include portraits and full body shots of someone not just the landscape. Cos to me, I feel like you cannot leave unnecessary space while taking images of a person either portrait and full body.. For instance you have close shots, headshot, etc.. All these do not need unnecessary space either below, above or side. But all the same thank you for the videos. I am here to learn🙌🔥

I kept asking why it doesnt work all the time and my answer leads to ""i dont know" all the time. 😅

Very helpful explanation and I think you have developed a natural feel for composing by practice and iteration. There is a big difference between finding reasoning in why a photo works "after" the shot has been captured, and proactively using this knowledge whilst live composing (because one probably does not have the necessary experience, yet). It's good to know the basics, but my advise would be to take as many shots as you can, analyze them afterwards and try to figure out "why" some photos work better than others. You'll gradually start to take less "random" pictures, and you'll get a feel for it naturally. I really enjoyed your video and I also like watching people "explore" their own work from years ago!

clicked video, saw giants hat. subbed. Great input and tips ty

That was a lot to take in . Thanks 🙏

Makes zero sense to me. You take the same picture and add fog and it's okay? Artists???

I'm going over countless videos right now, these pointers are amazing, thank you.

Not once held a decent camera, can't wait to get practicing!

I love your jumper.

This is a great, straight to the point video and I really like your personality. Thank you for this. Cheers!

Thank you very much for sharing

I like how you think about composition.. I'm not a fan of most landscape pics though.

Great video! Thanks a lot for the tips you shared!

splendid

Like golf sometimes photography needs a “swing thought”, ONE key point to work on. Mine will be “room to breath” for awhile. Thanks for the video.

Hey, im a new videographer, and im learning in videographer school! And i understand your thinking process about compozition, but it really is proffesionally talked thru it will be really hard to understand to a new photographer! But thanks you gave me new ideas!!!👍

The standout comment for me is about taking your time! It's so easy to get to a location and be buzzing with excitement because your eyes and brain are taking all the information in and processing it in context of where you are. It makes you believe that what the camera records is exactly what you are feeling in that moment, and it really isn't! You have to take your time (have an apple!) and study carefully and patiently, and judge by the viewfinder and not what your eyes are taking in about the whole experience. You see tourists arrive at a location and immediately start snapping randomly in every direction with no thought of composition, because they are caught up in the moment. Give yourself 15 mins to look at your camera screen and really analyse what your camera sees, not what your stereoscopic eyes and 180 degree vision are telling you.

An Apple when looking at a scene ?

I am not a photographer but this video is still really interesting to me. You are very good at taking pictures!

Thank you, that will help me, with the composition of my Thumbnails 😉

Great tips & process, thank you

Great talk about photos. Not many people critique photos. Thank you so much

Well made video! experienced ideas

For number 3, if you're eyes are continuously scanning the image, is that necessarily a bad thing? I like being able to look at the several aspects of an image sometimes.

I actually preferred the photos you said weren't very good. It just goes to show that it's all subjective and there are no rules.

Sorry but your photos still don't work. The second photo you show of the pond is horrible. I am serious the points you comment on don't Sorry.

We used to always say "crop until you merit" LOL But seriously, cropping a photo in the right way can make or break the image.

Excellent tutorial. Thank you.

Thank you, that was helpful