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How to avoid 13 common photography mistakes · Wildlife and Adventure Photography

• 0:17
  > Graham>Hello again. While I don't like to focus on errors that people make, it's also quite useful to do that because if we become aware of what we're doing wrong, we can take steps to correct it. And, in doing that, hopefully, our photography will get a lot better. And, if you're making mistakes, if you can correct them, you'll probably find your photography a lot more fulfilling, a lot more fun, basically.
• 0:40
  > Graham>So in this, podcast, what I thought it would do is talk about some of the most common mistakes that people make. So I've got a list of 13 here. So I'm just going to talk through them one by one. And it may be that one or two of them or maybe more, resonate with you. Or if you're looking at some photographs that you took recently and you're not very happy with them, but you're not quite sure why, then just listening to some common M mistakes, you might realize that, okay, that's what you were doing. That's where it went wrong in that particular shot. So I'm going to dive straight into it.
• 1:17
  > Graham>And, the first one is poor composition.
• 1:20
  > Graham>So I've got three things I'm going to talk about in regards to composition.
• 1:26
  > Graham>And composition is, one of those subjects that I could do easily, do a whole podcast on. And I've done, webinars on composition as well. And in my training courses, composition takes up, a reasonable amount of the space because once you start thinking about, there's a lot you can do. And then once you start working with competition, you can start producing some really interesting and really engaging photographs. But you need to know what you're doing.
• 1:51
  > Graham>So the first problem is the centered subject. So that's where you've, you've popped your subject smack in the middle of the frame. So that's okay, I suppose. it's just, it's what everybody else does pretty much. So it's kind of boring.
• 2:05
  > Graham>Let's just be honest about it. It's sort of boring. technically, there might be nothing wrong with the photograph, but it's just dull. So if you put the subject off centre. And a great way to approach that is to use the rule of thirds.
• 2:20
  > Graham>And if you're not familiar with that, then Download my, 10 tips PDF on the website. it's in the impro your photography, pull down part of the menu. And it's something I talk about pretty regularly, when I talk about photography. So the rule of thirds is just a much better Way, I think. I mean, it's all subjective, but in my opinion, it's a much better way of positioning your subject because you've now got extra space, you've got this space you can use in the image, and you can use it to add information, you can use it to add atmosphere.
• 2:53
  > Graham>it starts to open up a lot of possibilities. So if you are taking all your photographs with your subject dead center, just look up the rule of thirds, download my PDF, it's all free, and just experiment with that and see how you, go with that. The next thing is a cluttered background.
• 3:12
  > Graham>And, what I mean by that, are it's just this stuff in the background you didn't want in there, or there's stuff in the background that's just distracting. Because the whole purpose of good composition is to draw the viewer, take them on a journey through the frame, maybe from one edge of the frame through to your subject. And all the time they're on that journey, you're telling them something more about your subject that's maybe getting a bit, a bit advanced in the composition. But, it's only what you don't want to be doing is have a photograph where your subject'there but so is a whole load of other stuff. And somebody just looking at that image has no idea what they're supposed to be looking at.
• 3:49
  > Graham>So an example of that is where the background is a nice sharp focus, as is your subject, but there's no real way to differentiate either. So popping your background out of focus is one good way of doing it. And this is why I talk about becoming a visual storyteller. Because what you're doing is before you press the shutter button, you're having a very good look at what's in the frame, whether it's through the viewfinder or on the screen at the back. You're looking at every aspect of that image. So you are concentrating on, composition.
• 4:18
  > Graham>You're very aware of what's in the background. And there are other factors which I'll talk about in this podcast that you are also bringing in before you press the shutter.
• 4:28
  > Graham>the final thing I've got on the list here is crooked horizons.
• 4:31
  > Graham>Now these may or may not be a problem. generally they are because they tend to be a distraction and particularly if you didn't mean to, shoot them crooked. And one of the things to remember is that, the human eye is very good at detecting even very small angles. So if something'out of whack, we'going to spot it and your viewerers going to see it, even though they won't immediately realize what's wrong with it, something is going to be wrong about that image.
• 4:57
  > Graham>So that's kind of one side of that coin. The other side is that you might want to do that deliberately. And this is something I learned when I was training to do top end, professional portrait work. And the photographer was working with there, she would deliberately shoot at an angle.
• 5:14
  > Graham>Especially if what was in frame included a lot of parallel lines. So rather than lining everything up so that any vertical lines were parallel to the side of the frame, any horizontals were parallel, to the bottom of the frame or the top of the frame, she would deliberately introduce an angle. And that might be, let's say 30 degrees. So it didn't have to be huge, but it was definitely there. And the reason for doing that is it just makes it a bit more interesting. And I'm going to go back to a definition I've used before. If you've listened to me yaking on about this stuff before. and that is that the longer somebody spends looking at the image, the better it is. That is what I mean by that, is that they're really engaged by the image, they're looking into it and as they look, they see more things. Not that they're trying to work out what the subject that's not, a roaring success.
• 6:11
  > Graham>So these are just three thoughts on composition.
• 6:15
  > Graham>We've then got exposure and that's either under or overexposing your image.
• 6:21
  > Graham>And this I think is quite important actually. Now you might deliberately, again, any of these things, if you're doing them deliberately, that's fine. But it's when you're doing them, when you're not doing them deliberately and they're becoming an issue. So whether you under or overexpose it has a big impact on, first of all, just what you can see in the image.
• 6:42
  > Graham>And so my general advice is one of the critical things to get right is your exposure. Because once you've done that, when you get to post processing and you're producing the final version of the photograph, you might want to have some sort of an atmosphere in there. You might want to create some mood and darker images, can be quite moody. And it's good if you shoot knowing that and you deliberately, let's say underexposed to get more of a kind of darker image. But if you're not doing it deliberately, then you need to make sure you're on top of your exposure. So that means you need to know your camera. And part of that is knowing how to use exposure compensation or at least checking to make sure it's switched off. And exposure compensation is simply, something that the camera will do where it will deliberately under or overexpose the image. So I'm not goingcess say any more than that in this podcast because, time's moving on.
• 7:43
  > Graham>But exposure is really important. The third one is focus.
• 7:46
  > Graham>So a very basic mistake is just having your subject out of focus.
• 7:51
  > Graham>And most of the time we do want the subject in sharp focus. Now there might be times when you don't want to do that.
• 7:57
  > Graham>And again, this can be, where you're going a bit arty or you want a certain atmosphere. And again, if you're doing it deliberately, it's not a problem. But if you are finding that your subject is out of focus, then the things to start looking at are, first of all, autof focusus. Make sure you understand how that works on your camera. another thing, if you're using manual focus perhaps, is if you have a diopter adjustment on your camera and the diopter, adjustment. And you will find these on, well, a lot of cameras with a viewfinder. And the idea behind them is that if you don't have 2020 vision, if, you have to wear glasses, it means in theory at least, that you can take your glasses off, set the darker adjustment to match what your prescription would be for that eye, and then when it looks sharp to you through the viewfinder, everything's sharp. However, if you've got that wrong, then if it looks sharp to you through the viewfinder, the chances are, you are out of focus.
• 8:57
  > Graham>Or conversely, if it is in focus but the doctor is s wrong, it's going to look all out of focus to hu so that kind of thing, you need to find a way of dealing with it. Either really stay on top of the adjustment or just wear your glasses and make sure it's off. But either way, focus is really important. And it's important to understand what you have on your camera that can impact, having a good focus.
• 9:19
  > Graham>Now another one is, over editing. So mean editing is really another discipline in itself. But it's a very important part of digital photography, particularly because generally what cameras photograph is not exactly what we saw with our eye. And it depends, various circumstances. One of them is time of day. And I'm sure you've had that experience where you've shot in a lovely sunset and it looks absolutely breathtaking when you're looking at it through your eye. But when you look at what you've got on the camera, it's just really flat and dull and horrible.
• 9:53
  > Graham>So this is how the camera, how it sees things, differs from how we see things. And that's one of the purposes of post process. And we can correct all of that so that we finish up with an image that looks pretty much as we saw it. However, you can go a little overboard on the processing side now. Again, if you're doing it deliberately, that's fine, but just overaturating everything can get a bit tiring for the viewer. maybe using a lot of filters and there's lots of effects. But don't get carried away. It's kind of like customizing cars. I remember this years ago when I first got into cars. And some people would just buy as much stuff as possible to stick on their car to customize. It looked awful. So don't do that with your post processing. Think about what it is. What's the image you're shooting for, what's in your mind's eye that is not what you're looking at on the, computer screen. And then do what adjustments you need to do to just bring it in. And, just a tip, I'll share when I'm getting my colors right because there is a temptation to oversaturate. I've seen. I've seen actually quite a lot of, wildlife photographs where they're definitely oversaturated. That is, the colors are much more vibrant than they were in life.
• 11:09
  > Graham>So I generally. Because I photograph wildlife a lot, there's generally a bit of grass about.
• 11:15
  > Graham>Or green anyway. So I just make sure that green is about right sometimes by looking out of the window and looking at, the grass that I can see, from where I do my work. And that's really my. My suggestion. Just. You might want to add a touc. A touch of vibrancy. But don't overdo it, because it's very easy to get, images that are actually quite tiring, not to say shocking for the casual observer.
• 11:41
  > Graham>Okay. and color correction, actually, is another one. Just think about, Again, you need to just understand what that is. But if you've got, you're getting photographs that have a lot of tint to them, it might be bluish or purplish or yellow or green, whatever. But if you've got a tint on there, you probably got your, white balance out somewhere. So I would suggest just checking that, and that's something that again is covered in. Course I'm not going to talk about that right now because I've got quite a few other things to just talk through and I want to focus on those. But if you have got really od colors, then that's something to just check out.
• 12:19
  > Graham>Using the wrong lens. Now, this might not sound a big deal, but it is important and particularly if you're doing things like portraits. Because if you use a wide angle lens on a portrait for somebody, what happens is, lenses have their own characteristics and they're focusing the subject and they're focusing multiple subjects. Basically there are different distances away from you, depending upon what's in the frame itself.
• 12:52
  > Graham>So you get a. Well, with telephotos. Let me just talk about telephotos for a moment. You get a kind of compression of perspective. What I mean by that is if you've ever seen an athletics meeting and there's a bunch of runners and know, doing 400 meters or something, so they're jogging along and somebody has got a long telephoto, maybe 200, 400mm, whatever it might be.
• 13:17
  > Graham>And really the longer the lens the more this effect is obvious.
• 13:22
  > Graham>But you don't know what lenths they're using. But they're shooting down the straight and you can see the person in the lead and then there's someone who looks to be right behind them, right on their shoulder, almost the same size.
• 13:37
  > Graham>And obviously that's how we judge how far things are away from us. But if you then see the same pair of runners, but from the side you can see the person behind is some distance behind the person in front. So if that does sound familiar to you, that's what I mean by compressing perspective. It basically makes things look much closer to one another than they are in reality.
• 14:03
  > Graham>Now look again, it may be an effect that you want. So if you're doing it deliberately, good on you. but where this becomes much more of a problem is if you start shooting portraits and you're using the yide angle because you get kind of the reverse effect and that is you get an exaggeration of features in this case if you're taking a photograph. So if I was to take a photograph of somebody with let's say 28 millimeters, just as to throw a number out there. And it will depend on one or two other factsors too.
• 14:32
  > Graham>But just to give you rough idea, and I wasn't very far away from my subject because the closer you are, the more pronounced the effects get. With a wide angle lens, the chances are their nose is going to look huge and then the rest of them will kind of recede back. So where their eyes are, their ears are particularly, and all of that. So basically, what I'm saying is, to put it in a sentence or two is that lenses will distort the real, the reality of what they're shooting.
• 15:03
  > Graham>So what you get as an image in your camera is a distorted version of what the camera is pointed at through that lens.
• 15:12
  > Graham>And it is good to understand a little bit about those distortions because that way you can choose which lens is most appropriate for the subject you're working with.
• 15:23
  > Graham>And the extreme of that are these really, short focal length fish eye lenses, you know, 8 millimeters, 14, something dark like that.
• 15:33
  > Graham>And I'm sure you've seen those pictures where they're pretty much circular. And that's okay because generally when people are shooting with those, that's exactly what they're going for. But you do need to be aware that with the more regular focal lengths that you're likely to come across, they do have an impact on how that scene is distorted when it reaches your sensor or your film plane. and obviously the other thing about using the right lens is make sure you've got what you need in the frame. And again, so wide angle is good if you've got a lot of stuff to get in. But you can get again distortions on the side as well because you will begin to curve, straight lines the nearer to the edge of the frame you get. And obviously telephoto you can struggle to get everything in that you want. So choosing the right lens is actually quite important.
• 16:23
  > Graham>And something I did when I was doing portrait work. I bought myself 28 to 300 lens for my Canon. It was quite an expensive lens and I don't see it around that much. But it's kind of a super zoom as well because it's more than 10 times. But the reason for having that telephot, that range of focal lengths is that I noticed that if I was taking a group shot of a family and often there are young children around, the kids will sort of play up a little bit and they might be pulling faces or doing whatever.
• 16:54
  > Graham>And usually to get a group shot, I've got a wide angle of some description on there. But in order to capture that expression I need to use a telephoto getting really quick. So I found that lens which just brilliant for doing that kind of a shot. As I'm setting people up in a group, I know that the kids are going to play up most likely. And also I've been doing shots with the kids before I do the group shots because I know that the kids are going to get bored really fast. So I tend to do them first. And so you get an idea of which ones are going to play up. But it means you are, equipped to take advantage and grab those images that are the ones that the parents love or the grandparents love, you know, so that the ones that from a commercial perspective you're ah, more likely to sell to do give a bit of attention to the lenses that you're using.
• 17:43
  > Graham>Now. Another one is, being aware of light. So a common mistake is that people will hold off until it's really bright sunshine and then start taking pictures of everyone. That's not really that useful because you've got very harsh light. So there's a few things you need to be aware of to get your exposure correct. You've really got to be exposing off the thing that you want to see. So that's usually somebody's eyes if it's a, portrait.
• 18:12
  > Graham>However, if, if you are photographing, portraits, if it's a very bright day, people are most likely to be squinting. Even if you've got the sun behind them, everything else is quite bright as well. So the chances are people are going to be squinting a little bit. Also if the sun is overhead or the light source, if you're twing inside somewhere but it's very bright, is going to give you very harsh shadows. So there's going to be a very big difference between black and white at dark and light areas in the frame. So if you do want to shoot portraits, you're actually far better off shooting on an overcast day because although the colors might not be brilliant, if you're shooting color, and don't forget, you can always tweak them a little bit in post, but people won't be squinting. You're going to get the eye and the more of somebody's eye you can see, the more you can connect with them. And this particularly true in portraits because we look at people's eyes, that's how we connect with them, or most of us do. Some people don't like eye contact at all for whatever reason.
• 19:17
  > Graham>But that's the thing to remember with the portrait that you want to make use of eye contact.
• 19:22
  > Graham>another one actually, if you're shooting women, this is a broad statement, so I am totally ready to be Shot down in flames. But as a general rule, women tend to prefer photographs of themselves where they're looking out of the frame to one side. So not looking directly at the camera but looking off to one side or the other of the frame. So that's just a tip I'll give you there because I just thought of it basically I just remembered it and just another trick to think about if you've got a flash or a flash gun on your camera. So these pop up flash things, they are really filling flashes.
• 20:00
  > Graham>And what I mean by that is that if you are photographing let's say a person and the background behind them is fairly bright, so that starts to put them into a bit of a silhouette. You need what we call a filling flash which just lights them up. So you're not trying to light the background up at all, you're just lighting up the subject. And that's what those little pop up flashes are for. They don't have a lot of range, they're not that bright, they're not that powerful. But that's what you use them for, for fill in flash. Or you can use a regular flash gun as well if you do a lot of that kind of photography. But if you are taking photographs of people in that sort of situation and you don't want the background burnt out. So if you expose for the person, let's say they're in a little bit of shadow and the background is really bright, then what's going to happen is if you expose for them directly, you're going to burn out the background because all that bright area will just sort of burn. You'll overexpose it basically.
• 20:55
  > Graham>So that's one solution. But another thing if you've got to pop up flash is just to use it as a fil in flash. And that might give you again a more interesting photograph and a lot more depth to it as well.
• 21:08
  > Graham>Okay. Shooting in auto, that we love shooting auto. So yeah, you know, I know people who do that and you're going to get stuff that's nicely exposed. All the rest of it probably really boring. because what tends to happen is when you're in auto you tend to have everything in focus for one thing. So the camera is basically working to get you a good exposure and to focus on what you tell it, the subject is, which is where you're pointing your autoocus point at.
• 21:37
  > Graham>And if you don't know where that is, that's another thing that I teach you on photography courses. but they're pretty boring. And also if you leave the factory settings you're going to tend to your autofocus point tends to be the center of the frame and that's where you're also taking your light reading. So what people tend to do is they will get the subject in the center of the frame, the camera's focusing on them, it's exposing for them and that's your photograph. So they're in the middle of the frame, which is what we spoke about earlier. So it is really advisable to get out of auto mode. And even if you just learn, you need to know your exposure triangle. I say this again and again but people get a bit worried about it. They think it's very technical. It really isn't. it's just a relationship and you don't need to remember all the numbers. What will happen is as long as you understand the relationship between each aspect. So that's shutter, speed, aperture and the ISO. The sensitivity of the sensor that you're using that you've set.
• 22:42
  > Graham>Once you understand how that relationship works, you know what to prioritize and certain numbers will start to pop out regularly. So you'll slowly get to know them.
• 22:51
  > Graham>But you really limit yourself creatively. If you only ever work in auto and you're going to be honestly, I can tell you this, we're all friends here, you're producing pretty boring photographs. Probably.
• 23:05
  > Graham>Okay, the eighth mistake that people make is not checking settings. So this is kind of lazy on honestly. but every time you pick up the camera you need to just check the settings. And a very easy way to do that is to take a quick test shot. With digital it is really really easy. You just point at a subject or at something that is about the same illumination as your subject is going to be. So if I'm out photographing humpbacks, generally there isn't one sat in mid air so that I can get my exposure correct off often and things like that.
• 23:41
  > Graham>So I will point to an area of the ocean where I'm expecting to see some action at some point or is at least lit, has the sun on it to the same way because if you're out early in the morning or late in the afternoon, depending on where you're looking, you're going to have quite a difference, the difference between sort of bright areas and the shadowed areas, it's going to be quite a lot.
• 24:04
  > Graham>So just do a quick test shot, make sure the exposure is about right. You've got in Focus what you want, your shutter speeds where you want it and then off you go. But don't wait until all the action starts to check your settings or even worse completely forget about them. And then when it's all the actions over and you're looking at your photographs, they are all horrible. so do check your settings.
• 24:30
  > Graham>white balance is one of those things that can really throw you if you get that wrong. I very rarely change my white balance. so now that's how I choose to operate. Other photographers might be appalled, but to me it's just another area with the style of photography I do where it's generally not an issue. and I'm just minimizing the number of things I have to watch before I take a photograph.
• 24:56
  > Graham>Okay, number nine, I'm going to call it, overlooking details. So this is so these are things like smudges, so it might be dirt on the lens, it might be dirt on your sensor. If you've got a digital camera. But it is always a good idea, particularly if you could planning to go away somewhere, to do, you know, it might be, be holiday or it might be trip of lifetime type thing. Just make sure that everything is looking good. And the good way to do that is to take a photograph of a plain color. It could be a wall in your house, it could be the sky, but something where you've got a pretty uniform color because that will tend to really show any smudges or imperfections you've got. So then the thing to do is to check the lens if you think it's something on lens. Obviously make sure your lens is clean and that both ends of it are clean.
• 25:53
  > Graham>generally it's obviously the end that's open, so the end towards your subject that's most likely to get dirty. so just keep that clean. Always have a cleaning cloth with your microfiber cloth and some cleaning fluid so you can keep it nice and clean.
• 26:06
  > Graham>but just make sure no dirt'got on the glass at the back of the lens either. The part that goes into the camera connects with the camera. the sensor as well. You need to make sure is clean. Now cameras do sometimes do a sort of self clean. But what I recommend particularly if you've had the camera for while I've used it quite a lot is to maybe get it professionally cleaned. Don't dive in there yourself unless you really know what you're doing. because that's a really good way to mess the whole thing up. But I do take mine to a, professional camera, workshop where they just do cleaning, if things are out of adjustment, they just square all that up for me. But I'll do that, before I go away. Mostly because the kind of photography I do, I'm in some pretty harsh environments for the camera. So there's generally a lot of dust about. It might get knocked, sometimes a lot of humidity or rain or whatever. So every now and again, if you've had the gear a while, just get it cleaned up.
• 27:03
  > Graham>It costs you a little bit of money, but it's well worth it, because then you're confident that you're going to get nice sharp pictures. And sometimes what happens when the sensor starts to get a little bit, well, just generally dirty, for whatever reason is that you don't notice that your pictures are not quite as sharp and not quite as crisp as they were before it. It's kind of a gradual thing. So I do recommend that now, rushing the shot is another mistake that people will tend to make and particularly if you're working with wildlife. So wildlife, you have to be really patient, but also you'got to be really ready to go at any moment. And so the way to not rush is to make sure that you do a check on your settings and that you're getting a good exposure while approaching a place. Or, when there's no pressure on you, just do it. because even if things have changed slightly, you're not likely to be that far off in most instances.
• 28:05
  > Graham>But if you don't wait for the right moment or if you're rushing the shot, the chances are you're not going to be properly focused. you're probably going to be blurry, all sorts of things likely to go wrong.
• 28:16
  > Graham>So do experiment with doing a few shots before you get to the point where you need to be shooting good photographs.
• 28:26
  > Graham>And that will generally put you in good stead and then just pay attention. No chimping, which apparently the term, I found this out a little while ago. That's the term, that wildlife photographers use when they've taken a picture of wildlife doing something and they're then looking at that picture on the back of the camera, meanwhile alsorts more interesting things happening in front of them and they're not getting those shots in lack of storytelling.
• 28:51
  > Graham>So I, talk about the visual storyteller.
• 28:54
  > Graham>Really the key thing when it comes to a photograph. It's one of the questions you can ask yourself is why you're Taking the photograph, what is it that's going on that you want to grab? Maybe it's something you want to keep for later, you want to share with people, whatever your reason for taking that photograph. But this is what the visual storytelling part is.
• 29:14
  > Graham>Because once you know what the story is, and it doesn't have to be a long story, it could be quite a short one, but that tells you what your subject is, it tells you what the context is. So do you need to pull back a little bit from your subject so you can see where the subject is, so you can clearly see context?
• 29:31
  > Graham>What's your composition going to do for you? If you've got rule of thirds, if you've got your subject off to one side or high in the frame or low in the frame, then you've got all the other space to add context and story to your image and that will give you a much more interesting photograph.
• 29:50
  > Graham>shooting in low resolution. So that is, again one of those things.
• 29:55
  > Graham>I always shoot raw and I always shoot the biggest possible picture my camera will handle. And the reasons are quite simple in the I go as big as possible because it gives me a lot of detail so I can get really sharp photographs and I can even crop in effectively digital zoom and still have a nice sharp photograph.
• 30:21
  > Graham>and the other reason for shooting RAW is you've got full information. So when I'm editing, when I'm doing things like that, I've got the whole image there. If you shoot low resolution JPEGs, that's fine, the camera is going to operate pretty fast and you're going to be able to get lots and lots of them on your memory card, but you're only going to be able to put them on Facebook or Instagram or something where you've got a low res image on a screen if you try and do anything with it. Because remember, JPEGs compress, so it's a compressed file format and they do that to get the file nice and small, which is what you want if you want fast downloads on a website, images on a website, for example.
• 30:58
  > Graham>But in compressing you lose a lot of information.
• 31:02
  > Graham>So that is a choice that I make outside of the camera. So once you've got a nice big image, there's absolutely no reason why you can't compress it down to quite a small jpeg, but you still have the large original there and that's important thing.
• 31:16
  > Graham>So I recommend that you never shoot in low resolution and it can be really upsetting if got you've absolutely nailed A brilliant shot, but it's such a small file size that you can't do much with it. You can only stick it on Facebook or Instagram, but you can't do a nice big print of it because the detail isn't there.
• 31:37
  > Graham>Okay. And then finally, number 13 is ignoring post processing.
• 31:43
  > Graham>So again, post processing and editing, photoshopping, lightrooming, whatever you're using, it's a whole other topic, really. I mean, some people don't like to edit because they think it's unethicical. I would argue that the post processing aspect is as important a part of digital photography as acquiring the original image.
• 32:09
  > Graham>And for that reason I spoke about earlier with, sunsets, if you've ever done that. So the ethical part of it comes back to what's your intention? If it's to deceive, I would say that's unethical. but if it's to try and represent the original scene as close as you can, nothing wrong with that at all.
• 32:28
  > Graham>what else about post processing? Well, it's an opportunity to correct errors because sometimes you will snatch a shot and your horizons over the shop.
• 32:36
  > Graham>the framing's off and it's just an opportunity to recompose the image so you can just straighten it up. Maybe just shift the subject off to one side if it happens to be in the middle. And you're not happy with that.
• 32:48
  > Graham>So you've got those kind of things you can do. And then of course, you've got the color manipulation, contrast manipulation, all that stuff which can give you mood and atmosphere, so you can make a, pretty ordinary shot suddenly really cool and moody and something that you really like. And so don't underestimate and don't write off post processing. It is an important part of digital photography. And having said all of that, you don't need to spend lots and lots of time on it. I rarely spend more than a minute or two on my images. Even images. Well, the ones I work on often are the images I'm going to print. The actual post processing part of it is literally that length of time.
• 33:27
  > Graham>so I'm not, I didn't do very complicated stuff. some people, you know, what really floats their boat is to spend hours working on a photograph. But that's not me. So, yeah, don't ignore post processing.
• 33:42
  > Graham>And you'll find that a lot of cameras these days, and also smartphones will allow you to edit on the device, on the camera itself. I don't tend to do that. I like to keep my raw File as it is the original and then I'll edit on the laptop once I've got everything backed up and stored. But that's what works for me.
• 34:02
  > Graham>yeah, that pretty much summarizes what I wanted to talk about. So I guess just to run through them again just to, to wind this one up. So the first thing I spoke about was poor composition. Then we looked at getting your correct exposure.
• 34:17
  > Graham>number three was looking at focus, making sure you've got your subject in focus. Number four was over editing, just getting carried away while you're there with Lightroom or Photoshop, whatever you're using.
• 34:29
  > Graham>The fifth one was using the wrong lens and understanding how lenses distort and how different lenses distort differently.
• 34:38
  > Graham>Number six is poor lighting and understanding how to use fil in flash. I mean reflectors are another a way of putting light onto a darkened subject. That's another thing you can use. But filling flash. You may well have a pop up flash on your camera.
• 34:55
  > Graham>shooting an auto. Let's not do that. And not checking your settings. With number eight overlooking details such as cleaning and keeping everything clean and just looking, just making sure, maybe the occasional test shot to make sure you don't have smudges or things that are going to upset a really good photograph.
• 35:16
  > Graham>Number 10 was rushing the shot. 11 was lack of storytelling. So again the whole point of the storytelling approach is it makes you really look at what's in frame and think about what each aspect of what's in frame contributes to the Overall photograph. Number 12 we're shooting in low resolution. And finally 13 we were talking about not ignoring post processing, how post processing has its place.
• 35:43
  > Graham>So there you go, 13 things to think about. Maybe some of those did resonate with you, maybe you've been making some notes.
• 35:53
  > Graham>and again I'm just going to do a pitch for the online courses. So there's one for smartphone, one for dslr, mirrorless and anything you haven't understood that I've spoken about will be explained in there. you don't need to go there, you can probably YouTube it. But I do recommend if you're particularly if you're starting out or if you're not sure or if you'getting a lot of errors and you just can't work out what's going wrong with your photograph, then do think about a kind of ground up photography course where you start where the course assumes no knowledge whatsoever and you just start from scratch. Get all the basics, nails and then work from there. Okay, so thanks for your time.
• 36:27
  > Graham>Hope you've enjoyed that. Speak to you next time by now.
• 36:30
  > Graham>Well, thank you for listening and, just before I go, I want to let you know that I'm running my first live webinar for, almost a year, and that's happening on the 26th of February. So it's happening in the evening, French time, but it will be recorded. So if you can't make the live webinar, you can definitely register, and listen to the recording. You can also send me questions if you're not going to make the, live event. So all the details are on my website and, you'll also find the event listed on Eventbrite. So please take a look. And, I'll be really talking about how to think like a wildlife photographer. But of course, that planning and the approach is pretty much the same for, quite a few other types of photography. So thanks, for listening and hope to see you or hear from you on the 26th. Bye for now.