The 3 Things in Photography You Have to Master

So many pieces of photography are subjective. Everyone has different editing preferences, brand loyalties, and tools for marketing themselves. Some of us went to school for photography, while others are self taught.

While a lot of our journeys consist of making mistakes, then picking ourselves back up again, we all need to master the basics. Here are three incredibly important fundamentals you must master in order to become the best photographer you can be!

First up is editing. As I said before, it is subjective, but the process of editing isn’t. In order to edit well, you have to have a mastery of lightroom, and all the tools it contains. I’m talking about getting back to the basics! Did you know I started out editing in VSCO, before Lightroom was a widespread thing? Eventually I transitioned to the Lightroom that we all know and love, and I spent day after day playing with tools and tweaking colors.

Thankfully, lightroom isn’t new anymore, and there are so many tools out there to help elevate your editing! If you’re ready to get back to the basics, I have the resource just for you. Click here to purchase The Editing Course, which is a jam packed 11 part course that covers tone, color, effects, selective editing, lightroom shortcuts… that’s just to name a few!

The next fundamental? Backup and Workflow. We can’t afford to lose images, friend! You HAVE to have a solid workflow and backup system in place. It will save you time, energy, and a lot of headaches if something goes wrong. The biggest mistake I see new photographers make is trusting one hard drive or SD card for everything. I hate to break to you, but technology couldn’t care less about our feelings some days. It’s the hard truth, but it’s better to have all your ducks in a row now, then have something fail and you lose an entire gallery.

If you’re ready to get your backup game in check, click here to access the Backup + Workflow Course! In this course I’ll walk you through the entire process from the moment I get home from a shoot, to the final delivery. I’ll cover file upload + organization, culling, lightroom importing + organization, lightroom rating, and export + delivery. I promise, your workflow is going to thank you!

The last fundamental is posing! This means knowing what prompts to give your couples to evoke natural movement and emotion. Let’s be real, posing is a beast, but it doesn’t have to be! Photographers who skip over learning posing end up with stiff and unnatural looking images, which leads to being discouraged and having to deliver a gallery that doesn’t tell the couple’s story at all.

I created something to keep that struggle from happening! The Posing Course is your one stop shop for learning everything from preparation to prompts, and I even take you to two sessions, where I’m wearing a mic, and you can hear everything I tell my couples from start to finish. Click here to learn more!

Well there you have it friends! The three fundamentals every photographer needs to master! Want more photography tips and tricks? Head on over to my Instagram where I share even more!