IMPROVE YOUR PHOTOS the easy way... 

Does anyone else refuse to iron their t-shirts?

I really enjoyed this. I found myself going "oh yeah" and "oh that's better" throughout.

An amazingly aesthetic apartment! Actually aren’t any antiques around at all! Also, absolutely articulate afterthoughts! Awesome! Austin approves!

Love that "Mistakes" quote...reminds us that we should NEVER stop learning! Thanks for this video

4:14 that picture is beautiful. The reflection on the lake, the boat as it approaches the reflection, the clouds in the sky, the color tones. You nailed it. Looks like a money maker to me. Nice picture

The van and road shot is fantastic.

I think you are your own worst critic. We all are. I didn't see an awful lot wrong with any of those, yet the changes you made, made sense, so what do I know. I'll shut up now. Midges once climbed inside my precious Sigma 70-200 f2.8. (

The thing that really stood out to me in the first picture is that the boat is going the wrong direction. To me, it would have been a great one if the boat was just going away from the camera. Then the expanse of water wouldn't have been a problem. That's what I think. Not that you asked. The point of the video really came across by the way. 🙂

James...Great practical advice! Thanks!

I sub'd yesterday after watching Nigel Danson's "wild camping at its best" . Have to say, happy that I did. I learned to spend more time working the composition in the field (taking fewer frames as a consequence) and think more when culling during post. Thanks for sharing

Love this kind of review showing the specific process. Best way to learn.

Really interesting listening to this James, I like how you consider your images from a traditional photographic point of view but you also visualise how it's possible to adjust or alter your images in post processing. I think in one of your other videos you mentioned you were involved in your career in image compositing etc so you obviously have no problems with editing skills! I'm considerably older than you, I've been a photographer for 30+ years but I'm not ashamed to admit listening to younger people like yourself is teaching me a lot. I've only really been into Photoshop(properly) for a couple of years but I've made a big effort to learn as much as I can. Keep up the good work and thanks a lot for sharing here what you do. It's really refreshing how you don't take yourself too seriously, it's important to keep things fun and I think it helps with learning generally. Cheers, Tony.

The lighting is so great and the livingroom in the backround also. Everythimg looks so friendly, bright and i love the colors🍀

I like all your videos, James, but this is one of your best. Composition and 'seeing the picture' is a skill that, as you say, comes with practice but we learn quicker if someone more experienced critiques a shot then shows us what the better picture may look like, as you did with your various 'after the crop' shots. (Love the gentle humour too.) More like this, please. 👍

Please do more of these!! So helpful

I really like the way you are presenting your thoughts and supporting them with the view of the options you're discussing. Good job!

Totally agree with your approach. The fastest way I learned how to improve my photography was spending the time during review to self-critique. Once you've spent an hour trying to fix or work around a mistake you really wish you hadn't made, you won't be making that mistake again in a hurry. Sometime the only way to learn is the hard way.

Self analysis of our images is, as you say, important as long as we learn something from it. With the drone, as they say, "practice makes perfect". Keep up the good work, James.

I often use pre-sets as a starting point, and tweak from there. Standard settings are typically too sharp, too saturated and too contrasty for my taste, so I use pre-sets that take things out. Rather than ones that pump up reality or do comedy things to the colours.

Great video as usual. Love the way the mountain shadow lines curved and and complemented the road curves.

Dude these walk through videos are incredible! Thank you.

Great video and it shows how important it is to view your pictures in post and how important post processing and analysis is . I learn from my mistakes and they make me a better photographer

I liked the second image of the boat. The water and reflections is awesome!

Love the photo review process, would love more of these types of videos.

From a technical standpoint, that was one of your better videos I've seen in a while! A bit aprehensive when seeing the 15+ min length that you may drone on for half of it (...pardon the pun), but this one was consistently engaging. Great to hear prior to a day of editing travel photos! Always inspiring, well done 👌

That photo at about 13:01 is absolutely stunning.

I’ve learned more from your videos and commentary. So hats off to you. Thank you

As an amateur this was very interesting to watch. Composition as a technical art is still very new to me.

Thank you for these. Your videos are dragging me (happily) back into photography :) This was highly instructive, esp knowing that now I feel no guilt about not ironing t-shirts ;) Also, I learned a lot here, so thanks for this!

Incredibly helpful to see you critique your own image composition, especially cropping suggestions. I would have been thrilled to capture any of these 'duds', but really instructive to see how they could have been better. Please keep making videos 👍🏻

As usual. Great show. After watching your first drone blog, I want one terribly bad. Just over 1 week ago, I almost did it and bought one. But I chose to add a Panasonic Leica 8-18mm f / 2.8-4 to my bag. I have wanted one of those lenees for a while now. That is a great lens. I also shoot with the G9. I am out of work for the rest of my life as of right now, so I have put everything into the camera body, all of my lenses, a custom computer, 2 beautiful BenQ SW2700PT photo view specific monitors and an unbeleivable Epson Surecolor 17" wide roll paper equiped inkjet printer. I pre-ordered the G9 and had to purchase the first lens seperately. Strange as it may be, the lens that I chose to purchase, and already had weeks before my G9 was the panasonic Lumix Leica 12-60 f/2.8 -4 O.I.S. That was their kit lens. Only it was closer to $1,000 when purchased it. I think? So I got the kit lens for more cost. I have since purchased the Panasonic Lumix Leica 100-400mm lens, the Panasonic 30mm Macro and now the 8-18mm f/2.8-4. If you haven't used that one yet, it's a gret lens. Way away from the point there. Sorry. With your drone footage, it was nice. Thank you you for explaining how you think could have improved upon it with composition etc.. I wish to have at least a little bit of success with large landscape and macro photography. I live only about 4.5 hours south of Yellowstone National Park, the Grand Tetons obviously, but also places like the Windriver range The Absaroka Beartooth mountains and the Sawtooth mountain range in Idaho. I'm actually gearing up to spend a couple of weeks in Yellowstone Backcountry here in a few weeks. I'm studying that G9 the best I can. Although, I cant think of one single way to set up custom bottons to a positive result. Anyways, I would like it to be a successful trip. The only crappy thing about being out for that long is that there isn't any conversation, and some nights can just be plain darn spooky. Just a question, but do have somewhere to send photos so I can get an opinion on wether my photos suck or not? I would very much value your criticizim on them. Not too many. Thanks James!

Some really nice shots there! They were good already, but your crops did seem to improve them all. Awesome location too! My favourite part of the Lakes... I was only there a few weeks ago! It looks like you had a worse time with the midges though.. 😜

I quite like the first photo, it might be dramatically improved by lowering the drone as you suggest, but I actually find the negative space appealing, i get a sense that the kayak has a long paddle ahead of it to reach the shore in the distance. The direct overhead shot is a tricky one too. On the one hand it looks more considered and orderly when rotated to be perpendicular to the frame, but it made it very sterile for me, and the angle seems a lot more dynamic, albeit looking a bit rushed and "snapshotty" (at least as close to a snapshot as you can get from a drone)

Great vlog and images mate. This is the a superb way to analyse a photographers own images. Drone perspectives are definitely challenging in terms of composition. Really enjoying your vids!

The first two boat images are both looks great, no need to change it.

This was fantastic, James! Thank you so much. It ties into Thomas Heaton's recent video about culling "keepers" quite well, too.

Great video James, great to hear your thought process on deciding what to do with them. A similar video on your thought process of your camera settings before you take your pictures, while your composing shots would be good, although I know a lot would be instinct. Keep up the great work 👍

Your vids are awesome. Your honesty is fantastic! Thanks for all of your content. I watch it ALL!!

Please keep on doing photo reviews like this one in the future. Really enjoyed this episode!

I absolitley loved the sunrise one with the car

Great whistling James.

This was so useful. Thank you Man You are right, sometimes we just jump into color correcting the photo. P.S. come to Italy for some landscape photography!!

Nice. The importance of self-critique. James, you're a star. And it's Wastwater, as in wax or wassail. Also, it's the deepest lake in England and the site that some bloke tried to dispose of his murdered wife in the '70s, if memory serves me well...

I think you can be a bit to hard on your self, but if you think they can be better then re-shoot them. I think my two favorites would be the drone view of the boat directly below it, The other is the land shot of the boat at sunrise, that would work in both landscape and portrait format.

Great video, James. I like listening to your thought process and what you would do differently. It's tough concentrating on flying the drone, remaining battery and external elements while trying to compose a photo.

Great video James. Fun to see others review their own images... I feel less lonely being super critical with myself haha. How’s that area in autumn? Might come around!

Excellent video James; really interesting to hear your thought process when reviewing your images.

Love your vlogs! Entertaining and informative!

Loved the video and learnt a lot. A game I played along with this video was to pause when you showed a new image and think about if and how I would compose it differently. Helped me learn if I was along the "right" track or how you were thinking differently. Great lesson in composition. Also, I had an idea and would love your thoughts on it. Would it be cool if you shared some of these "B" shots which are kind of scouting and learning shots to your community and see how they croped or edited them? I think it would be quite interesting to see the variety of ways the same shot could be edited and made to look very different. For e.g., in the first image, I felt like a vertical crop with the boat and the mountain peak in the centre would look quite cool. It would of course be better without the disturbance in the water.

You are doing a great job! I really enjoy your videos. I particularly like your choice of music!

Really like your videos! Keep'em coming !

in defence of the last picture : the vegetation in front of the van tires puts the van where it needs to be (on the road crossing the fields) ... if the tires were entirely visible, the van would appear to be floating above the flowers in the foreground ... to me it feels more 'natural' as is :)

Thanks for that video. It has certainly made me think about doing more looking at the composition of my images and less of just deleting the 'bad' ones. Just a thought James, how about some pictures of midges? We love the sheep, but....

9:06 crop!!!!!!!! :)

Well done James! as rambling as ever, cool subject very generous to share your less than perfect images and absolutely no T-shirt ironing here! see you soon , Del.

Train tack still there....lol. Good stuff as always James. Atb

Great video and some awesome photos. I came back from a trip (that was a holiday not a dedicated photo trip) on friday, went through my photos very quickly without and was very disappointed. I did export some of them and will use them on my Instagram but most I just swiped past and ignored them. So I think it is a really good tip to look at the disapointing shots again and figure out what I could have done better. Cheers mate =)

What i use while doing landscape and/or wildlifephotography: Combine a "Friendly Swede Sun Hat" (its a 2-pack) with a "Even Naturals Mosquito Head Net" (both available at amazon co.uk ). Works great. Does not win a style competition but works great. Yes, you can still use a viewfinder with the net around ya. Yes, everyone will look at you like your searching for your bees or flying minisheeps with needles. But no, no midgets anymore. This does matter, doesn't it? Greetings from the desert Germany! It's so hot!

that was so interesting! Please do more photo review vids after your trips!

This is so good. Thanks man!

More!

Very helpful mate thanks!

That was very interesting to see how you think about your images afterwards. I think some of that will be very useful to my photography. Thanks

Great point well made. Thank you.

Yep, I much prefer the less busy, simple story images, e.g. cropped b/w kayak in front of mountain reflection. Good feedback on panicky drone stuff!

Great video! I completely agree with "spending time with your images". I disagree with you thinking some of those images aren't good enough. I liked pretty much all of them. Not that it is a totally bad thing, but I feel like you might be a bit too hard on yourself. I'm the same way, to be honest. I think that could be because I was lucky to have a dad who has been a professional photographer for 40 years. It's just my opinion. I love your videos...Keep up the good work!

This is really helpful!

This vid should be in schools honestly I got heaps out of this Cheers for you time and skills JP

*starts video* James 15 minutes later: "uhhm yeah, and that is a very speedy review"

You can get portrait with the mavic pro

Just want to say I'm from Wartburg, TN; this is located in the United States,. I really enjoy all your videos.

Don't be so hard on yourself mate! All lovely pics but thanks for sharing your insights :)

I think you should search RU-vid, not Google, for these names Tony Hewitt Peter Eastway Christian Fletcher. Christian Fletcher is a former International Landscape Photograph of the year. Peter, I think, had the International Landscape Photograph of the same year. Tony is a grand master, and regular shooting buddy with CF. All three are top notch aerial landscape photographers.

You are looking for perfection, however I do like the photos you showed, because of the story, the moments, the atmosphere, in a gorgeous summer day.

Very helpful video!

Hey James, I'm really enjoying your videos on composition! Also, I'm very interested in that trunk or whatever you have the table lamp on in the background of this video. I'd like to see it more close up, if you ever get a chance in another video, looks quite interesting. Where'd you get it? Are they your pics on it? Ok, bye!

Great video, you should start making videos where we can send you photos and you say how we can improve them!

The concept of 'better light' is too subjective to be able to carve in stone a definitive set of rules that govern it's use in photography in my humble opinion.I must be the only photographer who if possible avoids taking photos outdoors during the golden hour and given the choice would rather take photos in the harsh mid day sun,if nothing else just for the better colour saturation.

Great advice..cheers

Really enjoyed this mate so thanks..... agree totally with everything you said... images and all. Good one. Ta

You should come to Norway and take pictures of the nature. It is awesome here! :-D

I've just had to scroll through most of the comments because I couldn't remember if I'd already commented! I've had a stroke, what can I say?! Anyway, the thing I wanted to say is that I disagree. I think having the boat(s) in the bottom 3rd of the frame shows just how vast the expanse of water is. I don't think it's boring at all! I think it's awesome!

Ever tried a session where you crop everything square ? it's a good shake up routine...

Great video and GORGEOUS images!

someone may have said this already, but for the image at 9:41. couldn't you just rotate the boat in photoshop? the direction of the light is somewhat indistinct anyway.

Excellent advice, thanks.

Is the rule of thirds the only compositional rule you're using?

Hi James, on 5:21 ohm, how do you take a picture into the sun and still have the brilliant colours of the landscape? Do you have a video that talks about it?

Great video, thanks, that was really helpful.

That is a very useful video. It all made sense to me. But, do I now have to look at my boring pictures? Much more entertaining to watch your videos ;-)

I have to disagree slightly about the 'bad composition' drone shots. What it says to me is the amazing volume of water visible which is ace. being tiny in the shot emphasises the silent power of the lake!

This video is amazing

Ey up! Do you ever consider cropping to square?

I think the saying your referring to is, "you learn far more from failure than success".

Will you be putting that print behind you up for sale? I’d get that!

Fantastic video!

I thought you had a DJI Mavic? If so it does have a portrait mode. Nice vid as always.

Yes unless I'm off to a wedding a never iron anything lol. Anyways...some great tips about cropping etc I'd never even think of.

8:45, stop the video there. Turn the picture upside down. Seems that you're hanging from the sky. :) Cheers

Am I the only one that has "How Disney controls mosquitoes" as a recommended video? 🤣