Craig...I nearly made a mistake as I wasn’t going to bother watching the video as I thought “do I want to see another video about avoiding mistakes?”! Ha Ha, typically you came up with a twist in your own unique style. Great fun, great message! 👍👍👍
Before I took up photography in 2015, I was a tennis coach for 30 years... your teaching philosophy is word for word identical to mine with regards tennis ... quite eerie to hear... in a good way 😃
@@e6Vlogs You teach the basics and provide the support for the player to develop within their own style and personality. Help them find solutions to problems rather than always provide the answer. Another word thing is .. I think we listen to the same music 😀 Metal rules
Brilliant advice. In my film days at lest there were actual mistakes to avoid, like opening the film compartment before rewinding the film back into the canister! Oh god, how my times did I do that. Anyway, I love this philosophy and and follow it as much as possible. So much of photography today is chasing technical perfection in a predefined set of epic locations. The resulting images are "perfect" or nearly so, and boring as dirt to me. Workshops then have become mostly just "photo safari's" with locations and compositions pretty much all handed to you for a fee, and a paid photo guide to help you dial in your settings (ok maybe a little overly cynical). I'd love to take a workshop with you though Craig, I suspect I'd actually learn something!
I am old school, just like you. I still embrace "noise" or grain in my images and love to challenge myself to not follow the rule of thirds, etc etc. I simply compose and set exposure the way I see the image in my brain.
Excellent youtube detox 👍 So refreshing👌So easy after years of photography not to bother take photos anymore because one always imagine it will not be the perfect image of a lone oak in a thyme meadow with puff pink clouds and a setting sun. I completely agree with all your points. (Irony is that RU-vid now suggest I see a 88 mistakes as beginner video... 😔)
I concur. Thank you for sharing this and also for cracking me up with the Donny Osmond book at the start. I knew then that I would have to watch this video.
Really like this vid, I can relate to it, as I have been watching alot of those vids you mention, but then realised, hold on all I'm doing is copying Their style! What about my own style that I already use? So I'm now concentrating on my own style and keeping it that way, plus learning my way around my Sony A7Rii😲👍
Thank you so much for validating what many of us think and do! I have noted 5,7, 8 and even ten "tips" "fixes" or "pro tips" offered on things done wrong ,and too many "how to ___ in ten minutes". The best encouragement is as you have said- help someone broaden their thinking. By the way, I'm glad I didn't have a big sip of a hot drink when I saw 01 - Curious sheep preset. ..
Wonderfully expoused! You always bring a counterpoint to all the boring, so-called RU-vidr "experts". That's why you are one of the very few RU-vidrs that I always watch! Thank you for helping us avoid the mentality that we are inferior to the "7-ways to ... experts". I just looked to the right hand side of my PC screen and noticed 8 Nigel Dxxxxn "Five ways/Seven ways to improve ..." Arrgh!"!! I don't even watch his videos anymore for over 2 years, yet they still haunt me.
At last somebody has said exactly what I thought about pre-sets, I've never understood why anybody would buy somebody else's processing ! I am by no means an expert photographer, but for me the processing is an essential and fun part of making a photograph. You may as well go to a stock photograph site and by the picture you wanted, save yourself from bothering to go out at all.
What a breath of fresh air. I just ubsubbed from a guy with a video, "Five Beginner Mistakes I See All the Time." Makes me not want push the shutter button.
What I’ve learned from this channel, from you Craig is how to improve my eye. How to be more creative. I can now take a photograph whereas two years ago I would have taken a picture snap or more likely not even pushed the shutter button. With your guidance I am slowly transitioning from a picture taker to a photographer and we got here without any “5 mistake” videos. Many thanks.
I was actually thinking how formula-like many of the photographers I follow on RU-vid have become The other day! And it does seem like they are regurgitating the same old same old just for views, likes, et cetera. The two photographers I have learned the most from, living here in Atlanta, are your own self and Derek Forss. He lives in the London area and is in Olympus mentor, or something like that. I have learned so much from you, Craig, and I am desperately trying to come back to London this November. If I am able to, I would love to purchase a day with you in the London area. Thanks for another great video! Sean
What I noticed for myself is that there is being technically correct, and there is general taste. For me, I try to balance the two the best I can. What do I like, and what are the best settings I can use to capture it. That's pretty much my approach in a nutshell.
After 20 years of photography, the day I learned people were buying lightroom presets I laughed for 30 minutes straight until I was gasping for air. IT'S SO ABSURD!
Agree. I loaded some for free once. Only used them...once. Too much of everything, like a big fat cake with loads of butter, sugar, chocolate, cream, so thick and heavy result.
I have subscribed to many channels on here and sometimes, one pro snapper might give different 'advice' to the next guy. Then he gives a different viewpoint to the next one etc etc. It can be very confusing, especially for a complete novice. What I might see as a fab shot, someone else might not feel the same and so on. All art forms are subjective and I agree with you when you said about making mistakes. Without making them, you will never learn and I for one am still learning. Good video by the way :-)
Did a beginners course, been taking photos for what seems a lifetime, it was brilliant, reinforced the basics that had passed me by. Then you are invited for the intermediate curse. I was keen to begin with, but started thinking will I become a clone of the tutor? Perhaps not their intention and my fault, but you have got me thinking I might be right. Thanks Craig.
@@c0ldc0ne I'll ignore that "in my world". Thumbs down is not a form of disagreement, it is a form of disrespect to the author's work. And creepy because anonymous, mean and jealous. Did you really need to know it?
@@c0ldc0ne Lets leave such kind of generalizations aside. Here we have thumbs down under videos made by a great photographer who shares his valuable opinion without disrespecting anybody. Most things that he says and shows you won't find anywhere else online. You put thumbs down under his videos? Sure you can, but if you did, I personally think there is definetely something wrong with you and your relationship with photography.
@@c0ldc0ne Oh, one more thing. If you want to express something or disagree, start your own channel, spend countless hours on scripting, filming, editing and creating new video ideas every day/week/month. Then always keep positive, despite those negative comments, thumbs down and some creeps that use their "common sense" to show you are wrong in the cheapest possible way. THAT IS EXPRESSING A DISSENTING VIEW AND DISAGREEMENT, NOT YOU SNEAKY THUMBS DOWN AND FAULTY COMMENTS SEARCH
@@c0ldc0ne Ask yourself if you really needed to find out what a random guy wants to say in comments. You haven't convinced anybody in anything but wasted your own and someone else's time. If you absolutely sure you have a moral right to express your feelings by putting thumbs down or critiсizing creators' work without creating anything yourself and giveng it to other people, I'm absolutely sure I have a moral right to write a comment I originally wrote. That's it man, you've had enough of my attention. Have a nice day!
Im loving this series of films so excellent and thought provoking, id be interested to know your thoughts on the other advice we are often given to specialise in one genre only?
I do admire photographers who commit, not only to one genre, but even to a single theme or subject, throughout their photography. So yes, even one genre is good advice. Specialise and be the best you can at it.
Some years ago on a photography forum people were asked about what they bought for their photography that they regret the most : Lightroom presets from a famous photographer. Just do your own presets.
@@e6Vlogs Yes, but he can't even hold a candle to little Jimmy Osmond. Although the more I think of it, hawking off Donny Osmond is kind of like selling a Lightroom preset given your musical interest background. ; - )
Unfortunately it already is that boring. People are always trying to go the short path to perfection, just to get those few, irrelevant likes. The whole stupid Instagram is full of the same style of Images and very, very few of them stand out. Those who really stand out are copied as fast as hell, reposted by idiots and the genius behind the original image get lost. Thank you for this really good advice, hope it will reach some of these lost souls.
As they say, each to their own. Experimenting is the way to go in many an art form. Right am off to photograph a special potato, not just any spud, and to sell for £1m. 🙄
@@mikejankowski6321 Mike I was more joking than discussing photo techniques. But doing this: Ansel Adams' zone system brings the dynamic range present in the scenery to be captured to a negative providing all details from highlights to shadows within 11 stops of negatives dynamic range. (exposure and adapted negative processing). A similar approach has to be done to fit the paper of the finished picture. He was a real artist in the field and in the darkroom! His approach is far beyond ETTR. But ETTR is OK for our digital workflow of today.
This does not just affect photography. A friend who was a trainer for a company providing process design software said to me that most of his tuttees were looking for the "perfect solution = yes" button. He struggled to expain to them that the software was a productivity tool but that it did not remove their need to understand their individual process and what they were aiming to achieve. Sadly any video that offers 5 steps to success is likely to recieve 10x as many likes as this one, of couse eventually those viewers will come to realise that the real world is not that simple!
