An overabundance of junk email this morning reminded me that turning a passion into profit sometimes means returning to one very basic concept.
You can spend a lot of time learning how to work a camera and process images, but it takes a lot more than that to become a successful professional photographer. If you are thinking of making the leap, check out this fantastic video tutorial that will give you seven helpful tips to increase your chances of finding success.
My first camera was a Minolta SRT-101. I loved that camera. It was an excellent tool for learning about photography and manual exposure. As it was completely manual in operation, the internal meter was my only guide for achieving correct exposure, outside of using an external source or just guessing. Fast forward 20-plus years and the way I use an internal light meter has remained largely unchanged. That all changed recently.
A lot of photographers feel a bit overwhelmed by the prospect of learning how to work with flash, but once you learn the fundamentals of how light behaves and how to control it, you will find strobes are not that great a mystery and that they can open an entirely new creative world. If you are new to working with artificial light, check out this fantastic video tutorial that will get you up and creating images in no time.
Taking a successful portrait requires the confluence of good technique, creativity, and your ability to interact with and direct your subject. If you have been struggling with your portraiture work, check out this excellent video tutorial that will offer you five tips to help you produce better results.
We have all made mistakes and assumptions about photography that we have eventually come to realize were wrong, and the sooner we can recognize those and correct them, the better. This excellent video essay features a professional photographer discussing 10 things he got wrong about photography and what he did to fix them.