“In photography, the smallest thing can be a great subject. The little, human detail can become a Leitmotiv.”
Henry Cartier-Bresso
Continuing series of photography tips for beginners, here are 4 advices from Professional Photographers in Los Angeles that will help you hone in on your skills.
The full interview is available of YOUTUBE. For your convenience, here is the transcript of it as well.
Molly Pan @mollypanphotography: Backup your files.Backup your files in three different places. Backup your files in as many different places as you can. I’ve had to do reshoots and I’ve had to do extra things and spend extra money to recover files, so backup your files to avoid a headache. That’s the biggest one, I think.
Jeff Tse @jefftse123 : So for a newcomer I think it’s important that they have some aspect or some passion that they’re also excited about besides photography that lets them build a strong body of work. So say you’re very into skateboarding, but you’re also into photography. So get really serious into the skateboarding culture and create your style and create your body of work that way. This way it’s more of an organic development. You’ll very easily know what resonates with you in terms of style, and because it’s something that you’re excited about that you’ll be motivated to do it.
Ruben Tomas @ruben_tomas : So it’s important to always go in the direction of the things that you like and represents you the most. Be careful about which magazines do you want to be published. You have to choose the really ones that you think that correspond more of who you are or whatever you want to show with your pictures.
Steven Pressler @stevenpresslerphotography : One of the biggest pitfalls for most newcomers from a photography standpoint is they don’t become an expert at something. So they’re a generalist, and so they pick up the camera, they’ll do landscape work, they’ll do modeling work, they’ll do fashion work, they’ll do commercial work, but they never become a subject matter expert. They take the shotgun approach. And unfortunately they’re not known for anything, and not being known for something, you won’t get hired. You have to be known in the industry as an expert at what you do.
So my advice to any photographer is: pick the genre that you want to be the subject matter expert for, and work on that exclusively.
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