Suffering from self-doubt or feeling incompetent, despite evidence to the contrary, is incredibly common. In fact, some studies show that as much as 82 percent of people experience these feelings commonly referred to as “imposter syndrome.” Unfortunately, a lack of confidence can prevent aspiring artists, like photographers, from achieving their potential and enriching the world with their photographs. Whether you aspire to become a working professional photographer or simply wish you felt more confident in sharing the photos you take for fun, seeking out photography advice for beginners and developing your skills can help you shake off imposter syndrome and build your confidence as a photographer.
Why Confidence Matters in Photography
Even in photography for beginners, confidence matters. Experiencing self-doubt can hamper your creative vision and stymie interactions with photography subjects. When photographers feel confident in their skill and their ability to learn new things, they won’t be afraid to experiment, hone a creative style, interact with subjects and develop their abilities. Plus, they’ll come off as more professional and knowledgeable from the client’s perspective.
Overcoming Self-Doubt as a Beginner
As a beginner, overcoming self-doubt can be challenging, but it can be done. Beginner photographers should start by focusing on why they love taking photos. Don’t lose sight of your “why” behind photography.
Next, learn your craft and be aware of your strengths and weaknesses. You should understand and feel comfortable using your camera and editing software. Work on perfecting beginner camera techniques before attempting more challenging, experimental approaches. While some aspects of photography may come naturally to you, work on practicing and improving those that don’t.
Remember that lots of resources and communities exist for beginners, and you can lean on them for feedback, support, advice, digital photography techniques and experience-based tips for new photographers.
Building Skills and Trusting Your Creative Eye
As you perfect the digital photography basics and develop your skills and techniques, you will also begin building creative confidence. One of the most critical creative photography tips you can learn is that creativity is born from playfulness, so have fun with your photography and projects. Don’t be afraid to experiment, take imperfect photos or try something new. The beauty of digital photography is that you never have to worry about wasting film.
Maintain a record of the photos you take from the beginning of your journey, so that you can revisit your early work to observe how you have improved.
Starting With the Basics
The first steps in photography require beginner photographers to learn and get comfortable with the basics, like photography vocabulary, camera settings and functions, composition, framing and working with subjects. Becoming more familiar with these kinds of basic photography skills for beginners will help you build confidence.
Understanding Camera Settings and Functions
Digital cameras — even the most basic models — are complicated tools. Understanding your camera’s settings and functions will enable you to make the most of your camera.
Start with the exposure triangle:
- Aperture – Control the amount of light entering the camera and manipulate the depth of view by adjusting the size of the lens opening.
- Shutter Speed – Control exposure and motion-related blur by adjusting the length of time the camera’s sensor is exposed to light.
- ISO – Low ISO settings reduce light sensitivity in bright conditions, and high ISO settings increase light sensitivity in dim conditions.
Next, learn the camera’s controls, so you can navigate through the menu buttons and understand and use the different settings and modes to master light, shift between automatic and manual focusing, correct the camera’s white balance, adjust the exposure compensation and review images on the LCD screen.
Learning Composition and Framing Techniques
In photography, composition is the arrangement of various elements within a photograph. Beginner photographers can improve their photos by learning composition techniques and rules to improve the way photos are framed. The most crucial composition tips for photography include:
- The Rule of Thirds, which places an imaginary tic-tac-toe grid over the field of view. Subjects and important elements placed along the grid lines and intersections of the grids will create more dynamic and balanced compositions.
- Depth of Field, manipulated by controlling aperture, is how much of an image is in focus. Bringing nearby subjects into sharp focus while blurring the background with a shallow depth of field helps direct the eye in portraits. Using a deep depth of field maintains sharp details throughout a landscape.
- Leading Lines, a compositional technique, uses real, imagined or implied lines (i.e., the lines of a street or the direction of a person’s gaze) to direct the eye toward a focal point.
Understanding how to follow and break these composition rules can help beginners create more interesting and meaningful images.
Practicing With Everyday Subjects
With the right perspective and composition, any subject can be interesting in a photograph. Beginners should practice with everyday subjects, taking photos of friends, family and local surroundings. This removes pressure from the practice while providing ample opportunity for improving photography skills.
Developing a Consistent Practice
Consistent practice is essential for creative and technical development and for building a professional portfolio.
Setting Small, Achievable Photography Goals
The more photos you take, the more you will learn. Setting small, achievable goals, however, will help you organize your practice to work on learning and honing specific skills and techniques.
Creating a Personal Photo Challenge
Create photography practice exercises by imposing restrictions on the photos you take. For example, use a tripod, photograph the same object in as many different ways as you can come up with or challenge yourself to take photos from a single spot for several minutes. Challenging yourself with creative photography challenges for beginners will help you further develop your technical skills and artistic eye.
Reviewing and Reflecting on Your Work
Reviewing, reflecting on and evaluating your work is the only way to learn from taking photos. Set aside time to look through your photos in gallery mode. Think about what you did to create each picture, how you expected each image to turn out (compared to how they actually turned out) and how each photo could be improved.
Learning Through Feedback and Mentorship
Feedback and mentorship are vital resources to the beginner photographer.
Joining Photography Communities Online and Offline
Joining an online or in-person photography club can provide you with a whole community of feedback, support, experience, resources and advice from which you can learn.
Seeking Constructive Criticism From Peers
It can be difficult to look at your own photos with an objective eye. In these communities, aspiring photographers can access a wealth of constructive criticism to help them identify their strengths and weaknesses.
Working With a Mentor or Taking Courses
A mentor can answer your questions and guide you through the learning process. Help from an expert can also be invaluable, and signing up for photography classes is an excellent way to connect with an experienced photographer.
Building a Beginner Portfolio
A photography portfolio consists of a curated collection of photos that represents your best work. A portfolio can help you attract clients, apply for photography work or submit your work to art galleries.
Choosing Your Best Shots With Confidence
If you know the audience for your portfolio, you can narrow down your selection of photos to the ones that are most relevant. Otherwise, select the photos of which you are most proud.
Showcasing Variety and Experimentation
Show off your style and skillset by selecting a variety of photos that showcase your artistic eye, technical skills, ability to experiment and genres of interest.
Using Digital Platforms to Share Your Work
Digital photography portfolio platforms simplify the process of sharing your photos and provide you with a place to showcase your best work. There are countless tools to choose from, so you will want to consider your budget, the platform’s usability and the available features.
Overcoming Common Fears in Photography
Fear is a natural emotion everyone experiences. Healthy fear keeps us safe. Unhealthy fear prevents us from growing. Overcoming some of the following beginner photography fears will help you explore, learn and strengthen your photography skills.
Fear of Making Mistakes
Mistakes and failures are learning opportunities, and many believe they are necessary for eventual success. Beginner photographers should strive to make as many mistakes as possible so they can learn as much as possible.
Fear of Sharing Work Publicly
Often, due to a fear of criticism or harsh judgment, many new photographers are afraid to show their work publicly. However, it’s essential to realize that simply getting to the point where you have work to show is a major success after undertaking and learning a new skill. Plus, publicly sharing work provides an opportunity to collect valuable feedback and observe reactions to your photos — more opportunities for improvement.
Fear of Comparing Yourself to Others
Comparing ourselves to others is a natural part of being social creatures. Be careful not to be overly critical of yourself or hold yourself to too high a standard. Recognize that everyone has a different photographic vision, artistic style and experiences. As a result, you can’t really make accurate direct comparisons between the work of two different photographers. Instead of judging yourself through comparison, seek inspiration and challenge yourself to grow through viewing others’ work.
Inspiration and Growth
Sources of photography inspiration for beginners should help you learn to evaluate photos, appreciate photos, come up with ideas to practice or challenge yourself and find examples to which you can aspire.
Learning From Established Photographers
Think about the type of photography that most interests you (i.e, portraiture, landscapes, wildlife, documentary or candid photography) and research successful examples from famous photographers in these genres. Observe others’ photos, study their techniques and work to develop your own style.
Finding Inspiration in Everyday Life
You don’t need a famous subject or a historic event to take captivating photos. Some of the most interesting photos are those to which a wide audience can relate, the everyday things. Challenge yourself to find ways to make the mundane — socks, children or weeds — interesting with new lighting, a different angle or a unique perspective.
Experimenting With New Styles and Genres
Photographers can strengthen their creative muscles and discover new interests by trying out different photography styles and genres, such as:
- Abstract or surreal
- Aerial
- Architectural
- Astrophotography
- Black and white
- Candid
- Documentary
- Double exposure
- Family
- Fashion
- Flowers
- Food
- Macrophotography
- Landscapes
- Lifestyle
- Portraits and headshots
- Still life
- Storms
- Street
- Travel
- Weddings or events
- Wildlife and pets
Celebrating Progress
For some, photography never moves beyond the cellphone camera. So, you should celebrate your bravery, success and the progress you make as you continue learning digital photography for beginners.
Recognizing How Far You’ve Come
Don’t delete your old work. Instead, hold onto these files so you can look back and see evidence of how much you’ve improved, learned and grown as an artist.
Setting New Goals for Growth
While celebrating success, don’t let yourself become complacent. A real artist’s journey and artistic development is never over. Continue to challenge yourself to learn new skills and experiment with new techniques, subjects and genres.
Confidence as an Ongoing Journey
Confidence isn’t gained overnight, and for some of us, it can be challenging to find even when we have reached the upper echelons of the art world. Practice seeing the positives in your work, focus on actionable improvements and celebrate the experience of seeing the world through fresh eyes every time you look through your camera lens.
From Amateur to Accomplished: Elevate Your Digital Photography Skills at RMCAD
In today’s world, it may feel like everyone is a photographer. Almost everyone always has a camera in their pocket on their phone, but you can set yourself apart and build confidence. Bolstering your confidence with a comprehensive technical background designed to develop your skills, support creativity and strengthen your eye for aesthetics — all while earning an official photography credential — can help you break through the feelings of imposter syndrome and self-doubt and while advancing your work behind the camera from amateur to accomplished.
The Digital Photography Certificate program at Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design includes a carefully curated selection of courses that help students build the technical photography foundation they need to become a working professional photographer or to take their hobby to new heights. Students acquire necessary technical skills, learn to develop an efficient workflow with advanced software and flourish under the mentorship of accomplished industry professionals.
To learn more about boosting your photography confidence by strengthening your educational foundation in photography, we invite you to request more information.
