Outdoor Photography Fundamentals

THE POWER OF PHOTOGRAPHY

*Practice Examples after each section.

*Pro Tips

Good photography doesn’t just document the scene, it has the power to tell stories,  evoke emotions, and even transport your viewer to places they’ve never been before. 

However, in order to create photos that carry this kind of impact, you will need to learn, and ultimately master a few fundamentals. You need to understand how the camera sees and responds to light, how different lenses reproduce the scene, and how to select the right compositional technique that will give your image the most visual impact.

And, you need to learn to anticipate and recognize the right moment when to press the shutter . 

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If you don’t have a solid grasp of these fundamentals, your imagery will fail to translate the same level of excitement that you had for your scene, and it won’t hold hasting impact with your viewer.

Usually, this is because the picture focuses on contents over style. In other words, the emphasis lies with WHAT’S inside the frame and not HOW it’s portrayed. With the vast majority of pictures, once your viewer identifies the contents of the shot, they move on.

Great photographs play much more to the HOW than the WHAT. Instead of being rooted in REPRODUCTION, they’re rooted in IDEAS that provoke the viewer to imagine the scene for themselves. 

Great photos don’t just copy real life, they abbreviate the world according to our own ideas and creative style. Instead of giving the viewer everything; photographs give our audience just enough to make them imagine the rest. 

The goal of this course is to help you create images that will not only excite you as the artist, but that will also be remembered by your viewers long after they’ve turned the page or clicked the next link on your website or blog.

WHO IS THIS COURSE FOR?

Created for novice to intermediate photographers, this course will show you how to see and compose visually exciting photographs. In a few concise lessons, I’ll give you the tools you need to start improving the visual quality of your images immediately.  

This is by no means a comprehensive tutorial on photography, it’s an introduction to some necessary skills that you can being to apply to your own style right away.

Keep in mind, photography is a lifelong process. You’ll probably get frustrated in the beginning when your shots don’t turn out quite as you hoped. However, if you keep at it and take pictures on a regular basis, I guarantee, you’ll improve and make some great looking images

WHY LEARN FROM ME?

There are a lot of outlets for learning available, so why should you choose my course? Because I am an experienced instructor who is dedicated towards helping my students reach their full potential with their cameras.  

As a 20+ year pro shooter, I have a great deal of authority and mastery with photography. As a top rated blogger and author, I have a proven track record for teaching my students in a friendly and inspiring way and motivating them with my high level of energy, enthusiasm and expertise.

Now let me help you.

7 Day Creative Photography Challenge

Thanks for signing up for my 7-day Creative Photography Challenge! In this bite-sized e-course, I’ll give you 7, easy-to-digest compositional tips that you can apply to your own subject matter, no matter what you like to shoot.

Some photographers say they compose by what “feels right.” However, I would argue that even the best photographers don’t compose soley by “feel”, they dig into their bag of creative tricks and use specific methods and ideas that have worked for them in the past.

You've probably heard of the Rule of Thirds . That’s a classic example of a specific creative technique you might already have in your bag of tricks. You might not use it for every subject, but when it seems appropriate for a particular scene, you pull it out and compose around that trick.

As you add more techniques to your creative bag of tricks, you increase the level of style and variation to your compositions. In time, your skills will improve, and you’ll be able to quickly gauge a scene, dig into your bag of tricks and pull out the ones that “feels right” for that particular subject.

WHAT YOU'LL GET

In this e-course, I’m going to share with you 7 of my own favorite compositional techniques I use in my outdoor photography. I’ll briefly show you how I use each one, and then challenge you to go out and try them yourself.

Even though you'll have access to all the lessons at once, I would encourage to just go through one each day , and then go out and practice what you learned. That way, you'll force yourself to more thoroughly digest each topic. If you take the course one slice at a time, you'll get more out of each lesson, and you'll learn more.

Also, when you're out shooting, don't stress and try to wait for the perfect subject or the perfect light . Try one of these tips out each day. Experiment with different scenes, even if they’re subjects you don’t normally shoot.

Make it easy for yourself. Take your camera to work and practice for a few minutes during lunch. If you don’t have your camera, try these techniques with your phone.

Remember, this is just practice . Think of it as sketching: exercising your skills so that when you do find yourself in front of a compelling subject in great light, you’ll be ready.

Let go of your inner judge, which can often be quite harsh. Free yourself from limitation and self criticism and just have fun. You don’t even have to keep the photos you take in these exercises, just make sure you learn as much from them as you can before you hit the delete button.

SHOOT AS OFTEN AS YOU CAN

In the end, this is all just a not-so-clever excuse to make you pick it up your camera and shoot more, at least for the 7 days of this creative challenge. Hopefully it will inspire you to keep going beyond that.

As with anything, practice is the key to success. Photography is no different. The more you shoot, the better you'll get. In time, you’ll figure out the best way to implement these tips into your own style. When that happens, your skill as a photographer will grow, and you'll have more creative tools at your disposal.

OK, let's get started! Your first lesson awaits!