PortraitPhotography.org

Back when I graduated from school everyone gathered in the Gym on “photo” day and one by one like obedient soldiers we walked up to the traditional grey spotted back drop and were ordered to smile and then shuffled off the stage so that the next person could take your place and be memorialized by the lens of some unimaginative robot like old man that seemed to not care if he got a decent shot or not. He just wanted to get the job done so that he could get paid. He was the only game in town and you were fairly well stuck shooting and buying from him.

Today the rules of the game have changed and the students are allowed, for the most part, to do whatever they want photographically speaking and with which ever photographer they choose to use. Different schools have different guidelines but for the most part things are pretty much left up to the individual to take care of.

Senior Portrait Tips

Be Creative When You Shoot Portraits

What are the advantages of the new way of shooting? Well the obvious one is that you are not tied to the boring old set up the tripod and shuffle people through like a herd of cows mentality. This is supposed to be a creative endeavor and not simply a mass production line. And today that is possible. In fact today’s senior portrait session is more likely to resemble a portrait shoot at glamour shots than it is to look like the traditional session of years gone by.

There is more latitude for you to get creative and to bring out the models personality in the shot. You are no longer simply tied to a backdrop. If the child is a guitar player then let them bring a guitar t the shoot. Pretty much anything is fair game in this day and age. You are no longer constrained by a singular conception of what the look is supposed to be.

Get a Model Release Signed
You can’t let the senior be animated and let them play, laugh and smile and then you can capture that and it makes for a lot better photograph. Be advised though that the senior is likely going to be under 18 so I would advise a parent or guardian is present during the shoot and that you make sure and cover yourself with a less than 18 model release.

Even if you plan on doing nothing with the photos other than the initial selling of the package to the parents, without a model release the majority of printing labs will not even allow you to get them printed without a signed model release. So always, always make this something that you do at the conclusion of any session. If you do your own printing then you can maybe forgo the release, but by doing so you are limiting yourself to any future income that you might have from that client for reprints etc. In fact you have pretty much done yourself and the client a disservice by not having one signed.

Another huge advantage to the new shift in the paradigm of photography in senior portrait is that your overhead and operating expenses can be very low. Since a good deal of this type of portrait can be done outside and in natural environments you cut down on the need for extra lights, back drops and all of the things that can quite quickly take you photographic budget and throw it in the tank as you buy piece after piece the old fashioned way. You just find a location that will enhance the student’s personality and shoot. It could be out doors it could be at school or even at their home. Whatever works is fair game and that makes senior portraits a great deal of fun to do.

How to Ensure Senior Portraits Are Good

This is one area where trial and error will go a long way towards finding the answer. I know that wounds like it could easily be a cop out but the truth is that every senior session just like very regular portrait session is going to be different. Sometimes they are as different as night and day. Other times there are some similarities but for the most part you can count on them being different. That is because each child is their own person and if you want the senior portraits that you are shooting be better than excellent, then you need to portray that student in a light that makes them shine.

Interview the Parents and Student

I personally do this when I set up the session I have a sit down with the parents to get the input that they have about what their expectations for the photos are and then I talk to the student. I ask what they like and dislike and what do they see as they perfect photo of them. In other words if you could have me shoot you in any way, manner or form, what would that photo be like?

Be prepared, you might get some pretty off the wall answers here. The majority of the kids say they want to look like a sports star or a musician or they want to be shot with their favorite pet and normal things like that. I once had a young man say that he wanted to have his photo taken with Pamela Anderson. He said that would be the ideal senior portrait.

Now while Ms. Anderson never returned my phone call I was able to get a poster of her and I hung it on the all before he arrived for the photos session. He busted out laughing when he walked in and we snapped some silly photos of him clowning around. I knew that these would be nothing that he was going to want but I got what I wanted. He had been stiff in our talk and now he was playful and animated. It made for a great session and according to his parents some of the best shots anyone has eve taken of their son.

The point is that had I not discussed it with him I would have had the same old boring and stale shots of him that everyone else had captured through the years. But by showing an interest in him and then when he showed up his knowing that I had remembered our conversation, it set the whole tone of the session and it truly was a fun time for him and for me.

Getting Started with Senior Photography

Use the Best Photo Gear You Can Afford

The first thing is to make sure that you have the best gear that you can afford. Remember that grandma and grandpa and the parents at least are going to want to get 8 by 10 or even 11 by 14 color prints for the wall. That means that you can pick up the old three mega pixel point and shoot and start making money. Shoot at the highest resolution that you possibly can and try to remember that things will be blown up so you are going to want to shoot as close to the final crop as you can. That way you won’t lose any size when you finally edit and crop it down to the size that you ultimately want it to be.

Practice Makes Perfect

The next thing that you will need to do is to practice shooting in the most unusual conditions that you can think of. It will help you learn how to think and how to shoot on the fly so that when situations that are irregular arise you can take them in stride and keep on shooting. There is literally nothing worse than being at a shoot and having something happen and not to have any clue how to handle the situation. It makes you look unprofessional and will give you knots in your stomach at the very least,

Bring Backup Equipment

Okay, I lied there is one thing that is worse than that. And that would be getting home after what you thought was a great shoot only to find that during the great shoot that you though you had something went wrong with the camera. Maybe you changed a setting and forgot to look at the preview. But you certainly don’t want to call the client and say oops, I made a boo boo. In fact, if this ever happens to you it is better to tell a little white lie and say that you had a computer glitch and all of the shots went to the electronic graveyard in the sky. You can then profusely apologize and set up a time to go re-shoot the session for free and maybe throw in some extras (that is that customer service thing we talked about earlier in the article).

Things will work out and you will be able to save face because most everyone has had a computer eat data on them at some point in time. But you want to do your best to avoid that issue. So I always test some shots before I start the session so I can test the waters and make sure there are no issues. I also take a back up camera with me on every shoot and then to be safe I also carry a small pocket 14 MP camera by Canon as an extreme emergency camera. I have yet to HAVE to use it although I did use it once on a corporate shot and got great results and I also let the models use it as a prop from time to time.

The point is that you can never be too prepared when you are shooting something that can not be re-done without a major pain. My on location setup contains two cameras and duplicates of each lens with the exception of my 50 mm f/1.2. I carry them in two separate bags which I carry in two different location sin my vehicle sp that no matter what – I will get there with one camera and the lenses I need to complete the shoot. Yes, it is over kill but it keeps me broke and happy.

In a perfect world you would be able to carry your entire photo studio with you on location so that you will always have the things that you need to be able to do the best shot that you can. That is hardly feasible and in fact would be a waste much of the time.

Bring Portable Strobe Lighting

Depending on the camera system that you use, it is fairly easy to rig up a master / slave system with some strobes and be able to have a small, compact and easy to carry and set up system for a fairly small price. This system, although I typically hate strobes, will do a good job at getting the subject lit up and allowing you to capture the shot that you envision with a minimal amount of issues. A word of caution though, make sure that whatever system you set up is able to work in the automatic mode and that the master stetting will allow the slaves to fire at specific sensitivity values or you could end up washing out the scene and that would be worse than no light at all.

Use Prime Lenses

Since you really have no idea what you are going to run in to in the way of lighting (unless of course you use the strobe kit we mentioned above) I would suggest taking your fastest prime lenses and shy away from zooms of any kind because they could ultimately be way too slow for the job.

Often I have seen beginners pull out a standard zoom to use. The thought process from them here is valid. If I have a zoom I can get what I need with one lens and not have to waste time switching. However most of these run from 3.5 to 5.6 on f settings and that is truly not fast enough to be used for anything other than snap shots.

Invest in Top Quality Lenses

While we are on the subject of lenses, let’s talk for a moment bout quality. Buy the best grade that you can afford. The stock lenses that typically come with the camera are good for lugging around on a field trip or for ordinary vacation shots but if you are serious get a good lens. Your image is only going to be as good as the glass that captures the light and most entry level lenses are not going to do a good job.

There is a reason why Canon offers a 50 mm f/1.8 for $125 and a 50 mm f 1.2 in the thousands of dollar range. It is because the glass is going to be ground better and the result is less flare in the lens and a faster lens that will give you sharper images. Now it’s rue that not everyone needs that much lens. But then again no one actually needs a Corvette either but a lot of them get sold and people use them.

Get the most and the best gear that you can get for the money that you have to spend and then you can always upgrade as finances allow. And you can always keep the first line of gear as back ups in case a problem ever should arise. There is no shame in having an “A” string set of gear and a “B” string set of gear so that you are covered. It can also help you if you need to have an assistant come in and shoot one session while you are at anther or if you need two cameras for one event. Remember, expect the unexpected.

Another thing that your original set of gear is good for, carrying it along when ever you are out in the car. That way if a photo opportunity should happen to come up you will be set and ready to go and not have to rely on that I phone to get the shot.

Shoot in Aperture Priority

Setting aperture priority is a favorite setting for most people or even full auto can get you good results if you are a beginner. If you know more about the camera and you know how to use your tools. Then opt for the full manual mode. You will get a lot more out of your gear and as long as you don’t set something wrong, you will be a lot happier and more satisfied with the results.

Shoot in Manual Mode

The full manual mode will allow you to get more from your menses because you can set every minute detail of the shot and as a result you will be in total control of what is committed to film. I personally set a mid range ISO setting and then try and match the light with the lens. If it is a little brighter I will opt for my 2.8 if it is darker then I pop on the 1.8 or the 1.2. It is sessions like these where you will learn to appreciate having a wide variety of fast lenses. You will find it much easier to milk the most out of any scene if your gear is appropriate for the job.

Shoot in RAW

It would also behoove you to shoot in you camera’s RAW setting. It will take a lot more room off your memory cards, but when you get back to the studio and start looking over the shots you will be able to go in and make adjustments like white balance and things like that where you can not do that on a standard JPG file. It is well worth doing that because more often than not it can save your session if something got out of whack and you for some reason did not notice it.

How to Compete as a Senior Portrait Photographer

This is a really good question that people ask a lot. With so much competition out there and the price point on decent digital SLR cameras getting down to nearing the dirt cheap area. How can the average photographer that is trying to make some money at this game even compete against the many people out there.

The answer is actually a very simple one that I am sure will make sense to you. It is the same thing that has kept many family businesses going strong even when there are so many large mass merchandisers out there trying to steal every dollar they can and put every mom and pop shop out of business in the process. You offer them the peace of mind and kill them with customer service.

In this business the temptation for a photographer is to go for the cheapest price that they can afford to work for and hopefully get lots of work. That Wal-Mart style approach works fine when you first get your business started. You will need a portfolio so you work for cheap prices and even for free some time to get going.

The thing is that the cheaper you offer your services the worse off you and everyone else will be. That is because then the customer will expect those prices all the time. And on top of the cheap prices they are also going to bust your butt to get mega edits and freebies on top of that.

You need to set a price that you think is fair and stick to your guns. At first you will not be working a lot if at all. That paints a bleak picture I know. But once you have done one or two shoots and the word of mouth starts on how great you are and how you bend over back wards to get things done for them. Trust me – the clients will be breaking down your door looking to hire you to shoot their next session.

It is all a matter of treating people the way that you would like to be treated if you were on the other end of the transaction. In other words, using some common human decency and you will go a long way in this business. It is mostly work of mouth and Is it, after all a service oriented business so remember that every time you are tempted to lower a price or when you get so cranky that you want to tell everyone to go away.

The Bottom Line

Not everyone is cut out for this type of shoot. They can be pains in the butt but they can also be quite rewarding and lucrative if it is done right. Not everyone has the patience to handle this type of a shoot because let’s f ace it, seniors in high school are late teens and they can be smart mouthed know it alls. The secret as I said is in the sit down session where you get their input on what they want. It shows them that you care and have at least a little respect for them as a person and a little bit of that can go a long way when it comes to dealing with someone that thinks they know everything that there is to know about everything. You know, like the typical teenager does.

If you can be creative and learn to roll with the flow you might actually find out that you really like this type of shooting. It happens only once a year and if you get good at it you can make a serious dent in your yearly balance sheet by taking them on. I know some guys that specialize in this type of shooting and they make about half of their yearly income shooting senior portraits.

I personally like to do a few each year but not because I need to but I like to keep that skill set up and working well. You never know when a fellow photographer will have an emergency and call on you to help them out. Beside all of that I like to be as diverse as I can be and doing a few every year allows that to happen and it helps to keep the boredom from setting in.

A good photographer will be able to walk in to any type of situation where photography is needed and they will be able to assess the situation, the lighting and the needs and begin to take photographs to help memorialize what is going on. A good saying to live by is that the moment you are bout to see will happen that exact way precisely once in a lifetime. And wouldn’t it be a shame to miss it because we were unprepared?

So the bottom line here, as with any other type of photo shoot is that you need to know your gear, use it as if it were an extension of your limbs and treat the people you come in contact with as if they were the most important people in the world. Remember that the 18 year old senior of today can turn into your best client after graduation so they deserve your best effort.

Black and white film is one of the oldest photographic mediums around; in fact it IS the oldest method of capturing images that the world has known. Digital is just a baby learning how to walk.

Black and white has long been and still continues to be one of the staples that truly good photographers reach for. It is an art form in and of its self and even though to an untrained eye a black and white photo might appear to be a very dull shot. This is especially true if you compare it to the onslaught of highly colored digital photos that abound on the Internet as you are surfing the World Wide Web.

But a moderately well exposed black and white portrait photo offers a lot that even a greatly planned and executed color shot can give. It becomes quite special because so few people actually use the art form any more. This is sad because it can be such a romantic form for photography and tends to lean to the elegant area and depending on the subject, it can even enhance the feel of the shot.

It is also a great way to start learning photography. In fact if you have never done much of it and are just starting out, look over the manual that came with your camera and see how to set tit up to take black and white shots. You will fid that you will be less drawn towards relying on color and will start to find your self more engrossed in the things that matter, such as proper lighting and composition rather than which colors might clash with which outfits.

Also, keep in mind that color can be a problem with some=e colors and no matter what you do they won’t look good. And yet if you recompose and shoot it in black and white it can become magically phenomenal. If you think I am lying try it on a nice drab olive green outfit sometime. Shoot it in color and then try the same shot and lighting using black and white and you will see what I mean.

Also if you are actually doing your own work in a darkroom, and this can be in either traditional film or the digital medium, you will be able to create a lot of great things that simply would never happen if you were working with a color version.

Why is Black and White so Cool?

People love things that look nostalgic. And let’s face it there is nothing more classically romantic than a good old black and white. Folks that have seen classic movies, such as Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca for example, cringe if they see a colorized version of the film. It just loses its magic and appeal and was pretty much a waste of time for someone to sit and color it.

Unusually the first thing that will cross someone’s mind when they look at great black and white portrait is just how elegant it looks. IT tends to be a lot kinder of the human skin texture and skin tone than color photography is. Color shows and seems to magnify each and every blemish and detail where black and white tends to blend out the bad.

If you look at almost any professionally shot wedding album out there, you will still see that eth classic black and white shot is still a staple and a mains stay of wedding shooters. Also it is quite rare that you will walk in to a large corporation and see a head shot portrait of the officers of that establishment done in color. These are often done in black and white because they look better and more professional plus they reproduce better in print media such as annual reports and stockholder updates.

In other words, this form of portrait photography is not liable to disappear or fade away any time in the foreseeable future. The demand is still there and the latitude of what you can accomplish is great. As I mentioned, shooting in black and white allows you to concentrate on the important elements of the shot and not the fluffy things that really don’t matter a lot. In fact, black and white remains fairly constant as far as a style and even when fads with clothing and color change, an outfit that might be in a trend setting color today could easily be considered gaudy in ten years. However if it were in black and white there is a good chance that the portrait will stand the test of time and become one of those timeless classics.

I know I talk about it a lot, and it is not portrait shooting, but if you want to see how much emotion can be evoked from a simple black and white photo, delve into the landscape work of Ansel Adams. The man was a wizard with photos and he made black and white cool. You can look at one of his shots today and it still looks as solid as the day he first printed the image. That is because black, white and shades of grey do not lie. They simply tell the story.

Portraits and Black And White

Portraits that are shot in black and white often have a subtle hint of refined class built in simply because of the nature of black and white verses the color medium. Since everything is relegated to roughly two hundred and fifty six shades of tone they tend to look less busty and cluttered and will look much more refined and elegant that the same image in color. It makes the entire scene look more poised and [polished and adds a depth that can’t really be gotten in color.

All too often people tend to be overcome by the color aspect of the portrait and the eyes tend to wander away from the main element in the shot. Shooting in black and white however takes that tendency away and makes them focus directly on the subject at hand. They can see the focus better and the object that is really the center of the shot becomes apparent and stands out in a way that it rarely can when shot it color. In other words if you take away the distracting elements of color, you are left with a better portrait image.

That is also exactly why a young bride will ask for black and white to be used in some of the wedding shots. It is elegant and romantic and will look that way virtually for eternity. They are aware that this style is classic and will remain that way for the length of time that they are alive. They tend to stand the changes in the industry much more so and remain viable even as they color techniques and the way they are shot change. Ad once you learn to shoot effectively in black and white, those rules will never change. Black, white and the two hundred and fifty six shades of grey will always react the same way in the same light no matter what else is happening. So you will have consistency that doesn’t need to be re-learned as times and trends change.

Tips for Taking Black and White Photographs

As we learned above, working in black and white forces you to concentrate on shapes and composition and lighting unlike color which can easily distract you from the main focus of the portrait that you are shooting. That is why a good photography teacher always starts out his or her students teaching them the proper use of black and white. Because the truth is that once you learn how to shoot this way, you can apply what you have learned to most any other color or setting that you might end up photographing.

The important things that you, as a photographer need to practice and concentrate on using include, but are not limited to the following things.

You will learn exactly how the contrast of an object can create lines and then additionally how those liens can be made to lead the viewer’s eyes to any place on the photograph that you want them to go. You do it with shades and shapes, something that is very hard to do effectively when using color in an image.

Use the shapes and the lines that are present in the composition to help to give the object, in this case the portrait depth, texture and form. Again this is a case where in color these same elements could be distracting as opposed to helping to focus the attention on the subject of the portrait.

Remember when you are “painting” your portrait in different shades that highlights might sometimes argue with one another and actually appear to compete for the attention. While the subdued dark tones ten to become more of a negative and can highlight things in the photograph. Simply moving a light a foot one way or the other can change to total chemistry and feel of a black and white portrait in a way that it would not affect the make up of a color shot.

What is totally neat about black and white is that it is not something that the normal naked eye can see. So you are starting more or less with a blank canvas and you are going to set the feel, the mood and the tone of the portrait simply by how the light and the shadows interact with what the camera is capturing.

Another interesting anomaly of shooting in black and white as opposed to color is that you are forced to see detail in the photograph that would not otherwise be seen. Lines in an old person’s face will become deeper and more defined if you adjust the angle of the lighting. In contrast, you can make those same lines all seem to disappear by moving the light the other way. This forces you to become a better photographer by default. You will start to look at light in a different way and that will do nothing but enhance your skills even when you switch back to color.

As humans we see things in three dimensional perspectives. By the simple nature of going to photography, we are dropping to two dimensions and when we go to black and white photography we are dealing with light and dark and thus can quite easily use this to create more abstract images than we would be able to even envision in the world of color. In short, once you remove the aesthetics of the color and are left with simply black, white and the shades of grey, many of the items and elements of that photograph or portrait will take on new dimensions and become different from a graphic perspective.

Can Black and White truly be better than color?

That often can depend on what the object t is and the effect that you are trying to capture, but for the most part the answer is that the black and white is actually as good and many time even better than the color prints. Things that are normal everyday boring items when you shoot them in color can become works of art and quite interesting when shot in black and white.

Shooting on a very cloudy or overcast day is a great example of this. While it softens the light and makes for great portrait work, generally speaking, the color tends to be over bearing and will often wash out in this type of lighting. However when you shoot that same portrait in black and white the highlights are generally better an d you might actually get a better result from the shoot. Next time you are in such a situation try a couple in colors and a couple in black and white so that you have a visual frame of reference to come back to. The dull looking sky tends to clash with the colors of the scene but in black and white they often work in concert to create a better shot.

You will also notice that if you are including a large portion of sky in your portrait on a cloudy day, it might tend to get totally washed out. This can completely distract from the portrait in color and yet in a black and white rendition it is likely that the sky will simply melt into the back ground and you will be left with a highly useable shot that would otherwise have been unsuccessful.

When you are working with a portrait session in black and white you will usually notice that the skin tones tend to be a much more subdued tone so that it makes the person look better. Things like blemishes and blotches or even the uneven skin tones that typically stand out like a sore thumb in color tend to fade away like magic when shot in black and white. Over the course of time the human eye has been trained, at least sub consciously to be overly critical of the skin and the tones that it portrays. The nice thing about shooting a portrait in black and white is that our eyes can no longer find a frame of reference on the skin tone with which to be critical and so we tend to evaluate the image a little differently and usually perceive it to be a better shot.

You will find that with all of the available technology in the world today, many of the photographers whoa re considered to be the masters of the craft lean towards using black and white because it takes the human eye out of the equation and forces the viewer to look at the image in the way that the photographer intended it to be seen.

Another plus for photographers when using black and white is that it is much more forgiving when it comes to lighting. With color you need to make sure that the color balance is right. That either means that you use an on camera filter or you make a change in the on camera white balance setting or using expensive studio bulbs which are balanced to give off the same color temperature as the sun.

These are very costly things to do and the result is not always perfect because bulb temperatures can vary from bulb to bulb and as the bulb gets older the temperature can change. You can also forget that you have set the white balance on your camera and screw up you next session/s batch of shots if they are not shot at the same location.

With black and white photography, light it light. Your camera will expose virtually the same no matter what type of temperature lamp or light source you are using. That means that you are almost guaranteed to get a great exposure that will look good without all of the odds and ends that go into setting up for a color shoot. Net result there is better photos faster and very consistent results from frame to frame and session to session.

Should I try Black and White on my next session?

The answer is yes, maybe. Okay if it is a session where you are paying the model or you happen to be doing a trade for CD session then unequivocally yes, shoot in black and white and expand your horizons. However if the subject is coming in and paying for portraits, there is a great chance that they are expecting a glossy color photo to hang on the wall or send to relatives. It is up to you, as the photographic artist to sell them on the black and white aspect.

The worst case scenario is telling them that you are going to shoot some color and some black and white so that they can see the difference in the end result. If you put it to them that way, they know that they are getting what they expect and you are broadening their horizons by showing them another type or method of print that might appeal to them. The most you will lose is a little time as you switch back and forth from color to black and white but you might just make a convert of the subject in the process.

Evaluate your needs for the photograph. If it is something that could be color dependant then by all means use color. It is still a very worthwhile medium from which to shoot. You just need to evaluate every potential shot and session and determine if shooting in color will really be best for the shot or if it might just benefit from the subtraction of color.

The saying of being clear as”Black and White” is there for a reason. Black and white will give you a quality that can be razor sharp even with less than top end equipment and it can force you to learn and become a better shooter in the process.

Why not just shoot in color and Photoshop it to black and white?

This is a very good question. Yes you can do that and get some very good results as long as your initial exposure is correct and the graphic elements, lighting and such are all where thy need to be.

But the point is that you really won’t learn anything that will make you a better photographer if you rely on software. You will become more proficient in the computer but not in the actual art of shooting a photograph that is great and not simply average.

If your goal is to be average and to take just simply good pictures then by all means relying on the software to fix things is a viable way to go in today’s high powered computer age. But if you are after the best portrait that you can possibly take and want to make sure that every time you step behind a camera that you learn and become better at your craft then you should avoid the temptation to let the software do it.

Yes there are times hen you are forced to stay in color and shoot. Because of time or weather constraints or lighting or for whatever reason you will at some point be relegated to a situation where you simply can’t use black and white. In these cases it is okay to let the computer do it for you. If you have been diligent and learned what you need to know then you can take the cheaters way out from time to time. There is no shame in that. Just remember that it is a craft and the more you cheat the more you let our craft fade away.

The main thing is that you have to remember that everything is a tool. Your camera is a tool, your lenses are tools, your computer is a tool and Photoshop is a tool The quality of the end result that you get is going to be a direct result of your knowledge and ability top use your tools and the outcome is only going to be as good as the weakest link in your tool chain.

So you need to evaluate your skills and abilities and decide where your weaknesses are. If you are weak in one area, then take time from your schedule to learn and improve on that specific skill set. Once you know all of them by heart and are able to master each of them then you will begin to create the masterpieces that will be great in and on their own merit. You will find that Photoshop will be used for minute touch ups and your over all quality will become much better.

One side note here is that as your skills set becomes enhanced and you start to shoot shots that are good enough to use straight off the camera, you will find that the demand for your work will increase and the amount of money that you can ask for and get for your sessions. This is really a case of the more you know the better you get and the better you get the more you can earn. So you, my friend are in complete control of what you do, make and earn.

Don‘t settle for simply capturing the image and remember that you can fix it in the software. This will give you marginal success at best and will often mean that what could be a stellar shot will end up merely adequate at best. And I am fairly sure that you consider yourself to be better than simply okay at your art or you would not be reading this article. So, since you want to improve – back away from your computer and put some of these ideas into practice and learn the art of the craft that you are trying so hard to master.