My Worst Photography Habits – let’s have a think, shall we?
Being a Landscape Photographer / Nature Photographer is all glamour, glitzy locations and travel. Right? [Erm, well even glamour photography isn’t that glamorous when you dissect it. Cough, Cough, egos… ]. Travel? Is that fun when you are travelling multiple legs of a journey, rather than having arrived at your destination? And to make matters worse, you are supposed to get out of bed early when you get there!
So, having said that, as I am firmly known as a Landscape Photographer, I must know what I am doing after all these years? Let’s dig a bit deeper. An Instagram-vs-reality checkpoint.
An Instagram view?
So let’s see, if you have read my other blog entries, you will have a vague idea that I bang on about:-
- Location knowledge is everything. If you live local to the area you wish to shoot, you are King (or Queen) of the mountain – or the shore. I know Berowra backwards – locations, season,s light direction. All that stuff.
- If you are travelling, plan your general shoot approach a long way up front. Can you allow more than one day at a location? Take into account seasons, rainfall, all that other good stuff.
- Prepare precisely for when you arrive at a specific location, noting all the weather variables and the nuances that you didn’t see on a map
- Get to the landscape area as early as you can, visualise all the angles, find the best spots to eliminate distractions from your viewfinder
- Set up your camera and tripod. Walk away, breathe deep, and return. Does it still ook such a good composition?
- And lots of other such good, uplifting, stuff
And that all sounds soooo good. I truly have it all sorted, don’t I?
And now the Reality view…
And then we have an episode of ‘do what I say.’ Not ‘do what I do’… 🙂
Sigh, what I find I often do, and I have to admit that I am a LOT worse than many of my peers:-
- I sleep in until the very last minute, and then stumble out of bed at best five minutes later than I should. The clever reader can work out what the effect of turning up five minutes late to sunrise or sunset is, can’t you?
- Rush to somewhere, and a quick glance at the clouds will more often than not have me turning around. Trying somewhere else. Whoops! Didn’t see that the light was coming from an unusual direction at this time of year
- And my worst bad habit? Drive, walk, falling over my feet as I am extending tripod legs, plonk my tripod down on the first flat-ish piece of earth I find, and ‘line up’ the shot. I tend to leave a 16-35mm lens on my camera at all times, so that will be the one I use on the first shot. I then, of course, always set it on 16mm.
Yes, you read the last one correctly. It’s by far my worst habit. I know that I can ‘get away with it’ after all these years and images, as I can kinda guess where the best composition will be, but even so…
In conclusion
- No-one is perfect. You will know where you have challenges.
- Try to improve on one thing at a time that you know is a bad habit.
- Big mistakes make you learn quicker. No card in camera? hmmm… No battery in camera or in your bag? hhmmmm again
- And no, I have never left my camera at home. I know people who have.
Andrew Barnes
2026 Edit –
