Structure – Practice, Practice, Practice

Sunset Reflection along Martha's Beach, Washington © Jay Goodrich

Do you ever shoot in your backyard? Along the road by your house? In the park that is very close to your house? I hope so. I do. OFTEN. You cannot become a skilled photographer by just packing up your gear and heading to some remote, stunningly beautiful, international location and expect to come home with award winning images. There is no way it can happen. Great photographers all have one thing in common. They shoot–a lot. Maybe not everyday, but every week, even if they are not working for someone. Why? Because practice makes perfect. It takes time to learn how to use your camera. It takes time to learn how to see things that many may overlook. It could be Kansas, New York City, or Yosemite there is something that every photographer of every discipline can photograph. It is all about finding out where your preferred subject matter is–usually in a theatre near you.

Many workshop students tell me that it is easy for me. I live where the beauty lies. Yes that is true, but I am always looking for photographs. I don’t care if I am downtown L.A., I will find something that catches my eye. This comes from the fact that I shoot as much as I can. I shoot with friends, alone, with family, even with just the dog. And I shoot a wide variety of subject matter. I have reached a point in my career where every thing has a rectangular frame around it, everything, even my naked wife. Sorry honey, it’s not porn.

Whenever I am home, I head out for walks with camera in hand to shoot pretty much everything and anything that catches my eye. I take those shots home, edit them, and then learn from them. Then my knowledge base continues to build daily and I take that with me whenever I travel or shoot for commercial clients. One thing that I learned early was that all of the ideals of photography are interchangeable. By this I mean that any composition principle, any lighting technique, any subject matter can be taken from one photography discipline to another. I often use techniques that I learned while shooting landscapes to capture architecture images and in turn have done the same while shooting adventure. This is how you broaden your focus of subjects to photograph. And a diversified photographer can follow the economy’s twists and turns to keep paying the bills. The catch is that you have to be good and have a strong understanding of why one shot works and another doesn’t. It all comes with the ability to practice locally to see success globally.

The more you shoot the more you will see this interconnectivity. So next time you get home before dark and have a minute to sit on the couch, don’t. Grab your camera and take a walk around your neighborhood. Who knows you may discover the beauty of the sunset reflecting in some puddles in a pile of rocks.

Related posts:

1. Structure – You Can’t Build Without It
2. Structure – The Task Master

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 19th, 2010 at 10:00 am. It is filed under structure and tagged with photography building blocks, practice, simple tips to better photography, structure. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.