The Beginner Photography Podcast

How to Not Bomb Your Next Photo Shoot

• Raymond Hatfield

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#455 In today's episode of the podcast, I share how planning, practicing poses, and mastering camera settings can significantly boost your confidence behind the lens. Discover actionable strategies to transform your apprehension into assurance behind the lens.

THE BIG IDEAS

  • Visualize Success: Picture perfect shots in your mind first to make them a reality with your camera. Envisioning leads to achieving.
  • Feedback is Growth Fuel: Embrace critique from trusted peers and clients—it's your shortcut to rapid improvement in photography.
  • Know Your Gear Inside Out: Dive into your camera's manual, practice regularly, and master your tool to confidently capture stunning images.
  • Plan, Practice, Project Confidence: Structure your shoots, rehearse your poses, and show up ready—to clients, you'll be the expert they trust.

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Thanks for listening & keep shooting!

Speaker:

I would say that if you're, within the first year or two in photography, the most important things that you should be doing right now is learning how to use your camera. And what do I mean by how to use your camera? I get it. There's an on off switch. There's a shutter button. What? What really more do you need to know? I would suggest learning manual as fast as humanly possible. If you really want to take control of the photos that you want to take, you want to leave as little up to the camera as possible and capture it yourself. And the only way to do that is through shooting in manual. Hey, welcome podcast. I'm your host, Raymond Hatfield. And today we are learning strategies for boosting our confidence behind the camera. But first, this episode is brought to you by CloudSpot, your all in one solution not only to deliver and sell your images, but also run your whole growing photography business. You can grab your free forever account at DeliverPhotos. com and only upgrade when you're ready. Today we have an interview from the BPP Vault where we revisit our treasure trove of interviews to offer both new and long time listeners a chance to uncover the powerful insights and practical tips to enhance your photography skills. Look, photography can be hard, I think, because it's, it's so subjective, right? What you may love, others may not. And, with our images being tied so closely together, Tight to ourselves and who we are this idea of someone not liking our images almost feels as if they're saying that they don't like us, which, obviously we know is not true, but our brains can be jerks like that sometimes. And it's that fear of rejection while we're still learning photography and we're learning, this tool and all that the camera can do. Well, that can hold us back from sharing our work or taking opportunities that will allow us to, to grow. So in today's episode, I'm going to break down some of the scariest moments that you may find yourself in as a photographer, those moments where you feel the least confident, and I'm going to share some strategies on how you can prepare so that you can show up and be your most confident self as a photographer. And today we're talking about something that I know has probably been on your mind at some point. I know that it's been on my mind several, several, times before, much earlier in my photography and it might even surprise you that even still to this day, I deal with this, but it is how to gain confidence when shooting, essentially, photography is, if you've been listening to the podcast for any length of time, you've heard me say that photography is, is a service, it is a service and it is not a product. So when you are faced with a situation where you have to perform something for somebody and do it, with a smile on your face and provide good customer service. It can be kind of scary. I stumbled upon something quite a while ago, but it's very relevant to this. It's called the Dunning Kruger effect, and what the Dunning Kruger effect is, well, let me pull it up on Wikipedia because I thought that it was extremely enlightening here. The Dunning Kruger effect states that people with a low ability at a task overestimate their ability to perform that task. So imagine that you're looking at a chart here. There's an x axis on the bottom. There's a y axis that goes up. The x axis is your confidence, and the y axis is your actual knowledge of that, that skill. So in this case, photography, right? So, when we're just getting started in photography, we think like, Oh, I've been shooting, point and shoots all my life, I know how to take a really good photo on my phone, I can do this, like, I've seen some great photos, I've taken some great photos, and therefore, photography's gotta be something that, it's not rocket scientist, it's not rocket science, like, I can do this, and that is when, for one reason or another, whether it be the birth of your children, or, you have a trip coming up, you decide, you decide, like that's the catalyst for you to buy a camera. So you buy that camera, you go out and then you get the camera and you think to yourself like, I am great. This is awesome. I know exactly what I'm doing. And then you start taking those first few photos and you realize. Oh, no. I know nothing. I know nothing about this. And that's because as time goes on, your competency, essentially, goes down. Because you realize everything that you don't know about, photography in this case. So in those situations, it can be hard to gain confidence in your abilities. I'll give you an example. This isn't specifically, photography related. I'm sure that I could come up with one, but just thinking about this off top of my head, when I was in film school. We were doing, I was, uh, shooting a thesis for another classmate, and one of the actors because I was one of only, I think it was three cinematography majors, so there really wasn't a lot of us going around, and, one of the actors said, hey, do you shoot on weekends, I got this project coming up, and I thought to myself, like, yes, absolutely, I have to shoot this, whatever it is, I'm definitely going to shoot this. And he proceeds to tell me that it is, takes place in a house, it's like a domestic, violence type thing. It's supposed to be empowering, but, obviously it, it involves, a domestic disturbance inside of a house, that needs to be captured from, like, the point of view of the wife, I believe it was. So I was like, Oh yeah, easy. Oh yeah, of course I can do this. Of course. POV, you want to get a nice wide lens. You get real close to something looks like a point of view. Yeah, absolutely. I can do this for sure. And then. I just realized I didn't ask enough questions, I didn't truly get the scope of what exactly we were shooting. So when I show up that day to this dude's apartment, it is a tiny apartment, and there is one window, and it is in a back bedroom, and I didn't bring any lights, because, what kind of an apartment doesn't have windows, I thought. So Right away, I realized, oh no, I'm not prepared for this, the lens that I bought, brought was also, it was a wide angle lens, but it's maximum aperture was f5. 6, so it was a really slow lens, it needed a lot of light, so I was really counting on, having the, windows, provide enough light into the scene and long story short. I never heard from that guy ever again I handed him the tape at the end of the day and I was like, yeah, let me know how it goes Let me never heard from him again. And I think that he knew that I was not prepared for this and that I definitely bit off something larger than what I could chew I guess if that's the term that didn't turn out terrible It was kind of a bruise to my ego, of course because I thought you know, I'm really good at cinematography I know all this stuff. I got the angles down. I got you know lighting. We're good Like I fully understand it aperture all that stuff. I get it and then I showed up into a situation Totally bombed it and felt leaving really, really bad about my technical abilities as a, cinematographer. So that situation didn't end up terribly bad for me. It wasn't high stakes. It was kind of a favor that I was doing, I guess you could say. I was hoping to get my foot in the door. So again, low stakes, but when you have something like a family who reaches out to you and they're like, Hey, we would love for you to photograph us. We've seen some of your photos, whether it be of your own kids or animals or nature, and we love them and we want you to do the same for us. That is where things start to get a little bit tricky. And even though you've done photography before, and you've taken photos, now is the time where you realize, Oh, wait, maybe I don't know as much as I think that I know, because all these questions start popping into your head. How many photos am I supposed to deliver? What type of poses do I do? What website do I use to deliver photos? Shout out to cloud spot which is what I use to deliver my photos, but all point is all these things pop into your head and you immediately realize I really don't know as much as I thought that I did. And once again, that will give you a bruise to your confidence and when it comes to shooting, as I said earlier, it is a service and not a product. And when you are feeling down about it, imagine if you went to go, I don't know, get a massage. And the massage therapist just had a terrible day and they're kind of sad and they're like crying a little bit while they're rubbing your shoulders. Even if it's a really good massage, it still feels awkward. And that's not what you want to deliver to your clients. I'm not even going to bring up the topic of pricing, because that is a whole nother episode right there as far as, confidence and figuring out where it is that you want to go. But when it comes to, delivering the best that you can, I think it really comes down to three things. And that's what we're going to talk about today. That was a really roundabout way of getting to this point. But it comes down to preparation, planning and practice. So these are all the things that we are going to talk about today so that you can gain that confidence that you want, that you need to show up to your next shoot and just rock it. And I want you to know that confidence is not the same as knowing everything, you can have a lot of confidence in something and not know anything. That's where the start of this Dunning Kruger effect goes. So don't feel like at the end of this episode, that you are going to know everything about photography, or that, and that's how you gain confidence, because it's not. And also, don't feel as if, as long as you have enough confidence, everything else is going to work itself out, because, as you heard from my example, it's not. So, let's go ahead and get on into, these three, three things, right? Preparation, planning, and practice. So here's another example for you. I just want you to think about it like this. Just to give you hope so that you can keep your eye on the prize for the end of this episode. We're going to talk about school. I remember every single first day of school I've ever had. I was so nervous. I didn't know who was going to be there in high school. I decided not to go the same path as others. Literally all of my friends from middle school, and I went to a different high school, and I was just so, so nervous before I started school. The first day of school, sweatin bullets, the whole first week of school. Oh my gosh, it is always rough, no matter, how long I've been there or what or, how long I've been in that school or whatever, but at the end of that school year, you're walking into class late, you have a drink in your hand, you're not supposed to drink anything in class, you're calling the teacher by their first name because you feel comfortable, you feel confident in the things that you can and can't do in that environment and a year, a school year even is, is a relatively short period of time. Now, granted we do it every day. We go to school, five days a week or maybe four days a week. If you're like me, and just didn't want to go to certain classes by the end of the school year, you're feeling much more confident about yourself. And I'm here to tell you that photography is exactly the same now you can kind of see where I was going with that job example first day of a new job. You're like, oh so many new people. I don't know what's going on. What are their standards here? What am I supposed to be doing? What if I fail and you know a year into it you're like training people you're like, this is easy here Let's go like let's make this happen. You gain that confidence over time and photography is going to be exactly the same for you. Now the hard part is, there's no timeline for this. I can't say, you've been shooting for 9 months and 13 days, you're confident enough to, shoot X, Y, or Z. I can't say you've been shooting for 13 years, you're good to go. Because there are photographers like, Vivian Meyer. I believe that's her last name, Vivian Marr, perhaps. and if you don't know who she is, she was a street photog She was actually a nanny, so she took care of children. And, in New York, I believe it was, maybe it was New Jersey. Don't quote me on that. Whenever she would go out with the kids, she would bring her camera and she would take photos. And she, it wasn't until, I believe very close to her passing that her photos were uncovered, right? And shown off to the whole world and everybody just realized, wow, like we had an artist living among us, like truly incredible photos. But you listen to her friends, cause there was a documentary made about her. You listen to her friends. You listen to them, the people who, nannying. They never saw any of her photographs. And they said that it came down to, she was just really shy and she lack the confidence in sharing them for fear of like what other people might say. And I mean, look at what happened. Fantastic things happened with her photographs. And unfortunately it wasn't until the end of her life that they were discovered. She didn't get to see any of that. So confidence can really, really hold you back, And where was I going with that? Oh right, so you could be shooting for 13, 15, 20, 40 years. And that doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to have the confidence to go out and shoot whatever it is that you want. So this is why we gotta work on these things, again. Let's go ahead and get on into this. The three things that we need to worry about to gain that confidence is preparation, planning, and practice. So let's talk about the prep work. Let me preface this by saying I'm not a doctor. I don't give out any medical advice, don't take any medical advice from me. But I have seen a lot of medical shows with my wife, and it seems like whenever there is some sort of life threatening surgery or illness, and they need to do surgery, there's a lot of time spent in the operating room, getting everything ready. From the tools and everybody's got to wash up. Of course, the anesthesiologist has got to come in and like do some calculations. And, there's a lot of people, there's a lot of moving parts and everybody needs to be on their A game and they have to be like, again. Not sure if this is true or not, but it seems like with how sterile an operating room needs to be, everything has to be in that room ready to go before an operation starts. Now, if there's any doctors listening to this podcast and I'm wrong, please tell me, but it makes sense because you don't want to get in and say, Oh my gosh, we, I had no idea that this could even be a thing here. And I don't have the right tools for it. So let's go ahead and sew them back up and we'll go ahead and attack this later. Maybe a month from now, you're going to do plan for every possibility so that you can have all the tools ready and you're going to know what those tools do so that in the event that you're faced with a certain type of situation, you will be able to get the job done and you will be able to succeed. And that is what we need to do with our camera gear in the form of knowing our gear. That's it. Knowing your gear is one of the most important things that you can do as a photographer, right? Can you imagine a carpenter not knowing how to use a hammer? Like, it'd be a long day trying to hit, a nail with a screwdriver or, uh, a level, something like that. That'd be terrible. That would be terrible. Knowing your gear is so important to being able to grow your skills. So when it comes to one thing that I love to do is just focusing on one area of growth. So if you're listening to this and you're thinking, or you read the title and you thought to yourself, Oh my God, I definitely need more confidence while I'm not shooting, there's a good chance that from that. A Dunning Kruger graph, you're past the, the phase of, Oh, I'm the best. I know exactly what I'm doing here. But you have now started to, to come down the slide, I guess, and realize, Oh man, I do not know anywhere near as much as I thought that I did. that means that we need to, first and foremost, practice more once you realize I really don't know as much as I thought that I did, you realize there is an entire world of photography gear and exercises and tutorials and all these things that can be done, all of them, different lenses, zooms, primes. Aperture, bags, neutral density filters, all filters, editing, Lightroom, Capture One, Photoshop, so many questions and you realize I truly know nothing. I truly, truly know nothing. So one of my favorite things to do and I think is one of the most effective ways to getting started in photography is by simply focusing on one area at a time, and unfortunately, I cannot tell you what that area is going to be because, you may have started photography last week and you think that you're the best and that you know it all. And to you, I don't know why you're listening to this. You should be going out and you should be shooting more or Got You're down the path and you've been doing it for a few years and, maybe you're struggling with just certain types of edits, maybe a skin tones, I don't know, but knowing your gear is something that you're going to have to figure out where do I feel like I'm not 100 percent confident in my photography right now? And how can I improve that? How can I work on that? me preface this by saying there will always be something that you don't know about photography, but that doesn't mean just to start off at There's always something. I would say that if you're, within the first year or two in photography, the most important things that you should be doing right now is learning how to use your camera. And what do I mean by how to use your camera? I get it. There's an on off switch. There's a shutter button. What really more do you need to know? I would suggest learning manual as fast as humanly possible. Now I did not do this. I believe that when I started in photography, I just got started in Aperture Priority and Aperture Priority worked fine. It worked great. You're still able to get good photos. And honestly, maybe if you're just a hobbyist and you just enjoy going out and getting higher quality versions of something that you would have just normally photographed with the cell phone. Maybe aperture priority is right for you. But if you really want to take control of the photos that you want to take, you see an image in your head and you want to be able to capture that, you want to leave as little up to the camera as possible. You want to take control of your own destiny for lack of a better term and capture it yourself. And the only way to do that is through shooting in manual. Now, if you don't know, manual is taking full control of your camera's, shutter speed, ISO, and your, your camera lenses aperture. When you control those three things, you have full control over how much light enters into your camera and how much light falls upon your sensor to expose your image. If you're not familiar with that, I believe the first episodes four or five and six of the podcast, like right in the beginning, maybe it's three, four and five, we're all about that what's called the exposure triangle. So if you get a chance, or if you want to learn more about that, do that, go back to the beginning, listen to those episodes. I still get emails to this day, five, six years later from people saying, I listen to that truly transformed my understanding of how a camera works. So go ahead and start there because again, once you know what your settings actually do on your camera, and even though there's a million buttons, a million settings, those three are the only ones that you need to know to get started. And it's the only three settings that have been used to capture every photo ever. I'm serious ever. There's no new fancy technology that is going to change that it survived through, 10 types, dragare types, amber types, film, and even digital because they, they're just basic scientific principles and those are what you need to know to be able to, to excel in photography. So those things, knowing those things. To the point to where you feel comfortable showing up in and shooting inside of a house versus being outdoors on a bright and sunny day, being confident in your abilities to be able to capture a properly exposed image image in any of those scenarios, then that will give you the confidence that will give you a lot of confidence in your photography and help propel you forward. Another thing is, if you go back and listen to, episode 243 called how to get to know your camera again, that's episode 243. So on that episode, I talked about three things and that is again, how to get to know your camera. The first thing that I recommend you doing is reading your manual. I cannot tell you how much you will learn about your camera by reading the manual. Seriously, just take an hour or so just to skim through it. That alone will be enough for you to be like, Oh, wow, I didn't know this was a thing. Read it, forget how to do it. It's going to change your knowledge of your camera. Next thing is to spend just a few hours with your camera shooting. Try out all these new things that you are learning again with the sole purpose of trying to find a use case for it. Right. So my camera does like. in camera HDR, up to nine photos and, or, six photos or three photos, whatever it is, and you can bracket it up to nine stops and we'll bring it all together. And there's noise. And I'm thinking to myself, okay, that's great. But like at a wedding, I'll never use that. Honestly, I'll never use that. So that isn't a priority for me. So when you go through your manual and I don't know, maybe do this once every other month, your use cases might change over time, especially in the beginning. But just spend a few hours shooting. There's nothing better than actually spending time with your camera to gain that confidence on how to learn it. If you're only bringing out your camera, when you have a special event, go on a trip or, something similar to that, then you're not going to be enjoying those occasions. You're going to be focused on, Wait a second. What did I do last time to make my photo look like that? I can't remember. I know that there's all these buttons here, but which one was, and then you're going to be fumbling with that, and it's not going to be intuitive, and it's really going to, you're going to lose confidence in your abilities to shoot. And then last thing I said was, ask yourself why you feel limited. There's going to be times where you feel limited. I still feel this way today. And after every wedding, I do a post action review, something like that. And essentially I asked myself what went well today, what did not go well today. And I do that both in terms of my interactions with my couple and the photography itself. So what didn't go well today. For my last wedding, it was geez, we had so many different light sources, so many different light sources. It was very difficult to get it right in camera. And I really wanted to get it right in camera because that just speeds up my editing process. Now, of course, at the end of the day, because I shoot in raw, I was able to, fix these images in Lightroom and get the, get a decent white balance and skin tones, but that is something that I want to be better at, maybe I should have found a situation where I could have used to flash more efficiently and then had a consistent light source. But these are the things that I need to ask myself, because that's going to let me know exactly where I should focus my energy rather than, Oh, my camera has a cool HDR mode. Let me figure out how to use that, even though I'll never use it in a practical setting, if that makes sense. So that is. Prep, prep by learning your gear, just figure it out, spend time with your gear as much as possible. Even if you just pull out your camera once a day, take a photo of something random, doesn't matter. You're going to get in those reps and you're going to get better. So the next area that we are going to use to grow is through planning, through planning our shot. So we're going to go back to that example. We got asked from a family friend to capture our, or to capture their family and do family photographs. You think to yourself, I photographed my kids. I've photographed nature. I'm good to go. I don't need, to learn anything about family photography. And you're dead wrong, because you're going to show up, and you're going to think to yourself, Oh, uh, what, how should I split the family here? Like, what side should they be on? Should they be looking at each other? Should they be looking at me? What should mom do with her hands? It looks weird. Should dad put his hands in his pockets? Thumbs in? Thumbs out? What about the kid? You're going to have so many questions and you're not going to be prepared. So even though that was the last one prepared, this one's all about planning, planning, planning, planning. So what we want to do is envision the photos that we want to take. And, plan for the variables that we can control. Weather, you can't control. Where somebody puts their hands, we can control that. Posing is something that we can control. Knowing our cameras well enough to be able to get a creative effect is something that we can control. having, the mayor of your town photobomb your photos, or Tom Hanks or something like that. You can't control that, so don't plan for that. Just plan for the things that you can control. So, one thing that I did very early on in my photography, in my wedding photography in particular, was that I wasn't very comfortable with posing. And I realized that I could watch a million and two YouTube videos all about posing, but the second that I get in person, I forget it all. Oh my gosh. This is the So in an attempt to get better, I would plan out my sessions. I realized, wait a second, I don't need 47 different poses. I could probably get away with like five and then just kind of change them up by having them look at each other, look at me, have him look at her, give her a kiss on the head, just slight changes like that. And I can make it work. OK, so I'm going to write down the five that I really want to work on. Five that are a little bit. different five that are, provide a good variety. And then from there, I can just kind of stretch them out a little bit and just have them interact with each other to get a better photo. Awesome. So on the way to each of my sessions, what I would do is that I would physically say their name in my car. I would turn off the radio and give myself some space to think. And I would in my head say, all right, Jane, I want you to get close to grant here. I want you guys to bring your hips together. Okay. And go ahead and just put your arms around each other's back grant. I'll just have you put your hand in your pocket. Jane, just go ahead and put your hand somewhere on grant, wherever it feels most comfortable to you. All right. I'll have you guys just start off. Just look at each other. Perfect. Take a photo of that. Jane, do you have a hip that you just kind of naturally put your weight on? Like if you're, say, just waiting in line at the movies, like waiting to get in. Do you, like, rest all your weight on one hip? Perfect. Just go ahead and do that here. Okay? Alright. Now get a little bit closer to Grant. Again, look at him. Perfect. Take a photo. I'll have you two look right at me. Snap, snap. Great. Alright. Grant, I want you to look at Jane. Perfect. Snap. All right. Now, Jan, I want you to look at Grant. Okay. Snap. Go ahead and kiss for me. Snap. Perfect. There's like seven photos right there within just A few seconds, but saying those things out loud on my way to the shoot means I don't have to come up with it on the fly, even though I've watched, 13 hours worth of tutorials. I don't have to take all of that knowledge in that moment on the spot and create something with it. I can pretty much prepare in a much lower stress situation in the car so that when I get there, I'm much better prepared. And I've already said it with the couple's name so that. There's no weirdness of like, oh, uh, why don't and I feel really embarrassed to say this. I once had a wedding I still don't know the bride's name. I still don't know. I don't know how to pronounce it. I felt terrible So all day I would just say okay, just go ahead and take your hand and yeah, put it on, his chest I'm not gonna say his name just in case they're listening, but regardless, you want to be able to say their name because that is going to make somebody feel a lot more comfortable with you in front of the camera, because when you say somebody's name, you have confidence in that. If I were to be like, hey, Jim, hey Jim, I need you to do this for me. I'm not going to say that to a complete stranger. You know what I mean? So when you say somebody's name, it instantly builds camaraderie, and they will have more trust in you, which you'll be able to see it in your photos, and that's going to build confidence. So again, for planning, what I want you to do is find five or six poses that you like and then imagine what you would say to get the couple in that position from just standing apart from each other or the family, whatever it is, what would you say to them and use their names to get them into that spot? You will be amazed how much this will do for your confidence when you're there, on location and you're actually shooting with them, you're going to be comfortable with their names. It's truly transformed the way that I shoot and the amount of confidence that I have while shooting as well. So do that. Do that. And, oh, and, yes, so those are all variables that you can control. Where they stand, how they look, where they place their hands. All those things, control those and then the rest will just fall into place. Alright, so that brings us to the last thing here, which is to practice. And I know that it says to practice and, you can imagine what practicing is, but really the point, what is the point of practicing the point of practicing is to get more comfortable with your camera. Okay. We kind of talked about that earlier with, with know your gear with the preparation, but the real, what you want to do when practicing is get photos that are new and that are interesting so that you can get feedback. Getting feedback is one of the most important things that you can do with your photography because, I'll be honest, a lot of my photos, hate them, just not a big fan, I see them, I get it, I like them, whatever, but I also hate them. And that's cause I'm very critical of my photos. You may feel the same way about your photography, you may feel the same way about other things in life, I don't know. But if that's the case and we hate all of our work, how do we grow? How do we get better? How do we focus on what is working and isn't working? The only way to do that is by asking others. Who are we gonna ask? I'll tell you what I'm not gonna ask my wife. I'm not gonna ask my mom because they're both gonna say This is beautiful. I love it. You're the best. High fives all around. And then I'm just going to feel great regardless of the actual quality of the images. So therefore, you have to find a place to get honest feedback. And whether that be somebody who you admire, a photography mentor, or it's just in a photography Facebook group. I selfishly, I would recommend the Beginner Photography Podcast Facebook community to share your photos and get feedback. But that's just because I know that it's a very safe place to be able to share your photos without having to worry about, Oh my gosh, I guess somebody's going to get mad at me because this is my first week in photography. Are they going to think that I'm stupid? Are they going to, you know, whatever. You're not going to have to worry about any of that. But getting real constructive feedback on how to improve your images. It's always important and it's something that even the top pros still seek out today. I remember interviewing, Andy Bernstein on the podcast, uh, famous sports photographer basketball. And, he is good friends with John Suhu, who is the photographer for the Los Angeles Dodgers. And they would talk about, you know, they kind of came up together. Andy gave John his first gig with the Dodgers. And still to this day, more than 30 years later, 35 years later, they still send each other photos and get feedback on them together. And I thought, man, if, here you both are. Andy's at the top of his game in the world of basketball. John is at the top of the world for being the Dodgers lead photographer for 30 plus years, and they're still seeking feedback on their images because they constantly want to get better. They know that that's the only way that you can improve upon your work. So if you get constructive criticism, remember, it is not about you, especially if you're just getting started. If you're just getting started in photography, you don't have a voice yet. You don't know what you're trying to say. All that you can do is try with every photo. Try and get just a little bit closer. So when you get constructive criticism, realize that it's not about you, and it's not about your ability to communicate what you wanted to say. It is about just the effectiveness of the photo from somebody else's perspective. There's times where, at a wedding, I think, oh my gosh, this shot is gold! The uncle just spilled a drink, and I turn the camera around, and the couple, they're laughing, they think it's hilarious. And then I'll show it to my wife, and she'll be like, oh, that's a good photo of people laughing, but like, I don't know why. And I think, dang it! Dang it, I should have, like, next time I'm going to, get the uncle in the foreground with the, you know, the wet drink, or like the wet stain on his shirt with the couple laughing in the background. That is how you get better. That's it. That's the only way. So, let's break these down again, alright? Three best ways that I have found to gain confidence in your photography is Preparation by knowing your gear, right? Prep your gear. Know it. Know it inside and out. When you're confident with your gear and how it works, you're not going to have to stumble around while shooting. That inspires confidence. Next is to plan. Plan your shoot. As I said, for me, one thing that I love to do is plan out the words that I'm going to say to my couples to get them into the right mood. poses. You may struggle more with certain settings. Start looking at other the works of other photographers. Ask yourself, well, it's a shutter speed here. If you're doing landscape work, was this a slow shutter speed? Is this a multi exposures? Was this an HDR right here? Ask yourself those questions so that when you show up and you get into a situation, you already have a head start on what your settings should be. And how are you going to capture that? And lastly, practice as much as you can so that you can get as much feedback as possible. Because feedback is going to tell you everything that you need to know about your own work and, and, and, and, and, if you are being paid to photograph something for somebody, get their feedback. Man, I'll tell you what, that is the hardest thing to do. And that was so difficult for me to do in the beginning. I thought, yeah, I know that they said that they liked it, but what if I asked them to leave a review and they're like, actually, Raymond, we hate it. This is terrible. Why did we ever hire you? We should have hired somebody who costs half the price, right? All these things, all these insecurities that we have asked them for feedback. Ultimately when you're working for a client, your own artistic vision has to take a bit of a backseat to what it is that they need and what it is that they want. So get their feedback. If they say this photo is great, we love it, then fantastic, that will boost your confidence. Nothing will boost your confidence more than that. I promise. But if they say this photo is great, but we really wish that, maybe the editing was a little bit lighter. Or, maybe it was a little bit of a slower shutter speed because the attention was taken away from the main subject. Oh, okay. I get it now. Okay, cool. So if I want to bring my attention towards a subject, this is something that I do. Okay. And that's it. That's it. That is how you do it. Remember, this takes time. This is not something that is going to happen tomorrow. I told you at the beginning of this. You're not going to be a better photographer today because you listened to this episode. What will make you a better photographer today is do those things that we talked about to prep, to get to know your gear. To plan what it is that you're going to shoot and how you're going to shoot. And then to practice and get feedback on your work. And then do it all over again. That is the only, only, only way. And remember that you're awesome. The fact that you are listening to this podcast right now tells me that there's enough about photography that you truly want to learn, that you take this seriously. This isn't something that is just a random hobby for you. You want photography to play some role in your life, and you're taking it seriously, and that is awesome. So take that feeling to your next shoot, and know that. Own that. Own it. I am taking photography seriously. I'm not just here to snap a couple of snapshots. I really, really want to make the best image that I can. And you'll have all of the confidence in the world. I really hope that you enjoyed today's episode. I want to invite you to share your biggest takeaway in the free and private beginner photography podcast community where you can connect with myself and others along with share your ideas and even ask questions. questions. So come join us over at beginnerphotopod. com forward slash group. Come let us know what you are going to be implementing into your photography. That is it for today until next week. Remember the more that you shoot today, the better of a photographer you will be tomorrow. Talk soon. Thank you for listening to the beginner photography podcast, keep shooting, and we'll see you next week.