ViewBug community member ediv_photography is a Seattle-based portrait and wedding photographer. Her career began with capturing beautiful moments of love. Since then, she saw the world differently and this become her passion and her real challenge. Edi share her top tips to improve as a photographer.
1. Imagine the pictures. My first tip is to imagine the picture. For me creating the images begins in my head long before I touch the camera. When the clients contact me, the first thing first is to imagine how exactly they are seeing their story told, the environment, the feeling... everything.
2. Work the details. Working with makeup and hair stylists, designers, assistant and other professionals has more than one benefit. The most important for me is that my clients and models feels pretty, taken care of and their look is always unique for this particular session. There is no story similar to another, even if I shoot at the same location.
3. Scout the location. Shooting on location always is a challenge. What is the distance of the background, what lens to use, how many good spots are there, what will the weather be, and what will the light be at this time of the day - these are things that we shouldn’t leave to chance. I always take my time to go at the same time on the same location and to take some example images.
4. Know your light. Every session has a different feeling and in most of cases I achieve this with the light I use. I love to have crystal crisp images taken before the golden hour with an additional light, or mystique and colorful images taken with a natural light. It doesn't matter what or when we are going to shoot, it is all about the light - every source of it.
5. Know your gear. In my bag I have 14 to 200mm lenses, video light, speedlights, triggers, and softboxes and almost every session I use all of them. Creating a story is like a making a movie. Everything takes part in it. The environment, details, close-ups, landscape, silhouettes. To show them in all their beauty, you need to know your cameras and gear.
6. Shoot in RAW make your own edit. The raw images preserve all the information of your image. As a creator of my art I prefer my own adjustments vs. the camera build-in corrections. The post-process of the images is inseparable part of the finished product. I take my time to polish them, to correct the colors, light and the shadows… sometimes it takes 15 minutes, sometimes an hour, and sometimes days. It is not uncommon after spending hours on an image edit, to discard my edits and start over from the raw file again.
7. The most important one - Be yourself! Imagine, create, try new things every day.
Learn and improve your photography with over 500 videos. Anywhere. Anytime. Check out ViewBug's photography classes today.
