Remove friction

To remove bad habits, we need to create friction. Do you eat unhealthy snacks every time you pass by the kitchen? Hide them away or, better yet, don't buy them.

To build good habits, we need to remove friction. Want to start running? Try by leaving your running shoes by the door.

The same applies to photography: we should remove as much friction as possible.

Something catches our eye. A possible image, we think. But then we realize about everything we need to do to take the photograph: take our backpack off, get the camera out, mount the lens, filter, extend the tripod, place it on ground, work through the settings... every single step is friction between us and the image. The likelihood of us trying our luck with that scene is very low. We will never know if that image would have worked.

Remove friction: have your camera out and ready, use P or A mode, shoot handheld. Consider using compact cameras. The simpler, the better.

What contrast is, why you need it and how to add it to your images

Contrast is one of the most important elements in photography. I'm not talking -only- about the slider in your photo editor to manipulate the tones of the image.

Contrast means difference. Creating difference between your subject and everything else, you are able to tell a story.

This can be achieved using the differences in color and luminance, but also using shapes, textures and more.

While we seek contrast between the subject and the rest of the photo, we want to minimize it within those elements - thus increasing it between them. One of my favorite techniques to achieve this is long exposure photography: smoothing out water, for example, we remove contrast from it hence increasing that contrast between the water and our subject.

I show you some examples of this and other techniques in this video:

Photography isn't a formula

You may nail the composition, you and / or your camera might expose the shot perfectly, even the conditions could be ideal. And yet, the final image can be a bad one.

An imperfect composition, a rather dark or bright image, and less than ideal conditions could be ingredients for a great image.

We don’t know. Because photography isn’t a formula we can follow. Fortunately.

Photography is about uncertainty, about unpredictability, almost randomness. Perhaps this is what makes it so enjoyable.

Great images are rare - forget about formulas and be ready for when they come.

Be consistent, stay flexible

Consistency is key to great photography: we want to have similar aesthetics and subject matter across a collection of images - be it a book, a zine or any other kind of project.

I believe that new ideas are very important as well, though. Staying flexible, experimenting with new mediums, shapes or textures, creating something new and different to push your creativity beyond its previous limits.

The balance between consistency and flexibility is a delicate one: we don't want to be all over the place and try to do everything, but we don't want to get stuck at doing things the same way over and over either.

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As you know, I like the square format. I find square images very pleasing to the eye and it also brings consistency when I put them together (there's no landscape vs portrait debate).

Lately, I've been experimenting with panoramas: very long images. I don't always take them with that idea in mind, I "see" during the editing instead. I don't even use special equipment or software to create them, they are just crops.

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I've also been shooting with my phone using an app called Slow Shutter Cam, which lets me take longer exposures than the stock camera app. I like the effect it creates when used walking or even from a moving vehicle.

These are just two of the things I'm doing to switch things up and keep my mind fresh and away from doing the same thing over and over.

Remember to be consistent and to stay flexible, find the balance that works for you.

Capture what's behind the lens, not in front of it

In formal photography, we worry about things like correct exposure and proper composition. Boring stuff that leads to images similar to what everyone else creates.

Photography is an art. Instead of capturing what your eye sees, capture what you see. Forget about technical details and silly composition rules, follow your gut and click away.

Point your camera at something and capture what's behind it.

The day I learned how to see

We were in Yosemite. It was Christmas Eve and a big snowstorm had just passed by, leaving a beautiful white layer all over the park.

There weren’t many people around, but when we arrived at the Tunnel View viewpoint to photograph sunrise, we found a couple dozen photographers and their tripods anxiously waiting for the moment.

The landscape was beautiful. The valley was still sleepy as the light started to hit El Capitan. Everyone was focused on the scene, including me. Everyone but Rachel.

After taking a few shots, I saw her backing up. I thought she was going back to the car, it was freezing after all. But I noticed she kept shooting, in the same direction, and I couldn't figure out what in hell she was capturing.

I walked towards her and turned around. Then I saw it. I remember wondering: "How didn't I see it before?"

As beautiful as the landscape was, this scene was something else: all those photographers lining up at the viewpoint, all making the same images over and over.

I wasn't able to make a great image of them, this snapshot is all that remains. But I still remember the feeling of seeing something that was there, in front of you, that I couldn't manage to see before.

It was an eye-opening moment, a lesson I will never forget. I consider this to be the day when I learned how to see.

Keep your eyes open, always.

Aperture in crop sensors

There seems to be a lot of confusion when it comes to crop sensors and their equivalence to full-frame sensors.

Let's take the Sigma 30mm f/1.4 for Sony APS-C cameras as an example. The crop factor in these cameras is 1.5, which we can use to get the equivalent focal length of that lens: 30mm x 1.5 = 45mm.

The problem comes when we do the same with the aperture. Often, reviewers will apply the crop factor and say that a f/1.4 lens will behave as a f/2.1 lens on a full-frame sensor would. People get really offended because they think manufacturers are misleading the consumers with those numbers.

While that equivalence is true for the depth of field (smaller sensors have more depth of field, thus less bokeh), it is not true when it comes to light gathering.

A f/1.4 lens will gather the same amount of light (per inch) no matter the size of the sensor behind it.

In other words, you could share your exposure values of 1/50sec, f/1.4, ISO 100 with a smartphone shooter and someone using a large format camera. You all will get the same exposure.

Black and White first

Many people use monochrome to "fix" a bad photo. Others seem to have doubts about which version they prefer, so they post both: color and black and white.

While you can get good results every once in a while, this approach is wrong.

The tools you have available in black and white photography are very different from the ones you can use when shooting in color. The image should be in your mind first, then -and only then- we can choose whatever tools we need to create it.

The key to making great art

Photography requires -almost- no technical skills anymore. Modern cameras are able to perfectly expose a scene most of the time.

That alone doesn't make good images, though.

What is it, then? What's the difference between greatness and mediocrity in photography?

Talent -as in a naturally given ability to appreciate beauty- plays a role in this.

A lack of talent can be overcome, though, by anyone who possesses what I believe is the key to great art: passion.

While technical skills and talent can give a photographer a head start, only passion will bring them beyond the point where photographers without it can't go.