Do you ever feel like sometimes you’rre just winging it when you pick up your camera?

That you get all flustered and not quite sure what you should be doing….?

….So you end up just clicking and hoping?

Then this week’s blog post is for you!

I wanted to break down some of the things you should be thinking about when you take your photo - many of them before you even lift the camera to your eye - so that you can shoot more purposefully, and most importantly, get better photos.

So we’re going to go into FIVE questions you should ask yourself when you take your photo. There are more of course, but these are the big ones, the ones that can make or break your picture, so let’s dive into those now…

It’s no secret - I freaking love Lightroom. I love how much you can do in the program, how fast it is for editing your photos, and the whole end to end organisation thing just makes me want to kiss my computer screen.

But that doesn’t mean it can do absolutely everything.

There’s a damn good reason why Adobe bundled both Lightroom Classic CC and Photoshop CC together in their Photography Plan - because when you have access to both programs, you can do absolutely anything you’re little editing heart desires!

Lightroom is definitely the must-use photo editing software for both professional and hobbyist photographers, simply because it has absolutely everything you need to mange, edit and share your images in one place (and in waaaay less time than other software) .

Because it can do SO much, you can easily find yourself a little overwhelmed at first. But, as with everything else in photography, you can start by learning a few simple tools. And that’s what I what to cover here today!

Whether you want to shoot a portrait or a landscape or a documentary-style photo, you’ll want to choose the best lens for the job!

With an array of lenses to choose from, it can be hard to know which one to pick, and which will suit your photo best. As I have far too many lenses to choose from, I thought i’d go through my thought process when picking out a lens for a particular photo. Of course, there may be other reasons why I pick a lens (versatility for going away on vacation, or weight if were going on a trek) but the two MAIN reasons are the focal length, and the aperture.

Let’s go into the four questions I ask myself (which you can totally steal, I don’t mind) for choosing the best lens for the job.

One of the things I love seeing is the change in people’s photos as they are learning photography - where you can literally see the difference in the “befores” and “afters” - and I know this is inspiring for many of you too!

So today I’ve got a case study for you that I think you are absolutely going to eat up :-)

It's from one of my amazing Auto to Awesome students, Erica, and she’s put together some amazing before and after photos for us, plus some of her favourite photos. It shows two things - how learning photography doesn’t just happen overnight, and also that with the right training, you can absolutely take amazing images with an entry level camera. (Although she has since upgraded, Erica shot most of these images with an entry level DSLR and kit lens - proof that you don’t need the most expensive gear to take great photos)

For those of you who are already in Auto to Awesome, I hope it inspires you to keep going through the program! And if you’ve been thinking about maybe enrolling in Auto to Awesome, this is one blog post you’ll definitely want to read.

Having a little trouble getting your head around Aperture and Depth of Field?

Don’t worry, it happens to us all!

But it’s SO worth taking the time to understand completely, because the aperture you choose can have a BIG impact on your images (as you’re about to see)

So what we’re going to do today is an exercise that can help you see how different apertures affect how your image LOOKS.

Ready? Let’s go!

It can be a really daunting experience to move away from the AUTO modes on your camera, but you really must if you want to get great photos!

And the first step is to move to something called Aperture Priority Mode. This will help you get more control over how your images turn out, but as it still leaves you with the “safety net” of the camera balancing the exposure, so you don’t need to worry about that just yet 😉.

We’ve a lot to get through in this blog post, so let’s get crackin’!

Have you heard the aperture when learning photography, and wondered what it is?

Or what that has to do with the term F-stop?

And just what the heck depth of field is?!

Then you’re in the perfect place! In this blog post we’re going to go over what Aperture is, what the term F-stop means, plus what depth of field is and how we can use it for creative photos!

Ready? Let’s dive in!

We’ve all felt it at one time or another - we’ve got no idea what we could even take photos of, every image we DO take seems boring and “snapshotty”, and we’re left wondering if our creativity has got up and gone.

For some, just putting down their camera works a treat, and for others, such as myself, a small but firm kick up the pants is needed.

These creativity exercises are those kick in the pants, so pick one, and get out there and start shooting!

Lifestyle photography is without doubt my favourite genre of photography - one where you can capture an everyday moment or scene beautifully, and freeze that moment in time.

On the whole, this is how I capture my family every single day, rather than waiting for milestone moments like birthdays or the one-a-year family photos (which I love too, but in a different way!)

But of course, lifestyle photography has it’s challenges too, so here’s my five top tips for getting better child and family lifestyle photos.

I get it, we can all feel sometimes like it’s harder to take photos when we are stuck in at home, rather than in the great outdoors.

But there are loads of opportunities for capturing great photos of our kids indoors as well as out.

So today, I’ve come up with 8 ideas for photographs you take of your children at home, along with a few tips and tricks for each one.

Ready? Let’s go!

When I first started learning how to edit my photos, I followed a few different tutorials online, patched them together, and studiously applied them to each and every photo.

The result?

Eye blindingly bright, overly contrasty and saturated images, that looked like they had been edited by 10 different people.

(My eyes hurt just THINKING about those early edits 😎😵)

But you don’t have to make those mistakes too, because you’ve got me, and I’m not gonna let that happen!

So without further ado, here’s 7 deadly photo editing sins - and most importantly, how you can avoid them.

Have you ever found yourself wondering exactly WHERE an image that you’ve taken is?

Why you seem to have about 5 different copies of the same file kicking about?

Or you’ve been sat looking at your image for the last ten minutes wondering exactly what adjustments you should be making? Whether you’ve done enough?

If that’s you, then a) you are not alone and b) the chances are you’re missing something incredibly crucial - a Lightroom workflow.

Let’s be honest, the one thing that most of us have in common is that we struggle with not having enough hours in the day!

That’s why trying to find an extra hour or two to edit and manage your photos when you have about 874 OTHER things that need to be done that day can be trying to say the least.

I know this from experience: after I was a few years into photography I had gotten myself in a huge mess when it came to my photos, and I was spending hours each week trying to get them into some sort of order, not to mention carrying out long winded editing on all my photos.

One thing that made a huge difference to how much I could get through in less time was Lightroom, so today, I want to show you 5 ways that Lightroom has saved me countless hours each week…

Do you wish you could stop fumbling with the settings on your DSLR, and instead know EXACTLY which settings to use for wall worthy photos?

How would you like to be able to take images that are beautifully lit and perfectly in focus, and look professional and polished?

And do you wish you could develop the skills you need to beautifully preserve your family memories NOW, so that you can finally be finished the learning part and just get on with the fun part of photography - taking photos?

If the answer to those a big resounding YES, then I have the very thing for you!