Natural light is, by far, my favorite light to shoot in. Whether it’s indoors or out, it offers an unparalleled beauty that is difficult to replicate. But just like anything in photography, it comes with its own set of learning curves. Let’s cover a few natural light mistakes I’ve made in this journey of understanding how to use natural light.

Read – Natural Light Mistakes You May Be Making

Are you wondering why you have blurry photos?

This is a common question that many photographers run into. We start learning manual mode and then we can’t figure out why our images are blurry instead of tack sharp.

Read – 6 Reasons Why You Have Blurry Photos

Its no secret that Lightroom is a secret weapon for photographers and hobbyists looking to up their editing game. The system is powerful and relatively intuitive, but as it often happens when learning a new system, you don’t know what you don’t know. In the middle of the overwhelm of learning the system itself and how it works, some of its best features get overlooked.

Read – 8 FoolProof Lightroom Tips For Editing Your Photos

Being happy with our photography, and with ourselves as photographers, starts with building good habits. Just like any aspect of our life, there are things we can do to make us happier and less stressed. The same goes for photography. Photography should be a carefree and happy outlet that gives you joy. Try to incorporate these 7 habits into your everyday to help you become happier with your photography.

Read – 7 Habits of a Happy Photography

Once shooting in manual has become second nature, focusing more on composition is time well spent. Keep reading to learn about some common composition mistakes for every beginner to avoid.

Read – 8 Composition Mistakes to Avoid

Saying there is a lot to learn about photography is an understatement. You could spend your whole life learning about photography and if it is truly a passion of yours, I encourage you to do just that.

I have been on my photography journey for almost 8 years and I continue to learn new things. I am always amazed to talk with other photographers when we share how we edit or how we find light. It’s amazing to see the world through their eyes.

However, I do think there are some key elements that you need to know as a photographer.

Read – 7 Things Every Photographer Should Know

Like many photographers, I invested in a camera when my son was born so I could capture every stage as he grew. Once he started crawling, I quickly discovered I needed to learn how to take photos of moving subjects.

Now my favorite pictures are the ones where he is running and jumping because it truly captures his adventurous personality.

Read – 5 Tips for Freezing Motion in Photographs

Composition is one of the main building blocks of a great image. There are many ways to compose an image (and many ways to break the rules once you master them). These tried and true compositions are easy to execute and help elevate you images.

Read – 5 Most Popular Ways to Compose Your Image

When I first started trying to learn macro photography (way back in early 2012) everything I read had such an “old school” approach to shooting. Everyone said you have to shoot with a tripod and stop down to at least f/16. To me, these rules were extremely stifling and they just didn’t feel like ME.

So I set out to teach myself macro photography in a way that felt authentic to my style and vision. Here, I hope to share some tips and tricks with you, to help you on your own journey to explore macro photography!

Read – An Introduction to Modern Macro Photography

“He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother”, The Hollies said it best and it truly is what our family stands by. Both myself and my husband live this truth with our boys through our thoughts, words and actions.

Because of this our boys have lived in a world where family is number one and they know it is their job, no scratch that, their duty to lift each other up and take care of one another.

Read – 5 Tips for Capturing Authentic Sibling Relationships

As mamas, the act of picking up our camera to capture memories with our littles ones is equally exciting and daunting. It’s exciting because we know that the pictures we take will be cherished forever. But it is also daunting because we want to photograph everything.

If you’re like me, you feel the pressure to photograph every little thing your child does and sometimes feel guilty when you didn’t get a photo of them doing something particularly adorable.

Read – 7 Photos Every Mom Should Take

Photography is an expensive hobby or business and you may be wondering how to grow in photography on a budget.

Shortly after purchasing my first DSLR camera, I remember asking my friend, Megan Cieloha, how she got those awesome blurry backgrounds.

I thought all I needed was a nice DSLR camera to get those kinds of shots.

You can imagine my surprise when she told me I needed to purchase a different lens other than the one that came with my camera.

Read – How to Grow as a Photographer (Even if on a budget)

The quality of natural light is the difference between hard light and soft light. There is no “good” or “bad” natural light, but a preference of different types of lighting for different situations, moods, and styles.

Read – 5 Facts About Natural Light

One of the first pieces of advice I was given when I started diving into the world of photography proved to be one of the most valuable. MOVE. Take your scene and really look at it. Don’t just shoot from where you initially approached it, but try looking at it from at least FIVE unique perspectives.

Doing this causes the story to change and evolve right in front of you. So that’s exactly what we’ll be looking at today. How to put together a story board with a simple scene and nothing more than a change of perspective.

Read – 8 Tips for Creatively Composing a Photo Series

There comes a point in every photographer’s journey where taking a pretty photo just doesn’t feel like enough any longer – when you want to look at your photos and feel your soul stirring underneath the surface.

To create a photograph that is emotionally moving, there are many different artistic lighting and compositional choices that you can make to help enhance the emotion that you’re capturing within the frame.

Read – 6 Ways to Enhance Emotion in Your Photography

Every photo has a story to tell. Okay, so maybe not EVERY photograph, but so many photos aim to tell stories. With the telling of stories comes the interpretation of stories by an audience.

How can you ensure that you’re conveying the message you intended? Well, there’s no way to guarantee your story will be “read” by everyone exactly as intended, but there are ways to remove ambiguity from your stories and communicate more effectively.

Read – Using Common Photography Techniques to Enhance Stories

We have all experienced mistakes in our quest to be better photographers. It’s part of the process. Some mistakes will be made again, while others have completely changed the course of our photography journey. Our contributors share the photography mistakes that they’ll never make again.

Read – 6 Photography Mistakes You Will Never Make Again