Photo Alchemy: Creative Thinking For Great Photography

The most important thing about photography is you, how you think creatively, pre visualise how you want an image to look. This will tell you where to stand and angle to shoot for a great composition; when you'll get the best light and the settings you'll need to capture it.

Need to learn more about camera, settings, lenses, light and composition? Copy and paste the following into Udemy search: Mike Browne A Masterclass In Photography

Where Creativity Meets The Camera

Think differently about photography. The great master photographers of the past took amazing, inspiring images on the most basic of cameras, so maybe it’s not the camera that takes great photos. Maybe it’s the Photographer. That’s you by the way…

A blend of technical and creative control for any image

These five controls are super important and when combined in the correct way, it’s easy to shoot beautiful photographs of anything. If you haven’t got them figured yet, complete my Masterclass In Photography course here in Udemy, then come back to this one.

Choose which setting is most important for creative reasons

These settings have both technical uses, and creative uses. By combining them in different ways you can achieve exactly the photo you want. But first you have to think your way through what you want, choose which is the ‘primary’ setting or settings for the shot you want.

Changing a setting has a knock on effect

The ‘right’ camera settings and controls change all the time depending on what you want your photo to look like. Blurry background or sharp? Bright or dark? When you adjust one setting it’s like knocking over the first domino because it will have an effect on the others which you have to compensate for.

creative thinking > creative actions > creative camera

This is the behind the scenes story of one of the most challenging professional shoots I’ve done. Previsualising, planning, how everything went wrong but in the end we more than nailed it. We make our own luck.

Because pictures give you settings

Cameras can’t think right. So develop your imagination so you can pre visualise how you want your photo to look, how to get the best from light and location which you then translate into the settings needed to capture the image perfectly, just the way you want it.

Photographer actions not camera functions

Be aware of the weather, surroundings, people, which direction the wind’s blowing. Be prepared to wait for light to change and ask yourself powerful questions about where to stand, when to click, which settings you’ll need. Consider how windy it is because you may need a faster shutter speed to prevent camera shake blur because the wind is buffeting you. There’s more to photo alchemy than just the camera and settings.

Where do I need to be?

I was in a motorway petrol station when I saw this rainbow. Cars, signposts and six lanes of traffic between it and me. So what do you do in a situation like that?

Creative questions lead to pots of gold

These are questions photographers must ask themselves to get the best from a shot. This is how you avoid taking a boring photo of what could be awesome!

Because eyes tell lies

When you look at the back of your camera on a bright day the photo looks dark. You think you underexposed it and reshot it brighter. BUT your eyes lie - histograms don’t.

Because cameras and eyes see things differently

When you take a photo of someone in front of a window either they become a silhouette and outside is perfect, or they are perfect and outside is super bright. BUT you can see both perfectly because eyes and cameras see light differently.

For ultimate control

When you shoot jpg the camera makes a raw file, makes its best guess how to post process it then deletes the raw. If you process your own raw files, you are in control and give your images the final polish that’ll make them pop.

You and your dominoes

Think how you want each shot to look. You are in charge of how bright or dark you want it. You are in charge of choosing what light to shoot in, camera angle, composition, how you portray movement, sharpness / depth of field, the focal length and field of view. Think creatively, pre visualise the image then set all these things accordingly to capture it the way you want it.

Now.... Photo Alchemy Notes And Slides

Download the slides from the class to help you remember how to be a photo alchemist. Keep them on your phone so they’re with you and easy to refer back to. I recommend studying them regularly so the creative thought process becomes ingrained in your mind.