8 Common Mistakes Photographers Make

Sunday 6 March 2022, 14:07 by Elja Trum | 6,726 views | 8 comments

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

Every photographer makes mistakes. In this useful video, Sawyer Hartman points out 8 common mistakes photographers make. I think they are all good tips, and I am certainly guilty of at least one of them myself.

1. Letting people know you are going to take a photo

Candid snapshots are valuable because they show more clearly what things are really like. If you let someone know in advance that you are going to take photos, you miss the spontaneous moments.

2. Not creating presets for your edits

When you edit every photo separately, there is a good chance that each photo will develop its own look. If you learn to use presets for your edits, it becomes much easier to achieve the same style in all your photos.

This helps you develop a clearly recognisable style as a photographer. A collection of your photos will no longer look like a random selection that could have been taken by different photographers, but like a consistent collection by the same photographer.

3. Taking too many of the same photos

Make sure you change something between each shot while taking photos. The settings, your model's pose, your position or anything else. Do not take dozens of almost exactly the same photo.

4. You do not need to go to a special location

As a photographer, you can make ordinary things look special. So you do not need to go to special locations to take beautiful photos. You can get started anywhere.

Use your surroundings, props, different lighting and so on to make your photo interesting.

5. Try to go a step further

Seen something beautiful to photograph and taken a photo of it? Good. Now try to be more creative and take some extra photos that are less obvious. Do not become a lazy photographer.

6. Not keeping your RAW files

Always keep your RAW files, even after you have finished editing them to your liking. You can then always create a different edit of the same photo later on.

Storage space is cheap, so keep your RAW files.

7. Do not shoot in JPEG

A RAW file gives you the opportunity to get the most out of your photos. Always shoot in RAW.

8. Do not let anything grow out of your model's head

A common mistake is that photographers do not pay enough attention to the background when taking a photo. Always look carefully at the background before you press the shutter. This prevents, for example, a branch from sticking out of your model's head.

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About the author

Elja Trum is the founder of Photofacts and online photography course website Photofacts Academy. He has been writing about photography since 2006. Elja is also the author of (Dutch) books on composition, black-and-white photography, flash photography and portrait photography.

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8 comments

martinphili wrote on Monday 7 March 2022 at 14:17 | reply
Keep RAW files?
No way, finished is finished is done. Period.
I didn't keep the Christmas tree from 2021 either, because we might still want to put it up differently someday
Translated from Dutch.

Fons BItter wrote on Tuesday 8 March 2022 at 10:31 | reply
From 'mistakes' the most fascinating developments arises.Mistakes are part of life and people who have made many mistakes we call experienced and maturely developed.
Fons Bitter, picture maker
Translated from Dutch.

Bernard wrote on Tuesday 8 March 2022 at 11:52 | reply
Great list of important points and very recognizable. Point 7 is open to discussion as far as I'm concerned. Although I myself shoot everything in RAW, a JPG or JPEG gives a better result in terms of color on most screens. Because nuances are missing (only 8 bits), the color reproduction is 'harder' and more contrasty. The resolution of many screens is insufficient for displaying high-resolution images. Furthermore, I would like to add a point, and that is get as close to the subject as possible, but leave room to 'crop', correct perspective and rotate the photo slightly.
Translated from Dutch.

Paul wrote on Tuesday 8 March 2022 at 12:19 | reply
I think martinphili's comment is really rather stupid (sorry).

I've been doing this for 60 years myself, so I started out with analogue. I still have almost all the negatives, because that's the original. Same with RAW files, if you later get a different idea about how to process them, or you want, for example, a larger print, then you start with the original.

But if sir only works for Facebook, well, then it doesn't matter.
Translated from Dutch.

Kees Kouwenberg wrote on Tuesday 8 March 2022 at 12:26 | reply
I agree with @martinphili. Not keeping RAWs is a choice, not a mistake. In decades of photography, I have never edited a RAW file again after editing it. Of course, there may be photographers who do want to do that, their choice. But I also don't keep RAW files after editing them. Deliberately, not a mistake, my choice.
Translated from Dutch.

Piet Alberts wrote on Tuesday 8 March 2022 at 14:30 | reply
Due to lack of space, I saved in .jpg! I kept the files just in case. Later I discovered that nice and sharp isn't always nice. That bright colors are never or not always nice. As I became able to do more with Photoshop, I discovered that saving .jpgs made sense for me.
Translated from Dutch.

martinphili wrote on Tuesday 8 March 2022 at 19:04 | reply
@Paul:
no, not at all, I don't work only for Facebook. Funny assumption, that's what I call "stupid" My photos regularly end up in car magazines.
If a photo has been published once (even if that would only be on Facebook) the photo is done. Then it's finished. A day later, the photo's topical value has already disappeared and it absolutely serves no purpose for me anymore to edit the photo again.

Translated from Dutch.

K.J.Schilstra wrote on Friday 1 April 2022 at 15:22 | reply
Always keep RAW files! I read here from martinphili that he throws them away. With current software, so much is possible that even photos that almost tragically failed back then (10 years ago) can still produce surprising results. (Highlighting deceased family members in a group photo and a lovely memory etc.)
I see JPG as a picture that comes out of the photo lab.
(I don't even save them if I print directly from Lightroom!)

What do I throw away instead................the JPGs, totally pointless to keep those, the latest adjustments are in Lightroom, just an export for a website (each with their own format) and voila in the junk folder JPG on the SSD.

Empty folder after a month, done.
Translated from Dutch.

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