We live in a changing world. A world of rapid change, with technology driving changes in what we do, and how we do it. It is easier today than ever for anyone to create high quality photos using a phone or consumer camera.
With advances in technology, the growth of phone photography and changes in the way society takes, and views photos, there is a change in what is required from photography. Good enough is easier than ever for anyone to achieve, meaning that us photographers have to do more to survive. We have to be better than good enough to stand out, survive and thrive!
Really?
Yes really.
What is good enough?
Good enough is taking photos to a standard by which you fulfil a clients requirements, and you can get paid money. And this is in the context of what those photos are for, and where they are viewed.
Or, as is happening now, good enough is clients taking their own photos with their phones which are good enough, and they don’t need to pay a photographer to take photos for them.
I am not saying that good enough Is not to a high standard, just that the good enough standard is more attainable than ever by anyone.
Good enough is taking good enough photos for the purpose for which the photos are being taken.
Why is good enough a thing now?
Simple. More and more people are taking photos than ever. It is the explosion in the popularity of mobile phones, combined with the amazing advances in technology that have changed photography for ever.
For many people now, their first experience of photography is with their phone. And for many people they will never progress beyond taking photos with their phone.
The photos that they can create on their phone are good enough.
And people are probably viewing photos on phones more than on any other type device now. And phones are of course smaller devices. Well phones are massive compared to early mobile phones, but still much, much smaller than say a computer monitor.
This is where good enough comes in
If you have only ever taken photos on your phone, and you only ever look at photos on your phone, then this is your norm. This is all you know and you are happy with that.
I will let that thought land, and come back to this at the end.
So what do we photographers need to do?
Stick to the fundamentals of photography. If you have got into photography using your phone, then you have probably not heard about a lot of the stuff that I am going to mention now. Sure some people will get into photography, and want to know more. But I see this happening less and less as the technology advances, and over time more and more people will know phone photography and no more.
So what stuff am I talking about?
Composition is still king
Yep, composition is king. It always will be. It doesn’t matter what you take a photo with, a rubbish composition is a rubbish composition.
And a great composition is a great composition.
If you do one thing, and one thing only after reading this blog post, take some time to learn composition. This one thing will help you to stand out, and if you think about it, it makes sense to.
It makes sense to concentrate on what is the most important part of a photo – it’s content!
Learn composition and you will take better photos. It costs nothing, and the payback can be massive. Learn composition and you are better than anyone else who has not. Which is most people.
Lenses and focal lengths
Camera lenses on phones are wide angle by default. Yes you can zoom in, and yes you can get lenses that you stick on that change the focal length. But you do not get the same effects, the same field of views, the same look that you can with a lens no a camera.
I take most of my photos of buildings with a 17mm focal length. My phone can’t do that, and as soon as you add a lens on then there is a risk of a loss of quality. I cannot take the photos that I need to with my phone. I need a specific lens.
So yes, I take photos with my Canon 17-40mm lens that I cannot take with my phone, and the photos that I take with this lens stand out.
Technical excellence
I have learned about the technical side of photography. Exposure, focus, depth of field, shutter speed, aperture, ISO. These things all combine to create high quality photos. And yes there are lots more things.
You don’t get technical excellence by using Program Mode – no you need more thought and work to get technical excellence. Sure you might with the odd photo, but to get technically excellent photos every time, you have to work at it.
And doing this makes you better than good enough. And there are people who will value this.
Technical correctness
I photograph buildings. And I make sure that they are technically correct, horizontal, level, to the correct scale and proportion. Accurate and realistic.
And that my photos show a building at it’s best.
Image processing
Again, processing can make a photo stand out from the others. There are things that we photographers can do that will make photos pop, and will make them stand out in the never ending online feeds. Because most photos are good enough, when you come across a photo that is better there is a much higher chance of someone stopping scrolling.
That is what you want to do. Create, with your processing, stand out photos. Photos that make people stop and look at them.
And this Is not by being funky, Photoshopping all over the place. No, it can be by subtle editing, editing that brings out the absolute best in photo.
Light
Light is a massive thing, of course it is. Where the light comes from, and how it interacts on a composition. Study light, make light your friend, use it to make your photos stand out.
Photography is drawing with light. Light cam make your photos so much better than just good enough.
Why do we have to stay old school?
Every year, sticking to the traditional photography principles and techniques will help you and I stand out. Let me give you an example. I have been photographing a construction site recently.
And lot’s of other people have as well. There are lots of us taking the same photos of the same thing. But my photos stand out. My photos are different to everyone else’s. My photos are the ones that get the comments, the like, all that stuff.
And my photos are the ones that people tell me really stand out.
Well you’d hope so, this is my specialism, this is what I have been studying and practising all these years.
So lots of people take photos that are good enough, but mine stand out.
You are unique
If you think about it, you are unique. No one else sees the world like you do. And you need to work on that, to come up with your own look, your own consistent look. That will set you apart, whatever it may be.
It might be that every photo is overexposed slightly, or that there is something in every photo that you take. It might be that you compose every photo a certain way
Whatever it is, it is your thing that you do. Keep on doing it and you might well get known for that thing.
Work on you, put you into your compositions, into your processing, put you into your photos cos that is one thing no one else can do!
What do I do?
Diversification is what I have done. And do you know what, I will tell you what that looks like next week. I started writing it for this post, but it took the post in a direction that I did not want it to go in. So more on that next week. That is the how, to this weeks what.
And I don’t need to worry about the why – that is to make money and survive!
Under my control
And all the stuff that I will tell you about is under my control. What do I mean by this? I do not rely on social media. Many photographers do.
Everything that I do is on platforms that I control, not on someone else’s part of the internet. More on this next week too.
Good enough and social media
Some people will not agree with me on this. See all those people on Instagram living the dream? Some of them are genuine, but may are not. And the living the dream feeds are not representative of most people.
Don’t be fooled by this, don’t get sucked into it.
There are endless numbers of photos on Instagram, and all the other platforms, but who is looking at them? I do not know, but I have heard that the algorithms that these social media companies come up with mean that your photos are not seen by everyone who follows you, or whatever you want to call it. Far from it.
If you have 1000 followers those 1000 followers probably do not see what you post.
Back to good enough
I said I would come back to this. Photos taken on phones have a certain look. Sure there are endless ways to funk up a photo, but they are, in the main, all taken using a wide angle focal length.
They all look similar. So to stand out, to be better than good enough, we need to work at it, to be creative, to apply all that good stuff that people who have only ever known phone photography do not even know about.
Am I a photography snob?
No, far from it. I think that the explosion in the popularity of photography is a wonderful thing, and if people only ever take photos with their phones, and never learn anything at all about photography, that is fine. If more people are enjoying photography than ever then that is great.
But we photographers need to adapt to the changing world, be aware of good enough and know what do about it.
If you want to know what photography snobbery is check out this post – Photography Snobbery – 10 Examples Of It And Why I Hate It.
Related listening
Well there are a couple of episodes of my podcast where I talk about this, and other related stuff. They are
Photography Explained Podcast Episode 140 – What Does The Future Of Photography Look Like?
This is where the “good enough” thing came from, so check them out – they are excellent listens! And you can read the scripts too at the same place.
Related viewing
I have recorded a video of this blog post that you can watch on my You Tube channel.
Want to know more?
Head over to the Start page on the Photography Explained Podcast website to find out more.
And here is the list of episodes published to date – you can listen to any episode straight from this page which is nice.
Let me know if there is a photography thing that you want me to explain and I will add it to my list. Just head over to the This is my list of things to explain page of this website to see what is on there already.
Let me send you stuff
If you want me to send you an email when a new episode is published just fill in the form to the right. If it’s ok with you I will also send stuff of interest from time to time, and also let you know when I publish new stuff on my other website.
And finally a little bit about me
Finally, yes this paragraph is all about me – check out my Rick McEvoy Photography website to find out more about me and my architectural, construction, real estate and travel photography work. I also write about general photography stuff, all in plain English without the irrelevant detail.
Thank you
Thanks for listening to my podcast (if you did) and reading this blog post (which I assume you have done as you are reading this).
With thanks and warm regards from me
Rick
Cheers from me Rick
