Beginner Photography

Stop Guessing Your Exposure: A Working Photographer's Guide to Manual Mode
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Stop Guessing Your Exposure: A Working Photographer's Guide to Manual Mode

Every Sunday morning I take a photo walk through my neighborhood in Seattle, and for the first two years of doing that, I was fighting my camera the whole time. I’d dial in aperture priority, watch the meter, and still come home with a card full of images where the bright sky was blown out or the shadows turned to mud. I kept tweaking exposure compensation, guessing, compensating again. It felt like negotiating with someone who didn’t speak my language.

Stop Guessing Exposure: A Practical Guide to Camera Metering Modes
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Stop Guessing Exposure: A Practical Guide to Camera Metering Modes

Every Sunday morning I take a photo walk through Seattle, and I still run into the same exposure problem I had when I first picked up a camera: a bright sky blowing out behind a subject, or a dark foreground turning everything murky. I spent a long time thinking I was doing something wrong with my settings, when the real issue was that I didn’t fully understand what my camera was actually measuring when it tried to set the exposure for me.

Two Habits That Are Quietly Killing Your Photography (And How to Fix Them)
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Two Habits That Are Quietly Killing Your Photography (And How to Fix Them)

There’s a version of me from a few years ago who would open Instagram first thing in the morning, scroll through feeds from photographers shooting in Patagonia and Iceland, and then put my camera down for the rest of the day. Not because I was tired. Because I felt defeated before I’d even started. I live in Seattle. My Sunday photo walks wind through the same neighborhoods week after week. The shots I was seeing on my phone made what I had in front of me feel small and pointless.

6 Photography Bad Habits You Need to Break (And How to Actually Do It)
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6 Photography Bad Habits You Need to Break (And How to Actually Do It)

Every photographer I know has a list of things they wish someone had called them out on earlier. Not gear mistakes or technical errors, but habits. The quiet, low-stakes decisions that compound over time until one day you realize they’ve been quietly capping your growth for years. I came across this Peter McKinnon tutorial a while back and ended up pausing it four times to take notes, which doesn’t happen often.

Stop Obsessing Over Specs: Why Your First Camera Choice Is Really About the System
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Stop Obsessing Over Specs: Why Your First Camera Choice Is Really About the System

Stop Obsessing Over Specs: Why Your First Camera Choice Is Really About the System When I talk to people considering their first interchangeable-lens camera, I notice something interesting happens. They immediately pull up comparison charts, scanning megapixel counts and frames-per-second rates like these numbers hold the secret to great photography. I understand the impulse—cameras are technical instruments, after all. But I’ve learned that this approach often leads beginners down the wrong path.

Starting Before You're Ready: What Peter McKinnon's Journey to 1 Million Subscribers Taught Me About Creative Risk
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Starting Before You're Ready: What Peter McKinnon's Journey to 1 Million Subscribers Taught Me About Creative Risk

There’s a photo on my phone that I’ve never posted anywhere. It’s slightly blurry, taken in bad light, and the composition is nothing special. But I look at it constantly, because it’s from the week before I started seriously teaching photography. It captures something true about where I was, even if it captures it imperfectly. I thought about that photo the entire time I watched this milestone video from Peter McKinnon.

Stop Chasing the Perfect ISO: Two Beginner Mistakes That Are Hurting Your Photos
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Stop Chasing the Perfect ISO: Two Beginner Mistakes That Are Hurting Your Photos

Every Sunday morning I take a photo walk around Seattle. No agenda, just me and whatever camera I grab off the shelf. And for the first couple of years I was doing that, I was quietly sabotaging myself with one specific habit: I kept my ISO glued to the lowest possible number, no matter what. I thought that was the disciplined, correct thing to do. Turns out it was actually one of the most common mistakes beginner photographers make, and it was costing me shots I can never get back.

How to Choose a Camera Bag That Actually Works for Your Style of Shooting
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How to Choose a Camera Bag That Actually Works for Your Style of Shooting

I have a complicated relationship with camera bags. I’ve bought at least six in the last four years, and every single one of them was purchased because it looked good in a product photo rather than because it solved an actual problem I had. One bag was too heavy before I even put a lens in it. Another had no water bottle holder, which sounds minor until you’re on a three-hour photo walk and your hydration is rattling loose in the main compartment.

Your TV Is a Free Professional Backdrop (Here's How to Actually Use It)
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Your TV Is a Free Professional Backdrop (Here's How to Actually Use It)

The Background Problem Nobody Talks About I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve stood in a perfectly decent location with a perfectly willing subject and completely fumbled the background. Too cluttered. Too flat. Wrong color. Wrong mood. Renting a studio isn’t always practical, and carrying a roll of backdrop paper through Seattle on a Sunday morning photo walk is exactly as awkward as it sounds. So when a client asked me for a set of product lifestyle shots on short notice last winter, I started looking around my apartment with fresh eyes.

The Excuses Keeping Your Portrait Work Stuck (And What to Do Instead)
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The Excuses Keeping Your Portrait Work Stuck (And What to Do Instead)

The Moment I Stopped Blaming My Gear Last spring, I handed my phone to a stranger at a coffee shop and asked her to grab a quick shot of me at the table. She fumbled with it for a second, then handed it back apologetically. “I’m not a photographer,” she said. I smiled and told her neither was I, once. That exchange is part of why I started teaching, and it’s also why a recent Visual Education tutorial landed so hard when I watched it.

What a Million-Follower Photographer Taught Me About Growing Slowly and Shooting Smart
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What a Million-Follower Photographer Taught Me About Growing Slowly and Shooting Smart

There’s a specific kind of frustration that hits when you’ve been posting consistently for months and your follower count barely moves. I’ve been there. I remember refreshing my Instagram insights after a trip to Olympic National Park, convinced that my best waterfall series would finally break through, and watching it flatline by Tuesday. What was I doing wrong? More often than not, the answer wasn’t the photos themselves. It was everything around them.

Why Your Softbox Isn't Actually Soft (And What Joel Grimes Taught Me About Modifiers)
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Why Your Softbox Isn't Actually Soft (And What Joel Grimes Taught Me About Modifiers)

I spent an embarrassing amount of time blaming my gear for light that looked flat, harsh, or just plain unflattering. I’d drop money on a new softbox, get excited, and then wonder why my portraits still looked like I’d pointed a flashlight at someone’s face. It wasn’t until I started digging into how modifiers actually work — not just what they look like in an unboxing video — that things started clicking.