Improve Photography

What is true for one person is probably not true for another person.  This raises problems in learning photography, because most beginners learn from the “famous” photographers.  The problem is that the solutions used by professionals to fix professional problems often aren’t the solutions that 95% of their listening audience should use.  This post is [...]

Am I a hypocrite? Yes. My photography portfolio is completely out-of-date; however, I think I have some good tips to share on creating a photography portfolio website because I worked for two years running a website design firm.  I have built quite a few photography portfolio sites in my day, and I’ve learned what works. [...]

Here in my town in Naples, Florida, I teach a beginning photography class every Monday.  I split the class up into 6 different photography subjects (wildlife, action, portraits, etc) so each class has one theme.  This week’s class was macro photography.  I am always a bit apprehensive about teaching the macro photography class because I [...]

If you caught a virus, your house flooded, a robber broke in your house, or your 2 year old decided to “play” with the laptop…. you could easily lose every picture on your hard drive.  If disaster struck right at this moment, would you have a backup for all your photography? If that backup is [...]

One question I frequently get from Flickr photographers is how to get on the coveted “Explore” page more often.  Flickr is an extremely popular photo-sharing website that allows photographers to socially connect with other users and view their photos.  Every day, the “Explore” page is updated with the most popular photos on Flickr based on [...]

If you’re a photography nerd like I am, you probably want to stay plugged-in to the world of photography and not miss any of the news or resources that become available.  If it sounds like this is describing you, then you have to check out a website called Alltop.  More specifically, photography.alltop.com.  This is a [...]

Light and Lighting Professional photographers look for interesting lighting before searching for interesting subjects.  Why is this?  Put simply, good photography is about good lighting.  To improve your lighting technique, read this essential guide. Flash Photography Take everything you thought you knew about flash photography and throw it out of the window, because beginning photographers [...]

Question from a reader: “Hello, I am wondering if you might be able to advise me on how to hand sign a gallery wrap print?  I usually hand sign the mat for any work I sell.  Thank you!” Jim’s answer: I like to sign on the lower-right corner of a gallery wrap on the side of [...]

Looking over the website stats for Improve Photography last week (WOAH… there are A LOT of you readers!), I noticed that about 15 people found this website after typing in keywords in Google like, “How to get more feedback on my Flickr photos” or similar keywords.  Flickr is the largest photo sharing website in the [...]

After the post earlier this week about photography projects, Jon Payne (Twitter:@youwerentlookin) sent me an email to share a photo essay that he recently completed.  I thought the project was a good example of a fun street photography project, and wanted to share it here on the site (with his permission).  Jon would like to receive [...]