How to be a Photographer on a Budget

Most of my photos were taken with my cell phone (a Samsung Galaxy S7).

I don’t know how to do any of the fancy photo editing like the professionals do with Photoshop, so I just use VSCO, an app on my phone. I still think my photos turned out alright.

I've recently started using Lightroom to edit my photos, and the difference is stunning (just like me in this before and after pic):

Anyway, here are some of my tips on how to take good pictures:

Take pictures of everything.

Often, I’ll end up with hundreds of photos after one day, and only 5-10 of those photos are acceptable. I often joke that when you take as many photos as I do, some of them are bound to turn out okay.

Use the rule of thirds.

There’s a really cool article about how the rule of thirds worked and how it’s related to the golden ratio (and I talked about this in my job interview too).

Also don’t be afraid to centre your photos around a single subject.

I like to take more than one photo of a single thing. For example, if I see a flower, I’ll take one photo with it centred, and another one with it off to the right side, and then to the left side. That way, I have a selection to pick from later when I’m editing.

Look up (or down).

Many people are focused on the world in front of them, but there are interesting things to be captured in the sky too. The angles, especially, are interesting–for example, here are some of the photos I’ve taken of buildings in Vancouver:

Well, these are all the tips I have for now, since I don’t even know what I’m doing and shouldn’t even call myself a photographer.

I literally just take lots of pictures of whatever I think is pretty and hope that others think they’re pretty too.

#photography #tips #camera