Hi everybody, a very big and warm welcome to Episode 45 of the Photography Explained Podcast (transcript recorded photographer’s blame podcast!). In this episode, my step by step guide to how I take a photo.

I’m your host Rick and each week I try to explain one photographic thing to you in plain English in less than 10 minutes without the irrelevant details. My aim is to explain things in just enough detail to help you and me with our photography and no more.

I’m a professionally qualified photographer based in England with a lifetime of photographic experience, which I share with you on my podcast.

Episode 45, and I still can’t remember the opening. So this is take two – again, I’m determined to get this cracked by Episode 50. Let’s get into this.

You can listen to the episode here

Or keep on reading. Or do both. Entirely up to you!

This is how I take a photo.

I follow these steps for every photo that I take, which enables me to produce consistently high-quality photos, which all have my own look, feel and style. Follow these steps whenever you take photos and you might see an improvement in your photography, just as I did when I started using a more considered approach to image capture.

Following on from the last episode

Now this episode very much follows on and goes hand in hand with the previous episode about setting up a camera. So I set up my camera in a certain way, and I take my photos in a certain way. And that’s how I get the consistency from shoot to shoot.

I’ve done work for an architect, I did a lot of different shoots in different locations at different times. And because of the way I work, and the settings that I use the photos from one shoot to the next to the next all sort of hung together which worked really well for their portfolio.

And it’s helped me with my portfolio.

Anyway, let’s get into the steps. Now these are just bullet points I’m going to talk about.

1 Think about the composition.

This is the first thing that I do. Thinking about what I’m photographing might sound obvious, but what I used to do was get to a location, be it a commercial shoot or a sunrise, get my camera out, start taking photos, take photos, take photos, take photos, and then get home and find that I had a load of rubbish. On a sunrise shoot, I only try to get one photo.

On an architectural shoot, I will normally be looking to take, depending on the size of the job obviously, 20 to 30 images, or looking to issue to the client 20 to 30 images.

Now when I think about the composition what happens is this – I take fewer photos and if I issue my client with 30 photos and I’ve taken 30 photos, you could say that I have nailed the job completely.

And that’s the success that comes when you are thinking about the composition.

Don’t just take photos, think.

2 Might sound strange – walk around.

Again, don’t get your camera out (well I have mine in my hand, to be honest with you on a wrist strap just in case), but I walk around. I just look at things, look at how things relate to each other and the light.

Just walk around and look and you will get a feel.

Now this takes time. This sounds really vague, but I genuinely do this all the time now.

3 Study the light.

Now if there’s a stunning sunrise and you know where it’s all happening you know what you’re gonna get. On an architectural shoot, you’ve got a different thing, you’ve got a building, you’ve got light, the direction of light, different angles, light, shade, highlights, and shadows.

In any scene when you move around you adjust what you are looking at, and what your camera is viewing. The scene changes, as does the depth and variations in light.

And this is when you start studying the light and the composition just by walking around. This is when you’ll start to see things appear which are more interesting than just turning up to take a photo, going “nailed that” and moving on to the next one.

How many photos do you need?

I think it’s important to say that you’re not looking to get 50 fantastic photos. If you go out to take photos you’re looking to get one or two great photos. If I can get one photo that’s worthy of going in a portfolio of mine this is a massive success.

So don’t expect hundreds of great photos every time.

It’s a slow process that takes time and you need to study the light

Photography is drawing with light after all.

So if you don’t study the light, you’ve not studied what you’re taking a photo of, have you?

4 I put the right lens on my camera.

Okay, that’s not really true because I only use one lens. But if I wanted to use a different lens, this will be the point at which I would change it. Now I tend to use a Canon 17-4mm F4L lens, or as I described in the last episode, a 17 to 40-metre lens (love to see one of them).

So I don’t change my lenses that often, but this will be the point at which I will go to one of my two other lenses.

Yes, I only have three lenses, and I don’t need any more.

5 Put my camera on a tripod.

This is the time when I put my camera on a tripod, I will only take photos with my camera on a tripod unless there’s a very good reason why I can’t. When my camera is on a tripod, that is the committing act, that tells me I’m ready to take a photo.

So this could take some time. And then I’m ready to take my photo. And I might just take one photo.

6 Get the composition right.

I’m not repeating myself here. I think about the composition, walk around, study the light then put my camera on a tripod. And now we’re looking through the viewfinder and the LCD screen because I use both.

I think it might just be because I’m in my 50s and now my eyesight is a bit dodgy. I need help with the LCD screen on the Canon 6D which quite frankly, Canon, is rubbish. But then again, it is quite old.

It’s not like on my iPhone, but that’s a newer thing with a bigger screen.

So I use the viewfinder and the LCD screen to get the composition right.

Again, I’m looking to take one photo of a scene not three, I used to take a photo here, there, everywhere left a bit, right a bit, up a bit and down a bit. I now want one photo and then move on.

7 Choose the aperture.

Okay, it’s going to be F8 or F16. That’s all I tend to use – one for another time.

8 Select the focus point.

This is the only other variable really, at what point in the scene am I focusing? Quite often it’s a third of the way in, which is a pretty good rule of thumb if you’re looking for one (on a wide-angle lens on a full-frame camera with a 17mm focal length that is).

With f8 you’re probably alright 90% of the time.

9 – I focus.

10 Take the photos

Photos, I hear you say? Yep, three of them. I bracket my architectural photography, also my travel photography thinking about it. I take one photo with the correct exposure, one two-stops overexposed, and one two-stops underexposed.

Can’t remember if that’s the order in which the Canon 6D takes them, doesn’t really matter, though.

That’s what I do. And I put the photos together later in Lightroom using the wonderful HDR Merge tool.

I’ll tell you why I do this in another episode, but that’s, what I do. And I will expand on this in the next episode, which I think, no, it’s not (sorry).

Next episode

The next episode is about how I get the photos off the camera. Sorry, I’m jumping ahead. Yeah, I will expand on this and why I do bracketing in another episode.

So please don’t shoot the messenger – this works for me. It works for others. There’s nothing wrong with it.

Okay, my one-line summary.

This is what I do before I take a photo, do this and you will get technically correct photos.

Now that one-line summary is actually rubbish, isn’t it, because it’s more about the composition of what you’re photographing.

So yeah, this is what I do before I take a photo – do this and you will get interesting, well composed and technically correct photos.

That was a better one.

Okay, what do I want you to do now?

1 Just let me know your thoughts on Twitter.

My name, if that’s what it is, is @rickphoto. I am not sure if it is a name, handle label, or whatever.

As you’ve gathered, I’m quite old.

2 Subscribe to my podcast.

If you have enjoyed this episode. This helps me and you don’t miss an episode.

3 Rate and review my podcast.

Of course, if you enjoyed this episode, please give me a nice rating and a nice review which will also help me

4 Tell someone you know about my podcast.

Someone who might find it interesting of course.

Next episode

Okay, so the next episode, which I stumbled my way through earlier by a complete mistake. It seems to make sense having spoken about how to take a photo to go straight into the next logical thing, which is my step-by-step guide to how I get the photos off my camera.

Again, it’s how I do it. This is my way. I’m not saying it’s the right way. It’s my way. And it works for me. (and it is my podcast after all).

Thank you

Thank you very much for listening to my small but perfectly formed podcast. Please check out my website, Rick McEvoy Photography where you can find out all about me and my architectural and construction photography work, as well as my photography blog, where you can learn lots more about photography.

Photography Explained Podcast Website

Also, check out the Photography Explained Podcast website, now complete as of this morning, which I’m delighted about, where you can find out how to ask me a question, find a list of episodes, also up to date, and also things I’m going to explain in future episodes.

This episode was brought to you very much by the power of knowing that I don’t have to update my website anymore.

I’ve been Rick McEvoy, thanks again very much for listening to me, and for giving me nearly 12 minutes of your valuable time. I will see you in the next episode.

Cheers from me, Rick

OK – that was the podcast episode.

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

I send out a weekly email to my subscribers. It is my take on one photography thing, plus what I have been writing and talking about. Just fill in the box and you can get my weekly photographic musings straight to your inbox. Which is nice.

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).

Cheers from me Rick