Hi, everybody, welcome to Episode 16 of the photography explained podcast. In this episode, take more interesting photos.

I’m your host, Rick, and each week I will 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 us with our photography and no more.

And I hope to not make any mistakes on this one, and have a nice clean run because I’m feeling confident and quite happy about this recording.

How do we all take more interesting photos?

Well, here’s the answer.

To take more interesting photos, you need to think about the subject that you are photographing, how you can come up with the most interesting composition, and execute the image capture correctly. The most important thing is what you are photographing, and how you compose the image.

Now, in the last three episodes of my podcast, I have gone into composition in a not huge amount of detail because as I hope you’ve worked out by now, detail isn’t my middle name.

Without the irrelevant detail should be my middle name.

Now I have a short attention span. I just need to know what I need to know. Not too much, and I’m fine.

Okay, let’s look at this in a little bit more detail – not too much mind.

You can listen to the episode here

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

Think about your subject matter.

It helps if you photograph things that you like. Now, I like photographing buildings and construction sites, it’s probably not a bad thing that I make my living as an architectural and construction photographer.

So that’s a good thing.

Photograph things you like

I also like photographing the sea, but let’s be honest, who doesn’t like to see the sea apart from someone who’s scared of it? So yep, think about your subject matter. And the point that comes out of this was, as the cogs in my brain whirr, I firmly believe that you will take better photos of something that you’re interested in (rather than something that you are not interested in).

So photographing things you want to photograph is a great way of practising because you’d be enjoying doing it. And you’ll also enjoy processing the images, rather than just going out and doing something that you hate.

Don’t photograph things you don’t want to

For me, that scenario is photographing a wedding – scares the living daylights out of me. So think about your subject matter.

The next one’s quite a difficult one. But hopefully, this will make sense.

Imagine a stranger looking at your photos

What would they think as someone who doesn’t know you? They don’t know that you have walked for 74 hours in bare feet over broken glass and hot coals to get to the picture – I’ll stop there you get the idea. Somebody looking at your photo does not know what it means to you, how much you’ve gone through to get the photo, how important it is, and how long you spent processing it in Lightroom, Photoshop, and Luminar (other software is available).

A stranger looking at your photo cares about one thing and one thing only. And this is why I’ve been going on about composition so much. All they care about is what they can see. So imagine a stranger looking at your photo, why should they be interested in it?

• Why should they like it?
• What makes them not like it?

These are great questions. It’s very hard to do a self-critique because I’ve never taken a bad photo. I’m not gonna lie to you. I wish.

Okay, next point.

Find interesting things to photograph.

Now, there’s a good way of doing this. It’s another of my high-tech, expensive suggestions. Go for a walk. Go for a walk anywhere. Some woods, the park, town, anywhere. Just go for a walk and look. In the last episode, I made the point that when you’re trying to choose a composition, don’t walk around with your camera against your eye, walk around with your camera ready.

But just use your eyes.

Go for a walk

Go for a walk, find something that you want to photograph. You should have an idea by now what you want to photograph, and where you need to go (if you need to go anywhere). I do talk a lot as though you’re all taking landscape photos. I do realise that’s not the case.

What I do

But all I photograph are buildings, landscapes, and travel locations. I once came up with a really good tagline – buildings, nice places and buildings in nice places.

So the principles still stand.

We’re talking about taking more interesting photos

So finding interesting places to photograph is a great thing. Don’t photograph boring things.

For example, I went to my local woods. They’re a mile away from where I live, never been to them before. I have told the tale of carrying about 38 kilos of camera gear, but I got some great photos. This leads me to my next point.

Check the weather.

Go out when you get some interesting weather. Now interesting weather is not necessarily blue skies and sunshine. Not for photographers. That’s okay, but it’s not interesting. Cloudy weather, mist, fog, snow, sleet, hail, even rain, this is interesting weather.

Photos in the rain?

Yep, even rain. You can take your camera out, it won’t melt in water, trust me. Just buy a microfibre cloth, put it over your camera, or buy a rain sleeve – these cost about three or four quid and you’re fine.

But weather can make landscape photos, outdoor photos, nature photos, travel photos, call it what you will, even architectural photos. And obviously, the weather depends on where you are.

My weather

Now I live in England, so our weather is 75% rubbish. We have to factor the weather into our photographs or change the sky later.

Return another time of day. I’ll come on to this in the next episode.

So I’m not going to spend too long on this one. But basically, you can get a great photo at any time of the day. You can also get a rubbish photo any time of the day.

Technical stuff.

I take it as read that the exposure, focus and everything else will be correct. That’s a given in photography, no excuses these days. And if you’ve got difficult light, just do bracketing. I’ll explain that in an episode rather soon, hopefully, because it’s something I want to get over to people.

Composition

So in taking more interesting photos, think about the composition. Think about what you’re photographing.

If you’re new to my podcast, if you go back to the last episode, or the one before that or the one before that I talk a lot more about composition. The most important part of a photo is the photo itself.

Look at other photographers’ work

Now, this is something that I am not very good at. I always mean to do this but never get around to looking at other photographers’ work. Now great photographers are great photographers for a reason. Normally, it’s because they take great photos.

There are some great photographers who are great marketers, but not great photographers. But hey, that’s not a criticism. If I could be a great photographer and take rubbish photos but be great at marketing, I’d be more than happy

Look at other photographers’ work. Just I don’t know, just go on the internet, Google images, find sites with famous photographers on and have a look.

A word on Ansel Adams

I have an Ansel Adams calendar. That’s the first word I’ve got seriously wrong in this episode. And I’m eight minutes in. So that’s a big improvement. I have an Ansel Adams calendar, calendar, not colander, in my office.

Check him out if you have not done so before.

And I look at that on a daily basis. And it depresses me that I couldn’t have taken that photo.

The last point, take more interesting photos.

I’m almost reluctant to say this. But I have to acknowledge the fact that it’s the 2020s, soon to be 2021. Social media – put photos up there and see if people like them, ignore them or hate them. This is a very good barometer of the instant society.

So like I said, not a fan of it myself. That’s probably because I’m quite old. So yeah, check things out on social media, and see how many thumbs up, likes, or whatever else you get.

Okay, that’s it. Nothing too technical. just common sense. Good old-fashioned advice. Can’t beat it.

Next?

So what’s next on the photography explained podcast?

What time of day is best to take photos? I gave you that clue earlier on that one. Okay, thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, please leave a nice review and rating wherever you get your podcasts from.

Post-episode note – next episode – What Time Of Day Is Best To Take Photos?

Subscribe

And please subscribe so you don’t miss an episode. And if you could also tell everyone you know about me and my podcast that will be even better. You can also check out my website, Rick McEvoy Photography. Want me to answer a question? Let me know via my website. And that’s me done running out of time.

I’ve been Rick McEvoy thank you again for Listening and giving me 10 minutes of your day. I’ll hopefully see you on 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.

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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