Get ready mentally. Athletes do it before a big game, CEO’s do it before giving an important presentation, stunt men pre-visualize their moves, surgeons do it before making an incision, and so on. As photographers, we should do it before we press the shutter. Think about all the tricks you’ve learned, think about all the techniques you’ve absorbed, think about all the hours of tutorials you’ve watched. Then, before you take the picture, reflect upon these things. The best way to ensure you do this is to get ready mentally. 

Create a checklist of photographic techniques and important concepts and memorize it. Before you press the shutter, run through all its items. When I learned to ski moguls, I’d stand at the top of the run and tell myself to point my hips down the hill, keep my hands forward, and not look down at my ski tips. These were the key concepts on which I needed to focus. Depending on your level of photography, create a key list of items and play them out in your head before you press the shutter. As a photo tour leader, I see common barriers that prevent my participants from getting the best possible images. As a result, I share the following with them:

a) Before pressing the shutter, ask yourself if you left enough room for implied movement of the action. If the action is headed to the left, leave a lot more room on the left side of the image. The same holds true regarding the direction the subject looks or faces even if it isn’t moving. For instance, if a person is looking out of the frame, more room needs to be placed to that side so it feels “comfortable” for the viewer. This holds true for vertical subjects regarding the amount of extra room placed at the top or bottom of the frame. If a tall tree is photographed in a vertical format but cropped right at the tip, there’s discomfort as it leaves no room for the tree to “grow.” If it moves, looks, grows, dangles, hangs or anything else where movement is implied, leave extra room.

©Russ Burden

b) Before pressing the shutter, ask yourself if you checked to see what aperture the lens is set to to acquire the necessary depth of field. It’s essential to stop the lens down to cover foreground to background depth of field in a scenic. But you just made a portrait of a family member using a wide open aperture. If you forget to stop the lens down to f16, the scenic image will fall short. Conversely, the opposite scenario holds true. Regardless of the situation, it’s easy to forget to spin the aperture to achieve the necessary look for the best possible image. Add this to your mental checklist. If you do, every image you take will be made at the proper aperture. 

©Russ Burden

c) Before pressing the shutter, ask yourself if the light is straight forward or tricky. If it’s tricky, remind yourself to check for blinkies on the LCD. The blinkies screen in addition to the histogram are a photographer’s best friend but they often go unchecked. My belief is I’d rather lose one potential shot in the time it takes to check the screen and make necessary adjustments as opposed to not checking it and make 50 images destined for the delete button. If blinkies appear, dial in minus compensation to reduce the amount of light. If the shadows butt up on the left side of the histogram, dial in plus compensation to open them up. If both extremes of the histogram are blocked up, bracket the exposures and blend them in post processing using layers or an HDR program such as Nik HDR Efex Pro. 

©Russ Burden

d) Before pressing the shutter, ask yourself if you checked the entire viewfinder. Performing this one item on the checklist will quickly bring your photography to the next level. Think about how many times you’ve looked at an image you made and not remembered seeing the distraction that appears on the top, bottom, side or background. There are many other questions one can ask themselves before pressing the shutter. Based on your needs, let the above serve as a foundation to create your own.

To learn more about this topic, join me on one of my Nature Photo Tours. Visit russburdenphotography.com and click on the NATURE TOURS button for more information. Also, email me to be placed on my Tip of the Week list and to receive announcements about upcoming tours specials or to pick up a copy of my book, Amphoto’s Complete Book of Photography. You can purchase a signed copy directly from me or visit your local book store or Amazon. Contact me at rburden@ecentral.com to order your signed copy.