Confidence or lack of it can and will break you...

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They say leaders are naturally confident. Well, that may be true for some people, however, I believe one is confident when one knows what they are doing. With that said, this post is about building confidence as a photographer. To be honest, these steps will help you in most things where you need to build your confidence, but let’s narrow it to photography or today…

7 Ways To Becoming More Confident As a Photographer

  • Know Your Equipment. Learning your gear inside and out will help you immensely in becoming more confident as a photographer. ... I take time to learn my speed lights and how they’ll behave under different situations. Also, I try to create DIFFERENT MOODS with the lights for when I need it.

  • Educate Yourself. Going hand in hand with reading the manual, make sure you are investing in education. Take a workshop or go online at CREATIVE LIVE or PHLEARN and learn various techniques in Photoshop or other software.

  • Practice. ... GET OUT AND SHOOT everything you can. They say it takes 10,000 hours of doing one thing before you become proficient. I don’t know about all that, but I do know you need to shoot a lot before you can get comfortable with your camera, the settings, the knobs and the menu.

  • Pre-visualize. ... Have an idea of what you want the final image to look like. I draw out my ideas and use them as a guide for the shoot.

  • Constructive Critique. ... You need it! It’s the only way to GROW as a photographer.

  • Community Participation. ...Join groups and photo meetups. Get out and do photo walks with other photography interested people. You’ll never know how much you can learn.

  • Enter Photo Contests…Don’t pay for it, but submit your images to free competitions. There are plenty of local. Check out your local photo clubs and be sure to copyright everything you submit. Read more about photo confidence here.

Practice, Practice, Practice, using every piece of equipment you have. I shoot everything that interests me. I edit some, and share a lot with my friends. I ask for honest criticism (most of us don’t like that), but if you want to get better you need this feedback. It’s the only way to grow! See some images here.

So, get out there, shoot a lot, shoot often, share, and if you have a gem or two PRINT them.

No one will know you’re a photographer if you don’t share your images using whatever platform you prefer.

Mildred Cintron