Most of my photography is practice.
It might not come across that way in the content I share online. It might be tempting to think that my images and videos were made in just a handful of trips, or that they come easily to me. But the few pieces I share are just a heavily curated selection of a much, much bigger collection.
When I say I do photography every day, I mean it: I try to go out as often as I can, for as long as I can. Literally thousands of hours spent outside, walking, riding my bike, or just driving my car, all of them with a camera on me.
I took 20,000+ photographs in 2021 -and recorded hundreds of hours of footage-. You haven’t seen even 1% of those, because most are bad. Some are worse, just terrible.
Bad photographs are not to be avoided, though, they are part of the process: failures can teach us much more than the successes. That’s why I go out with my camera on a daily basis, even though I know most of the times I won’t be making anything but mediocre images.
By using it every day, I got to know my camera so well that it has become second nature: no longer I have to pause to think how to do something — I know how to do it because I’ve done it thousands of times.
I get out even when it’s cold, or rainy. Not even… especially when it’s miserable outside. Chances are, when we finally stumble upon an incredible scene, the conditions will be bad. If we are used to nasty weather, that won’t hold us back. That’s also why I try to be in good shape, to not feel tired when it matters the most, so I can go further or stay out for longer.
This is my practice. Other people’s will look different, but I do believe every photographer needs some kind of habits to further develop their photographic skills.
Do you practice your photography? If so, how?
The storks are back from their annual migration, and of course I had to visit their nesting spot. I’ve been photographing these beautiful birds for almost 3 years and I hope to keep doing it for years to come.
new images
Thank you so much for being there, talk to you soon,
Adrian
I think carrying a camera all the time and capturing anything that seems interesting is good practice. With that you get to see your own patterns, what caught your eye and so on. Also, trying different settings, picture formats and so on is great !