If You Check Even 2 of These Signs, You’re Not a Beginner Photographer Anymore

Most of us are familiar with the Dunning-Kruger effect, where the more you know about something, the less you know you know. Or something like that anyway! And of course, the opposite is also true. This can make it hard to tell if you’re improving at something, even if you’re working consistently hard over time. And photography is no exception.

In this video, photographer Pat Kay sums up exactly how to know if you’ve moved from the ‘beginner photographer’ bracket to something a little more advanced. But lets be real here: improving your photography is the journey, not the destination!

1. You Notice Light First, Not Your Settings

A beginner photographer is often preoccupied with the technicalities: What aperture should I use? Is my shutter speed fast enough? What’s the right ISO? While nailing these settings is crucial, the intermediate photographer has largely internalised them. Pat notes that they can adjust them quickly, often without a second thought.

The real shift happens in what you see first. The intermediate photographer walks into a cafe and the first thing they notice is that amazing patch of soft light hitting a table,” Pat says. “A beginner might only see it if they’re sitting in the seat.”

This is the hallmark of progress. You start to understand that light is the fundamental ingredient of photography. Your subjects, composition, and technique are all ultimately expressed through light. When you find yourself instinctively chasing beautiful light instead of fumbling with dials, you’ve graduated to a new level.

2. You Can Previsualize a Shot (And Actually Get It Right)

Photography begins in the mind. It’s about having a vision for a scene before you even raise your camera. Beginners can certainly have these moments of inspiration, but the final image often looks vastly different from what they imagined.

The intermediate phase is when your vision and your execution start to align. You’ll see a composition in the wild and have a much clearer idea of how to capture it. As Pat explains, advanced photographers can even envision how different focal lengths will compress a scene. For now, if you’re starting to successfully translate the pictures in your head into real photos, you’re on the right track. This requires one thing above all: “There is no substitute for time.”

3. You’re Deleting Fewer Photos (Your “Strike Rate” Is Improving)

This sign is a direct result of the first two. As you master your settings and improve your previsualization, your keeper rate (the number of successful photos per shoot) naturally goes up.

Pat laughs about his early days in street photography: “I would get maybe one good photo out of every four or five hundred.” He was slow with settings and had to experiment constantly. But as he improved, that ratio got better and better. “Now, if it’s a landscape scenario, I get close to one-to-one a lot of the time,” he adds.

Pat uses a great analogy: learning to cook. At first, you waste a lot of ingredients. But as you become a better chef, you know exactly what to do with every item. If you’re culling your photos and finding a genuine keeper in every 50 or 100 shots instead of every 500, congratulate yourself. You’re becoming more intentional and efficient. Lucky we aren’t shooting film anymore, eh?

4. You Can Identify Why a Photo Is Good

This is the sign that almost no one talks about. How do you really know a photo is good? Is it Instagram likes? A famous photographer’s approval?

Pat offers a brilliant, actionable definition: A good photo is an intentional one. It means you can see the photographer’s intention and they have clearly communicated it through their image. The rest is subjective taste.

Progressing to an intermediate level means you start to decode this “visual language.” You understand why a photographer framed a subject a certain way, chose a specific colour palette, or positioned elements to relate to one another. “It’s like unlocking a secret code,” Pat says, “a code that you can then replicate in your own work.” When you can analyse photos beyond “I like it,” you’ve gained a critical skill that will elevate everything you create.

5. People Start Asking You for Advice

if I had a dollar for every person who has asked me which camera to buy, I’d probably have, well, around 50 bucks by now. Joking aside, however, this is a fairly obvious sign you’re going places. It means that other people see you in a different light. So even though internally you may still be battling a heavy dose of imposter syndrome, on the outside you’re the photographic equivalent of a swan gliding over the water.

Think about it: people rarely ask other beginners for advice. They seek guidance from those they perceive as more knowledgeable and skilled.

“When people start asking you for advice,” Pat explains, “it’s because they think you’re better at the craft than they are.” This doesn’t happen overnight. It’s the result of consistently putting in the work, sharing your photos, and showing gradual improvement. Your growing body of work creates an impression of authority. If peers are coming to you for tips, take it as a sure sign that your hard work is paying off and your skills are being recognised.

So, did you see yourself in any of these signs? If you recognised a few, it might be time to start exploring more intermediate techniques and challenges. Keep shooting, keep learning, and most importantly, keep seeing the world through your unique lens. Watch the video below, and tell us in the comments if there are any other signs that Pat didn’t mention!

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