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You should practice photography every single day… or should you?

by 5 Comments

There are many good reasons to take photos every day. Many photographers agree that it will help you improve, and Toma Bonciu is one of them. In this video, he reveals why you should practice photography every single day. But I tend to disagree with this point of view, so I’ll also share some of my thoughts about it.

In the video, Toma goes over a few topics related to his main point. Basically, he deals with why planning the perfect photo cannot be better than just going out and shooting. He discusses why “making is better than thinking,” and I sure agree with this point. When choosing between the two extremes, I also believe that taking even bad photos is better than thinking about the great photo you might make once. Practice makes perfect, as they say. The trial and error process and lots of experimenting will eventually get you to the photo you wanted to make. On the other hand, planning the shot and contemplating about it without actually shooting anything won’t do much for you.

Another argument Toma gives is that taking photos as often as possible will “train your eyes and your brain.” In other words, you’ll recognize potential photos in places where other photographers won’t see them. From my experience, this doesn’t necessarily have to do with how often you take photos, but more on that later.

Because of his arguments above, Toma believes that taking a photo a day will make you a better photographer. For example, doing a “365 project” could turn photography in your chore and your habit, and you’ll eventually start taking better photos without overthinking them before making them. But this “chore/habit” part is one of the major problems I have with shooting every day.

Back in 2017, I wrote about my own experience with a 365 project and why I thought I hadn’t done anything for me. One of the things I hated was exactly that the project turned photography into a chore. I didn’t like that, and sometimes I would take a photo just to shoot something and meet my quota. That’s no way to improve if you ask me. And it brings me to the next point which I mentioned above: taking photos every day doesn’t necessarily improve your photography.

In my opinion, it’s not about how often you shoot, but about how aware you are while doing it. There’s no use in shooting every day if you only take photos you can say you did it. I think it’s much better to shoot less often, when you really feel like it. But while you take photos, be present in that moment, think about what you’re shooting, and experiment with angles and compositions. Also, analyzing your photos later could help you a lot, even if you don’t like them.

Between contemplating a great photo and taking a bunch of bad ones before you nail it – I choose the second approach without any doubt. However, I don’t think that you should take that bunch of photos every single day. It will turn photography into a chore, and nobody likes chores. After all, we have enough of them already.

[Why Practicing Photography Every Day Makes you a BETTER Photographer via FStoppers]

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  • I’m a firm believer in practice makes perfect. Prior to photography, I was really into music and at one point was playing eight hours a day, even if it was just to practice. I was a monster player back then because of it, but it wasn’t like I was blindly practicing. When I was playing and practicing, there was a purpose behind it. I wasn’t practicing just to practice, but was very intentional in the things I did practice. As the author points out, doing something every day makes it a chore. I think that is the only the case if you get to the point where you are doing something just so you can say you did it. I am sure taking a photo a day will help develop skills at some point and I can see why it would force you to try and be more creative each day just to keep it from getting boring, but practicing something on a day to day basis when you have a goal in mind is much different than practicing just to practice. My approach is if I am going to force myself to practice every day, I am going to be practicing the same thing every day and it is going to be very intentional with a goal attached to it. When I started really trying to expand my photography and experiment, I would spend hours a day practicing water drop photography. This was not a single picture a day and required a lot of trial and error. The lessons I learned made me a better photographer in many different aspects of photography from shaping light, challenging myself to be creative, and just familiarizing myself with different processes that are present in all forms of photography. Practicing something like that on a daily basis is different than aimlessly forcing yourself to go out and finding one thing to take a picture of each day. Would a 365 day challenge have any benefit to me at this stage, probably not, but it probably would have had more of an impact when I only knew a small fraction of the things I know now, so the answer to the question comes down to the skill set and motivation of the photographer, in my opinion.

  • if your goal is to be better at ANYTHING then daily practice is good advice – with the caveat that “how” you practice is very important – i.e. “deliberate practice” is better than simply doing the same thing everyday.

    so with photography daily practice will make you much better if you are able to learn from your mistakes and “happy accidents.” If you shoot exactly the same picture everyday (same time, same location, same subject, same controlled lighting) you probably won’t learn much – or you could learn a lot from taking a daily picture of the same subject under different conditions … (e.g. I always think of Monet painting the same subject over and over)

    so it isn’t just that “practice makes perfect” but that “perfect practice yields expertise”

  • Tj Ó Seamállaigh

    guilty of this myself

  • I’ve been taking photos everyday almost for 40 yrs

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