Are you new to photography? Here are 10 tips and tricks for improving your photos

posted Thursday, June 28, 2018 at 4:00 PM EDT

While the title of their latest Picture This! video, "Why your photos suck," is inflammatory, Tony and Chelsea Northrup have some great tips for how to improve your photos. The focus of the video is on 10 things you might be doing that make your photos worse and how you can easily and quickly improve.

The first reason your photos might not be very good is rather obvious, you're new. Photography is like many other skills, it requires practice and experience. If you aren't happy with your photos, don't get discouraged, just keep shooting and trying to shoot with more purpose and intentionality. If you do that, look at and share your work, you'll get better.

That's an important tip that Tony and Chelsea discuss as well, it's important to share your work and enter it into contests, publications, etc. You can learn a lot by finding out which shots of yours people like and dislike. Of course, just because something isn't popular doesn't mean it's bad, but getting second and third opinions is a great way to evaluate what is and isn't working about your shots.

Similarly, you don't want to ever get too comfortable, especially when you are learning and trying to improve. Broadening your horizons and trying new types of photography is a great way to improve your photos. You need to push yourself. It can be intimidating, but a fun way to make it less scary is working with other photographers and artists. You can learn a lot from others, so don't hesitate to reach out to other photographers and perhaps even collaborate.