Bonjour Mesdames et Messieurs. In this video, I want to show
you some mistakes that you need to avoid
as a photographer.
I am completely guilty of this mistake.
This is something that I've waste to hundreds of hours on,
and I don't want you to make the same mistake that I did
when you are starting photography or if you just wanna get it better at photography,
So let's get this party started.
Mistake number one not shooting at the right time.
Let me tell you this crazy story. You know,
I've been doing photography for a couple of years back in 2006 - 2007 and I remember one night,
I set up myself to take photos of Paris by night
because I've always excited on how Paris looks by night.
And so I took a tripod. It took me like year to figure out how to get good sharp photos at night.
And I went on this crazy project of shooting Paris by night.
And I stayed from eight o'clock or like,
right around sunset all the way to, like, two o'clock in the morning.
And I just shot Paris by night. And I was so happy because my photos were sharp.
This is some of the shots that I got, I hate these photos now,
you know, I was so happy because it was like Paris by
night and the Quais de Seine and the Louvre and Montmartre.
And I remember the next day I was working in an agency which had professional photographers,
and I rushed into this agency, and I went to see one of the lead photographer that was there.
He had, like, worked for Vogue Magazine. He knew like a superstar photographer.
And I said, hey, Michel. Michel, I gotta show you,
I shot Paris by night, and I start showing him on my laptop,
all these incredible photos of Paris by night,
and I could tell that he did not like them.
And says, what's wrong? Why don't you like about these photos?
And this is, but all your skies are black.
And then he starts showing me incredible photos.
Of, like, sunset, blue hour,
golden hour. And I'm looking at him and I said, yeah,
I understand. But, you know, there was no sunset,
there was no golden hour. And I think there was a blue hour,
but I shot Paris by night. And I said,
do you mean that I can only shoot
when there is like a beautiful moment of light and he looked at me, laughed and said,
welcome to the world of photography. And that blew my mind.
It blew my mind. So I realized that now I really needed to capture
some amazing moments of life from that moment,
I only started taking out my cameras, only when it was like a good golden hour,
a good blue hour, and a good sunset. This totally changed my life that one advise, changed everything
for me.
Let me show you some photos. You see what I mean. Like, look at this photo of Notre-Dame.
Taken in the middle of afternoon. Look at the same photo.
at golden hour. Isn’t that more beautiful, you know, with an ND filter.
This is the Louvre, middle of afternoon, this is the Louvre at sunset.
Much more interesting. This is the Quais de Seine in Paris in the middle of the afternoon,
the same view. At sunset. So shooting at the right time of the day is the most important thing.
I can tell you something one day I'm gonna make a t shirt that says,
whatever you're seeing, there is 99% chance that it's
gonna look better at golden hour at sunset or at blue hour.
So during the day now, I just walk around with my iPhone
and I just look for composition or framings.
And then when the good light comes, I take the photo.
Okay. Mistake: not getting mentored.
I can tell you something that when I am not training as of my photography stays the same.
I keep on taking the same kind of photography. And when I learn new stuff,
then I start improving my photography. But what really gives me,
like, this huge huge boost.
Like, really, like, pam pam, where I really go very much faster as a photographer.
When I talk to people which really are ahead of the game of what I'm doing.
For example, years ago, I used to be a salesman selling website
for hotels and I was dealing with this hotel called the Hotel Littré in Paris
and I started doing photography and they were like,
oh, we love your photos of Paris. We've seen what you've been doing.
We would like to have amazing black and white for the corridors in a hotel.
And we'll give you like two thousand dollars if you can give us like ten photos.
I was so happy so I went out in Paris
and I never done black and white and this is some of of photos that I sold to the hotel.
And honestly, I was very ashamed because I couldn't tell what it was,
but I did not like these photos. So this is what I sold.
I took the two thousand dollars, but I didn't feel good.
They kind of liked the photos, but in my heart,
I did not feel good. And then I met this man,
Jean-Michel Berts. He's an amazing black and photographer.
He's been shooting with 4x5 camera for thirty years.
He has published, like, so many coffee table books.
Amazing amazing photographer. I mean, his work is mind blowing.
And, you know, he was shooting Paris in black and white,
and he showed me something called Dodge and Burn.
And literally, in a few minutes, using curved and photoshop,
he showed me how he was getting this, like, crazy,
crazy black and white photos.
And I spent a bit of time with him in Jerusalem where he shot a whole book in black and white And,
you know, he explained me the Ansel Adams zone system.
He showed me some of the old black
and white how they look before retouching
and after retouching and that retouching has been around almost
as long as photography existed.
And so I had this huge epiphany, BAM! mind blowing,
dodge, and burn. And just to show you after like a 15/20 minutes discussion,
check this out. Look how my black and white change, this is.
Before this discussion, this is after the discussion.
This is before the discussion, this is after the discussion before after.
I mean, look at the difference. Look at the kind of black and white I've been able to do today.
And just because I also studied in Ansel Adams,
I've studied Nick Brandt and Sebastian Salgado and many many other photographers.
This whole world of Dodge and Burn was a complete,
complete life changer to me. So can you imagine that just talking to a master for twenty minutes,
how much it changed my life and how much it is black in my photography?
So keep learning. Go to workshop go on for on photowalk,
go to photo clubs, but the most important find mentors that you love
and reverse engineering what they do.
That is how you're gonna make the biggest,
biggest, biggest improvement as a photographer.
The few hours I've been able to spend here with,
you know, Jean Michel Berts, Scott Kelby, Joel Grimes,
and many others, masters that have studied like Erik Almas and Clyde Butcher.
I learned so much. Not working with mentors is what I did for the first five years,
and my photography was going nowhere, and I almost stopped at with.
So come to my workshop or other people's workshop,
find mentors that you trust, that you love their style and work with them.
The next big mistake I did a lot especially
when shooting sunset was not exposing for the highlights.
Let me give you an example. This is a photo I shot in Montmartre years ago
and I did not expose it for the highlights.
I was so happy because I really wanted to see the details of the stairs and everything.
But check this out. When I bring down the highlights to the max,
I'm losing everything. I'm losing everything.
I don't have the details in the sky. Look at this.
Same photo taken just a few minutes after, well under exposed.
you are like, yeah, but it's too dark. And this was shot with a Canon 5D Mark II a very noisy camera.
Check this out. I open the shadows. I bring down the highlights.
I get all the details. I do my black.
And I do my black point and look at this,
I'm not even done with it, but I get every detail.
Everything just comes out alive so life so much.
So the stable data is, you just look at your photo
and see if you've got a bit of details
and texture behind your camera and look at your histogram and make sure your histogram,
you know, just touches the right side don't want the histogram to go like
this over where it crashes on the right side,
you don't want it to be like this where it's too under exposed, you want it to look like this.
So use the histogram or just make sure you have texture around the brightest part of the photo
and you should be good.
Not understanding what composition is and the world of composition.
What is composition? Composition is the arrangement of the
element of your work of the art to convey a message.
That is what composition is. Now there are rules that exist
since a very long time that can help you to compose better.
For example, the rule of third. The rule of third is this grid that you have from left to
right or top down where you this four points and you try to position the things at the right place.
For example, this is a photo I shot in Oregon.
You can see I've got two third of the water and that sort of hole the water and one third of sky.
So I use the ruel of third to go one third of sky,
two third of land. Same thing
for this photo in Yosemite, you can see there is like two third of the mountains
and just one third of sky.
Another rule which I find super important is leading lines.
Leading lines is very important. Sometime a photo can be very
slide and having leading lines like this really helps to focus
the eyes of the person inside of the photo.
Look at the leading lines. I walk
so much. I remember in a dune to get that perfect line leading into the photo.
Leading lines again here in Iceland where I was trying to do some wave painting,
so I would get, you know, when a wave would come back,
giving these little lines. The next one is foreground,
, middle ground, and background. Now, this one is really hard.
I spent so much time especially shooting in the wild like landscape to
find like natural interesting foreground elements.
I always say what you put in the next three to six feet of your camera is super important
because, you don’t want it too big, you don't want it too small
and it gives an anchor point from where you're shooting the photo.
Look at this like this rock really acts well as a leading line.
This is the entrance of Zion National Park. Where I used this tree as an entrance point.
But the most important thing when it comes to composition is having a strong story.
Something that people can identify which is interesting and something that people can relate to.
The next mistake which I've been very guilty of is over retouching photo.
This is some of my early work, which I loved at the time.
It is so over-retouched. It's over the top.
I mean, you know, the problem is like, when you show that kind of photo to people.
Usually, they respond by saying, oh, it's beautiful, but you did something to it,
you know. And that's why I developed something called natural drama years after
because I don't want people to react emotionally to my photos
about the fact that I did some retouching.
Look at the difference. This is the Pont Neuf in Paris, and this is the Pont Neuf with natural drama.
It's still very dramatic. But it's much more natural.
This is also a sunrise in Paris completely over the top,
completely overcooked, and this is how I do it using the natural drama.
Much more gentle, much more natural. So try to retouch your photo not too much,
not too less because that brings me to my next mistake is under retouching your photos.
Let me give you example of this photo. This photo could be under retouch.
Like example, I opened a shadow, I bring on the highlights,
I do my black, I do my white and I do a bit of contrast.
It's nice, but it could be much more powerful.
That sunset was incredible.
So if I start going here and I go to the camera matching preset from Fuji
because this was shot with Fuji and I used Velvia vivid,
for example, and I start playing around with the white balance,
I get a much stronger photo. There is something to be said about not retouching enough your photo.
You have to find the right balance. Alright,
guys. I hope this can help you check out my latest book on Lightroom called,
lightroom natural drama you can get for free under this video.
And please tell me in the comments what you would like to learn.
It really helps me. I'm trying to make two videos per week.
Really wanna give you as much value as possible. And if you can like this video,
it would change your world
for me. Thank you so much. I hope you enjoy my book and I'll see you in another video.
I have my Sony A7r IV with 24-105 mm,
which is what I do ninety percent of my work with.
I have a G master 12-24 mm for like wide angle shots where I can get very low.
We'll see if we need that. And where I'm going, there's a lot of wild life.
So I brought a 70-300 mm, which is kind of my
longest lens to see if I can do some wild life
photography
So let's go and do it.