Tips For Shooting Under Every Condition

Depending on the type of photos you want to take, you will find yourself in a wide range of conditions. Whether you are shooting portraits, landscapes, or streetphotography, when you’re in a variety of different conditions, things don’t always go as planned. Here are a fewphotography tips for shooting under every condition:
Don’t get hung up on fancy gear
At an amateur level, unless you are extremely lucky, it is quite rare to find yourself in a situation where you have all the equipment, light and space that the professionals have. For most of us,photography comes down to acamera, a bag, and the will to make something beautiful and creative. Forget about the fancy studio, or controlled environment. You shoot with what you have.

Know how to adapt
Photography is more about knowing how to adapt than having the right gear. Sometimes, it’s actually when you are in the worst conditions that you can take your best images. If the weather is horrible, be confident that somewhere, there is an amazing picture to be taken; if you find yourself surrounded by darkness, find that sliver of light.

Serendipity is key
When you go out to shoot, you usually know the type of shot you want or, better yet, you already have a precise image envisioned in your head. Unfortunately for us photographers, the world rarely gives us what we want. The light might not be right, a crowd might be blocking your shot. Luckily, in exchange it offers you something else that you must be ready to capture. The images that you stumble upon usually end up being way better than the one you wanted.

Get your hands dirty
The most powerful photos in history were not taken in studios. They were taken by men and women in harsh conditions. The “Flower Power” photograph was taken during a protest in Boston; the “Napalm Girl” photograph, that Facebook tried censoring, was taken during the Vietnam War after a napalm strike. I am not saying that you need to put yourself in danger to take good images, but I believe you must not shy away from a challenging situation only because it could damage your gear. At the end of the day, yourcamera is only an enabler and you must treat it as such. If it gets a bit wet, gets a bit beat up, or gets scratched it’s really not the end of the world as long as you got the shot.
Always have acamera with you
Chase Jarvis, a man wiser than I, once said, “the bestcamera is the one that you have with you”. This common sensed mantra is pretty easy to respect nowadays as all smartphones comes withcamera capabilities that get better every year. You have no more excuses not to shoot.
The bottom line is this: buy acamera, buy a bag with an easy access to your gear and that protects it when you’re not using it, and keep in mind that once you take it out and start shooting, all bets are off.

 
Adrien Vatel
Adrien is a photographer out to prove that the world is beautiful one picture at a time. Check out his snaps on Instagram.