In this week's podcast, we talk about the importance of figuring out what you really need to know to be a successful photographer. When we look at a photograph, we make a lot of decisions about what we like about the image and what we don't like about the image. As we work on the edits, we need to figure out how to make the photograph better. Our goal in editing to elevate the photograph to be something that matches our vision. Unfortunately, it is very easy to get distracted from that main goal of photographic creation and start just to learn how to do all sorts of techniques in the darkroom. The challenge then becomes, with thousands of techniques available to learn, that you can spend all your time learning techniques that may or may not be useful to your photographic process. When that happens, you then learn Photoshop rather than being your photographic voice.

So what is a photographer to do? Here is what I have learned about my process. I need to find a way to have my time be efficiently used. Second, when I look at an image to edit, and I know how to resolve the issues with what I know, then I should use what I know. If, and only if, I don't know how to fix the issue or my current fix doesn't work, then I need to learn the new skill. The thing that makes us better photographers is making photographs. So the more time you can spend on the creation of your photographs and not on techniques that you may never use the better.

Gear used in podcast

All three Rode components as kit

Adobe Audition (part of create cloud subscription)