What are the Most Important Photography Settings?

The ending of a year is a time of mixed emotions. We might be elated and proud of the goals we kicked or the unexpected results in competitions, where we did better than we’d hoped. But there might also be a twinge of sadness or frustration from unfinished projects that lie discarded on the cutting room floor or from results in competitions where our images went unrecognised.

But the dawning of a New Year brings with it new possibilities to do better. It is a chance to dream again and redesign our destiny. Perhaps this time we will be more realistic about the goals we set and more dedicated in seeing them through. Goal settings should also come with promises we make to ourselves as to how we achieve them.

This is a post about looking back and reflecting on how my creative journey has transpired and some of the life settings that helped me evolve to create images with intention.

Each year I visit the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, when it arrives in Sydney from the Natural History Museum in the United Kingdom. I have come to realise that many of the photographers who make it at this level have one trait in common and that is patience. I have marvelled at their dedication and persistence to get images that I can only dream of. I don’t have the physical ability to spend hours let alone days in harsh weather conditions or the stamina to hike for days in challenging terrain. Yet, in these past years I have created some nature images in my own backyard that I can be proud of, just because I was patient and persistent. Let me explain.

I live next door to a national park in Northern Sydney and I am often on the deck of my home with my Canon R6 and EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 lens at the ready. Most of the images I take are of birds commonly found in Australia so they rarely raise eyebrows in Australian competitions. But practicing my nature settings (1/2000sec, f/5.6-f/8, auto ISO, Servo, Evaluative or Spot metering and eye tracking) has helped me gain an understanding of what is needed in this genre and how to adjust it for varying light conditions.

I was sitting at my desk, absorbed in my work when I heard the cry of the little butcher bird. I didn’t recognise it then but I knew it was an unusual birdcall for my garden. Getting my gear ready for a nature shoot on my deck is now second nature to me. I can easily recall my nature settings because they are saved as a custom functions. But I also know that I must venture out carefully, as the smaller birds are easily spooked.

When I poked my head outside, I was amazed to discover the butcher birds on my gum tree, with mum (or was it dad?) feasting and feeding the baby with the cicadas that have been prolific this summer. I stand in the shadow of the door frame and shoot. I am acutely conscious that any sudden motion might scare them away. After years of practicing my craft from my deck, I came away with some of the best images I have ever created at home even if I wish I could have moved into a better position.

Similarly, over the years, I have also watched the St Andrews Spiders for months, as they wove their silky zig-zag webs along my boundary fence. I got into the habit of checking up on them several times a day and read up on their life cycle. I also observed that it was on really hot days that they caught their really big prey and wondered if there was a correlation. I learnt it was the female that was the more colourful of the two spiders but that the male would eventually build a separate web in anticipation of when they might mate. Understanding the behaviour of the little critters you are photographing can also lead you to be prepared for those unique images that win competitions.

Persistence also goes hand in hand with patience. I keep going back to the same scene, day after day in the hope that something exciting might happen. I keep my gear ready in the event that it does. While ‘Patience’ and ‘Persistence’ are vital ingredients especially for a nature and wildlife photographer there is an element of luck that also comes into play when you are persistent. The more persistent you are, the greater your chances of being blessed with a bit of luck!

Patience and persistence must also be followed by practice if we want to achieve perfection even if all this sounds incredibly monotonous. Practicing nature photography in my home garden means that when I am out shooting in wetlands and wildlife reserves where more exciting stuff might be happening, I can get into my stride and recall my settings without needing to worry about the technicalities.

Using those settings of patience and persistence, I keep going back to certain wetlands when I am in the area, hoping that there could be interesting bird activity. One such place I visit often is in a small town called Urunga, on the Mid-North coast of NSW, Australia. The wetland is a local one in a small neighbourhood park that I heard about from a local. I come here even when I don’t expect to find much activity. On one such occasion, I was excited to discover it was nesting time and the wetland was full of life. I had only just dialled in my nature settings and focussed my lens to observe one of them when mum flew in to regurgitate a meal and feed it. I could not have been more excited. I don’t often get a chance to capture such images.

Communicating our intention is the key to making images that resonate with others. One of my mentors told me that if a judge isn’t getting my image, then that is on me! I joined a camera club in 2011, very shortly after I discovered a passion for photography. At the time, I thought my images were quite good and was quite disheartened when I didn’t perform as well as I thought I should. Then I began to understand that an image that resonated with my friends and family on social media wasn’t necessarily a good competition image. I also learnt there was a lot more to photography than pressing that shutter button.

The graph below depicting the Dunning Kruger effect—in which people with limited competence in a particular domain overestimate their abilities—best describes my creative journey!

As I listened to feedback from camera club judges I learnt you had to lead people through your image, darken the edges, remove distractions, straighten horizons and pay attention to narrative. I learnt that post processing an image, cropping it, thinking about my highlights and shadows was an important part of creating impact. Listening and learning from how others perceive my images was a really important part of my photography journey.

During Covid, I also joined the Australian Photographic Society (APS), the Photographic Society of America (PSA) and the International Federation of Photographic Artists (FIAP). I started obtaining my photographic honours in 2020 through competition. As part of my membership of APS I was offered a mentor which I gratefully accepted. This was a turning point in my creativity. Forming a wonderful working relationship with my mentor over Zoom, we discussed many genres of photography and how I could improve the images I was creating for competition.

Looking back at where I was in 2020 I could never have guessed how far I would come over a short time span, achieving honours and me Grand Master from APS, Excellence from FIAP and PSA as well as my Silver in the Portfolio Distinction Program of PSA. Taking on feedback also requires other qualities particularly the ability to listen to what is being said but also the dedication to do the work required for perfecting your craft. It is important that you choose a mentor who you respect and who is empathetic in the way feedback is given, so you are  encouraged rather than disheartened. I have been very fortunate in the choices I made.

But feedback can also be obtained in a more informal manner through conversations with your fellow photographers. Surrounding yourself with people you trust and who motivate you is a crucial part of how your creativity will improve. Going on shooting expeditions with my camera club friends, then comparing images has also been a wonderful way to share and receive feedback.

A good image starts in-camera and I cannot stress the importance of learning your gear so it becomes muscle memory. Despite my familiarity with my own gear, I still fumble around in the dark and confuse my buttons when I am excited by the Milky Way. Understanding the exposure triangle, depth of field and how to read light and manage exposure are definitely the building blocks of making good images. Once you have this foundation, then the sky is the limit with where you can take your creative journey.

Even though I learnt to use my camera on manual settings 14 years ago and steadily gained new in-camera skills, it has really been in the last four years that I have seen an exponential improvement in the images I am creating. I do believe that learning Photoshop during the Covid lockdowns and understanding how to process an image to convey narrative has improved my ability to transform a good image to a much better one. Once I learnt photoshop, I was also able to push the limits of what I could with an image. I tried composites, became familiar with using adjustment layers and selective masking, learnt to incorporate colour theory and understood how to convert a colour image to a monochrome one, by varying the tones of each individual colour.

To incorporate new skills into your work flow, you must also understand how you learn. I am a visual learner so a youtube video that shows me what is being done is how I absorb new information best as opposed to listening to someone speaking about a technique. For a kinaesthetic learner, who needs to touch and feel, having a camera in your hands and working with settings as you listen to a tutor might be the best way to remember new skills.

The Photographic Society of America (PSA) have a lot of online webinars and classes that also helped me during the Covid lockdown, when I had more time and was focussed on my honours. I have also benefited by the free Photography Summits that are frequently offered by Adobe for both Lightroom and Photoshop. They have helped keep me current and up to date with all the new developments available in these processing software packages, especially with the advent of AI.

Ultimately, if you are not putting your new skills into practice, your creativity cannot evolve. While it is easy to keep doing the things that we are comfortable with, trying something new can only elevate your image making.

My photography journey has been inspired by the work of many creatives that I have come across both in Australia and overseas. I have had the privilege to do workshops on the ground, to be mentored online and to listen to photography lectures and discussions at conferences. Because my partner is also interested in the creative process, we often go to galleries, discuss the books we are reading, watch movies and listen to podcast that inspire our creativity. I am constantly bouncing ideas off him or asking for a second opinion on an image I am editing. I am often jotting down ideas for new images or making mental notes of something I’d like to try one day.

As I have become more confident in my photography, I have started to give back to my photographic community. They include other camera clubs in Sydney, friends interested in photography or my peers at my camera club. Explaining simple concepts like aperture and f-stop (why does a small number represent a larger opening?) forces you to break something down to basics. It helps you to understand concepts a little deeper so you can explain it a little better to a beginner photographer.

As I’ve explored more genres and done different things with my photography I have also started to offer presentations to local camera clubs. This has helped me share some of the projects I have worked on, my journey to discovering aerial abstracts and also more technical presentations such as how images are judged in competition. I have discovered that I really enjoy presentations and the thought process that I go through when putting slides together. Being a mentor to new photographers in my club or my friendship circle is also something else that I enjoy.

I have used my website Narratives4Change.com.au to share what I offer, using the Adobe option that comes with my Creative Cloud subscription to create it. Narratives4Change implies that my image making is closely related to the causes I care about and the stories I want to share about them.

I have always combined writing with my photography. It has helped me share what I was feeling while photographing a sunrise or to breakdown a thought process I embarked on while creating something a little unusual with my images. Occasionally I have also been inspired to write poetry. During some of the artist residencies I have completed, writing about the experience was part and parcel of what I was able to provide in return for the experience afforded to me.

Setting realistic goals has certainly helped me develop my skills. Each year I look back and feel happy that I advanced my creativity by pushing the boundaries of what was familiar to me. Two years ago I bought some studio lights and while experimenting with them has certainly helped me understand light a little better, there is still lots to learn. Unfortunately, I don’t have a home studio yet, so my living room doubles up as a studio. Unfortunately, this inconvenience means I don’t use them enough to justify the investment or have the opportunity to become really familiar with the setup. But it is certainly a goal that keeps getting refined each year and hopefully I will find more time for this in 2025.

Goal setting can also be about the competitions that you enter. Looking back at 2024, I am particularly proud that I was a finalist in the Australian Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year, a competition that I entered for the first time. I was also excited to travel to Sienna (Italy) to receive in person an award of Commended for a series I put together for the Drone Photo Awards. Kicking goals is certainly a wonderful way to motivate your creativity and to occasionally give yourself a pat on the back. But make sure the goals you set are realistic and more importantly don’t beat yourself up if you don’t achieve the results you hoped for. That’s all part of this journey.

In 2021 I did a drone workshop class to road test a drone. I felt nervous about flying a drone and more importantly about losing it. It took me over a year to finally make the decision to purchase one. Since then I have fallen in love with aerial photography and feel very lucky to have stumbled on this genre that has almost come to define my photography at this point in time. Challenging yourself to try new genres and even gear is another way to keep improving your skills and creativity.

This year I also taught a workshop during a skills swap I did on a sheep shearing station. While I feel quite confident in sharing my knowledge through presentations, a workshop where I was actually teaching photography was a little different. This is certainly something I am keen to keep working on next year and I am currently working on a presentation to teach camera basics to beginners at my local club.

In the past I have also pushed my creative journey to new heights through artist residencies, both solo and collaborative exhibitions, skill swaps and projects for clients that linked my environmental passions with my creativity. They have all demanded that I learn new skills and each opportunity has taught me something new. A healthy dose of self-belief, the internet and youtube videos, my photography mentors & colleagues together with a supporting partner have helped me learn new skills and overcome my fears of failure. They have all been key ingredients to seeing these projects to the end.

The dawning of a New Year brings with it the chance to dream again and redesign our destiny. How far you wish to push yourself is really dependent on the time and energy you have to dedicate to photography and where you see yourself at the end of 2025. I do believe that dedication and focus can take you places that you never dreamt of.

Set some realistic goals and do the work. The results just might surprise you!