Photography & Digital ArtJUL 31, 2018

In A Time Of Auto Everything, This Photographer Prefers To Shoot In Manual. Here’s Why

When I first started to use a nice camera that my wife bought me, I was very disappointed when the photos didn’t turn out how I thought they would.

I expected some really great photos since it was a fairly expensive camera. But the photos didn’t seem to be any better than photos I could take with my cell phone.

I was getting very frustrated and even gave up for a while, telling myself that photography was not for me.

But I started thinking about it. Why did this happen? I have a nice camera, what was I doing wrong?

Then I started to really think about how the camera takes the photo. It had all of these settings that I didn’t know what they did, so I was shooting in auto mode and didn’t think I needed to worry about them.

If you would also like to learn how to shoot in manual, follow me on my journey and see more of my work and courses. Visit my website and social media pages!

More info: philliphaumesserphotography.com

But then I started to think, “how does the camera know what settings to use? How does it know what kind of photo I’m trying to take?” “What if I was trying to take a portrait?”

“Or what if I was trying to capture the stars?”

“Or what if I wanted to take a photo of my son picking flowers in a field? How could the camera know that?"

So I realized if I wanted to take these kinds of photos I would need to know what these settings did.

So I did some research. And watched lots of YouTube videos. And begin to understand and master the settings on the camera manually.

I also went as far as to start using manual focus lenses, partly because they’re cheaper and partly because I love being in full control of the camera.

My photography got better and better until I realized I was getting the photos that I wanted.

After shearing my photos online they began to go viral! My work started getting featured around the world in places like Huffington Post, Daily Mail, Country Living, Business Insider and many others!