The One Thing You Need to be A Great Photographer

If you're hoping to become a great photographer, there's really only one thing that you need—other than a camera. Click here to find out what that one very important thing is!

I’ve been able to shoot with amazing bloggers during the rewardStyle conference and women entrepreneurs in Dallas, and more recently, I got to help teach photography one-on-one to photographers at the Styling & Shooting Workshop hosted by The Meetup Dallas.

What I loved about that afternoon was meeting photographers who had just started shooting and photographers who had experience shooting in a variety of industries.

There was no competition there, just encouragement, a desire to learn and lots of beautiful cakes that were begging to have their photos taken.

And while I love teaching about the technical aspect of photography, there’s another aspect I think you need in order to improve and reach whatever photography goals you have.

Learning photography and all the beautiful details that come with it is great, yes, but

if you don’t believe you can be a great photographer

(or a great anything for that matter) — for your blog, business, life in general — then it’s not going to happen.

You’re going to get frustrated and give up. You’ll compare yourself to others and want to quit (raising my hand here). You may even think what you’re pursuing is dumb at times.

You HAVE to believe it’s possible and that you can make it happen.

A few years ago when I was sitting in a Starbucks, I decided I was going to try my best and see what happened with blog photography. Even though it was scary (and I knew a total of zero bloggers at the time).

And because of that decision and belief, I’ve learned so much about photography, have seen my style improve and evolve, and — like anything worth pursuing — I've experienced hard days too.

It’s not going to be easy to (insert goal/dream/future) but if you believe you can do it, it's waaaay more likely to happen.

I want to encourage you to believe in yourself, even if:

You don’t know how to shoot in manual (or even what that is). You can learn how manual works and start now with this post I wrote.
You don’t think anyone would let you take their picture because you don’t have experience, much less a portfolio. You can reach out to a friend or family member and ask if you can take their pictures so there’s no pressure if you’re just starting out (I did this with my sis and it was awesome and there was no stress).
You don’t know where the heck to start with photography. You can read all my blog photography posts and get started here.
You don’t think you could learn how to shoot well. I think anyone with the desire to learn how to shoot can do it. I wasn’t born with any special photography abilities, I just kept practicing and haven’t given up.