Photography in Nigeria today is a pretty lucrative business venture with a good deal of competition. Over the past years, I have had the opportunity of meeting different photographers from various location across Nigeria. This experience has made me realised that the average Nigerian photographer make tons of mistakes without a single clue on the right step to take.All Nigerian photographers out there, grab yourself a chilled beer as FotoTech presents to you common mistakes photographers in Nigeria make all the time, which includes:
NOT SHOOTING RAW:
All my entire life as a photographer, I have never seen one Nigerian photographer shoot raw. Yes, you heard me! Photographers in Nigeria do not shoot raw, which is a very expensive mistake. Photographers in Nigeria always prefer shooting JPEG which is an image format already processed by the camera, in such a way that the camera deems fit. Shooting raw is very advantageous as you can tweak the image anyhow you want it, without losing a single detail in post processing softwares like lightroom, photoshop ETC. Whenever you make a mistake when shooting JPEG, it can be hardly undone during post processing. Editing a JPEG image has huge restriction, you may end up ruining the image with overblown highlights, dark shadows and a host of other problems associated with shooting and editing in JPEG format.
SHOOTING IN AUTO MODE
I was reviewing some images taken by a photographer some days back and I discovered most of them were not exposed correctly or just out of focus. I asked about the camera mode he used while taking the photos and he said he shot them all in auto mode. He is not the first and probably won't be the last Nigerian photographer who shoot in auto mode, because most of the photographers I have met before, shoot with their cameras set to auto mode which is a huge mistake that greatly limits the skills of a photographer. In auto mode, the camera decides what to do; it chooses aperture, shutter speed, ISO, metering mode, focus mode and what to focus on, for you, the photographer. This leaves the photographer no room for exploration, plus the camera tends to produce nasty images in auto mode.
Posing and Composition
This particular area has been a major weakness for me and I tend to make mistakes a lot when it comes to posing, framing and composition. As a photographer, you need to show your subjects how to pose except your subject is a super model with loads of experience. I will advice every photographer out there to go and learn how to pose(ladies especially) so you can pose for them to mimic you. Most Nigerian photographers make a lot of mistakes when it comes to framing: no looking space, no head room and worst still, most Nigerian photographers don't even know a thing about the almighty 180 degrees rules, which is a good tool for producing aesthetically pleasing shots.
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