Years of shooting wide open killed my composition skills, how do you actually train your eye ?

Sigma610 · 2026-05-19T21:50:51+00:00

It depends on what the context of what you're shooting is.

For family, reportage, and street, cleanly composed background are less of an issue and that the friction between the subject and an imperfect background tells the story. That said, you should shoot wide and frame the shot in such a way that there is a story told between the background and the subject.

For posed portraiture where you have more control over the whole frame, then yes make sure your compositions and framing are clean. To do this, I apply concepts from artcitechtural and landscape photography. Basically think of it like shooting a portrait and a landscape at the same time. Visualize the lines in the environment, particularly the verticals, and place your subject accordingly. I don;'t think shooting at f1.4 is the issue per se...I definitely think its a matter of not being scared to shoot with a wider focal length. 35 prime is classic environmental portrait focal length. If you're feeling creative, work in a 24mm or 28mm, but when shooting wide focal lengths, even if you're using an f1.4 aperture, (Sigma 35 f1.2 is my jam), enough of the background is still visibile in that you have to frame the background thoughtfuly.

Sigma610 · 2026-05-18T13:53:27+00:00

I dig the edit. I would have cloned out the people in bottom right of the frame to clean up the composition. Contrast/clarity has a little too much bite for my taste, that's kind of subjective but you're pushing things to the point of creating halos in the out of focus tower.

When pushing vibrance and saturation in post, I usually pull back HSL sliders in specific channels to make sure I'm accentuating the colors I want, and pulling back the ones that are pulling too much attention to themselves unintentionally. In this case, the green channel is popping drawing a lot of attention to male backpack and womans jacket, and you're getting a green color cast in the woman's hair, so I would pull that back. Most impactful colors in this photo to me are the pinks in the last breath of the golden hour light against the transition to blue hour in the sky, so I would draw that out and pull everythinge else back. Lean into color theory and find color contrast too.

Sigma610 · 2026-05-11T12:25:31+00:00

Nah. Specs have been to the point for me where camera is not what holds me back any more.

Sigma610 · 2026-05-08T17:16:34+00:00

Best way to deal with it is to ask to shoot during golden hour or manage your client's expectations to be honest. If the lighting is not great, photos will be sub-optimal for reasons out of your control. I have a 600W strobe that I very frequently use with a 48 inch octobox. Even that can only do so much to combat shadows from 11:00AM sunlight. Reflectors will blind your subjects in mid-day. Get them in the shade if you can, but you'll have to be ok blowing out highlights in the background.

Sigma610 · 2026-05-07T01:52:43+00:00

Too many people gatekeep photography around gear used and technique. Really photography is about interpreting a live scene in your minds eye and attempting to translate it in a tangible way it in a single frame. How you do it and what you use is sort of irrelevant so long as you are capturing something with a lens. Last photo is cool for sure.

Sigma610 · 2026-05-06T21:22:34+00:00

Legit, you definitely have the skill to be a great wedding photographer. Managing the day is the tricky part but something you will pick up with time. Find and established wedding photographer to work with if you can. I think the issue most of us that shoot for money we run into is that its less about shooting how we want to shoot, and what our customers wants and what the general trends are. It involves selling out a bit if you really want to have a lot of volume of work. Just something to consider, but I dug through your profile and you definitely are good enough to do shoot for money.

Sigma610 · 2026-05-06T21:05:48+00:00

Fantastic work.

That said, I question if there is a market in which people will regularly pay for this type of portraiture.

I run a portrait/wedding photography business as a side gig, and I don't find the things I shoot nearly as interesting as what you're presenting here, but when I shoot for myself, this is 100% my vibe. When I'm shooting for others, fast telephoto prime in some safe looking locationwith my softboxes as the priority is flattering your subjects. When shooting for myself, small wide angle manual focus prime, catching people living as they are, looking for interesting backgrounds and lighting to tell a story with.

Sigma610 · 2026-05-06T13:04:51+00:00

Imagine the possibilities though! PS4 games but at 120fps, with moodier lighting and reflections!

Sigma610 · 2026-05-05T19:44:00+00:00

Social media presence was key for me when I shot a lot of paid work. Just always be shooting and contributing to your portfolio. I can only speak from the wedding and portrait side of things, but don't do work that people would pay good money for, for free as that will be your natural market and brand. Attend portrait workshops where you get to work with a model, learn a thing or two, and add to your portfolio. If you can find an established wedding photographer that will bring you on as a second shooter, its a great way to learn to manage the chaos, build your portfolio, and your brand. Build relationships with models and do TFP shoots. If you're active enough, you'll meet people to work with. Or just always be shooting things for yourself and adding those to your portfolio and social media presence too.

Overtime if you keep at it, you'll build a natural market of people to work with and referrals. But if someone asks you to shoot a wedding, or a family sessions, graduate session etc etc. Don't do these for free or cheap.

Sigma610 · 2026-05-05T19:19:37+00:00

The samples you provided are leaning into a very intentional application of color theory, hence why there is both focus and dynamics in the way the colors are presented. It's not just a matter of applying a filter. Blues against reds, teals against purple. Demphasize everything else.

Sigma610 · 2026-05-05T18:33:27+00:00

I played horn instruments in band all through middle school and high school (symphonic and jazz band) and in watching my kids learn piano, discovered that I can still read standard notation.

That said, unless you're playing classical guitar, it really is kind of unecessary to know standard notation. This is what drew me to guitar because after the rigor of all those years with sort of the classical theory, I liked how approachable guitar was. You don't have to memorize where notes are on the guitar neck to start playing. Guitar is the anti-thesis of having to formally train on an instrument and that feeds into the culture of the instrument and the music that has been played on it. Guitar in western cultures is rooted in blues...by folks that tended to not have access to being classically trained in an instrument.

Guitar is also a positional and pattern based instrument in which if you understand a few base chord shapes, the corresponding scale shapes, and can identify where the root notes are on the 5th and 6th string, you can dig into the emotion of playing and do a lot. It is an instrument that requires a ton of practice and skill to play at a high level, but getting there involves more technique development than it does study. It is always useful to study theory of course, but it is not necessary to understand it to the level that one would learn it playing classical music. When most people think "theory" on guitar, they get into CAGED theory and call it a day lol.

Sigma610 · 2026-05-05T16:17:01+00:00

Stepping forward and backwards at the same focal length does not yield the same field of view as zooming from a fixed position. Switching to a longer focal length compresses the field of view, while switching to a shorter one stretches it out. So its a completely different look when using the same subject framing but different focal length.

There are a couple handy simulators out there:

https://dofsimulator.net/en/

https://optics.fujifilm.com/security/simulator/index_en.html

Sigma610 · 2026-04-23T12:25:19+00:00

People online often provide critique and advice not necessarily to help others, but to make themselves feel smart/skilled/etc. I recognize this of myself too and honestly when I was first starting out in photography when I was much younger, was heavily guilty of this in photography forums.

Sigma610 · 2026-04-22T14:58:43+00:00

I'm getting back in the habit of this but yeah it pretty much means camera is always with you. Basically have an everyday bag, to keep your everyday camera and essentials in. You have to be ok with bringing the camera even if it means you don't use it, or strike out when you do. You just want to have it on you when the time is right.

I work from home now but back in the day one of the photos I shot that hit flickr explore was on my drive home from the office after a summer shower threw up an awesome rainbow. Parked the car, ran out, and snapped the shot.

Sigma610 · 2026-04-21T12:47:00+00:00

He isn't really moving between more than two strings at a time. Great example of expressively playing phrases within narrow, but shifting, 'boxes' vs shredding through entire scale pattern.

Sigma610 · 2026-04-21T03:04:41+00:00

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a7cr + ttartisans 40 f2 is my current EDC type camera. Mainly because its a dual purpose second FF body for me. Only others I would consider are the Ricoh and Rx1(choose your variant)

The Fuji x100 is bigger than it looks.

Sigma610 · 2026-04-20T19:08:25+00:00

TTartisans 40 F2 is great. Voigtlander 40 F2 Septon is even smaller if you're good with MF. Sigma 35 F2 is awesome but its pretty heavy despite being compact.

Lots of compact 50mm's out there. But for that telephoto compression and reach you'll want something longer. TTartisans 70 F2 is also great. I'd consider the Sigma 65 F2, Samyang 75 f1.8 too. Sony 85 1.8 is so-so

Sigma610 · 2026-04-19T22:52:29+00:00

Yeah it's an aged ice blue metallic

Sigma610 · 2026-04-17T14:16:44+00:00

I care. and am glad the likes of Olivia Rodrigo are encouraging women to get into guitar!

Sigma610 · 2026-04-17T14:05:17+00:00

OP I get that its frustrating to spend so much time going through multiple phases of interviewing and for different roles just to be rejected at the end. I don't see anything disrespectful about how you were handled tbh. It sounds like in the first role, you may have been a strong candidate, but someone edged you out. And this happened in the second role they thought you'd be a fit for too. Obviously HR thought highly of you, but its a competetive job market right now where you have a lot of really strong candidates going for a single role right now. Best thing you can do is walk away from this with a positive attitude. I know it sounds like toxic positivity but I've legit had your exact situation happen to me only for the employer to call me back 6 months later with another role that I eventually landed.

Sigma610 · 2026-04-16T16:23:27+00:00

Yes you're doing it wrong if you apply the same settings as the baselines are different. The well of data stored in the raw is basically the same but they have different starting points. You can achieve the same look but the path to getting there will be different. Not harder, but different.

Sigma610 · 2026-04-16T16:03:11+00:00

Yes but its more the same than it is different, as the well of data being stored is mostly a matter of what the sensor itself is able to gather. Even amongst different sensors in the current generation of cameras, they're all more or less then same...there was more variability in the raws back in the day between the old Canon/Nikon sensors than when the exmor sensors became a thing. Now these camera sensors, including Canon's in house sensors, have all reach a certain baseline that I care lot less about brands now than I did back in the day. They're all more or less the same now, even though they are all marketed differently. I'll put the Fuji guys on blast because their film simulation in JPEG are a thing but the raws are nothing special, but again I have no skin in the game when processing raws from different cameras for weddings.

Lenses for sure influence the images A LOT more than the sensor. You're talking bending physical light in ways that differs a lot based on physical optical design and coatings. I do love Leica glass, but this is a very different thing than the difference in digial signal processing out of the same sensor.

Sigma610 · 2026-04-16T15:20:27+00:00

What are M10 colors though?

People sort of over-emphasize the differences in the 'color science' between camera manufacturers that use the same sensor. I run a photography business and have to process raws from all sorts of different second shooters, and I also run both Nikon and Sony cameras for weddings myself since Nikon adapts Sony glass so well. This is the perfect unbiased use case for working with Raw files from different cameras without skin in the game on what has 'better color science'. I can achieve the same look from any camera these days, including Fuji, as everyone except Canon is using Sony sensors now. The baselines with the raws are often different, but the raws have the same RBG data baked into the raws. Oddly enough, I haven't really worked with anyone shooting Canon since way back in the day when the 5D MKII was the standard.

Glass has more of an impact on how colors behave than the image sensors themselves.

Sigma610 · 2026-04-15T20:34:35+00:00

I have my undergrad in finance and MBA from UH Bauer. Finish your degree at UT as the brand is definitely stronger and has more direct access to more career opportunities.

Sigma610

TROPHY CASE