Ok if you guys who voted to have more photography tips want to see these posts continue you better leave us some comment love (down at the bottom) and let us know what kind of tips you want to know about!  Ask anything we’ll answer!

I decided that I wanted to write today about shooting in……………manual mode!!!!

This single tip will totally change your photography and allow you more freedom…..I promise!  It may seem hard at first and you may get frustrated but just keep trying, it’s worth it.

First of all lets say you are trying to shoot facing the sun with your subject facing you.  If you are shooting in aperture priority and meter on his face it will be pretty dark and your background will be perfectly lit, however if you shot in manual you would have more control and your face could be well exposed leaving your background much lighter (around here those are the yummy images!!!) Backlighting is what this is really called….just so you know I hate using technical terms so get over it if you are reading this and are super technical….maybe you should check out someone else’s photography tips.  Around here I like to keep it simple because that’s how I learned and have helped others.

I’m not really going to go into a whole variety of other sorts of lighting situations (mostly bc I don’t have any pictures to back up my case) but just trust me when I say shoot manual.  Those light dreamy pictures we get around here at Erika Dotson Photography….definitely shot in manual mode.

My biggest piece of advice for shooting manual……get out there and PRACTICE!!!!  All the reading in the world will never make you a good photographer, get your but out from in front of the computer and go shoot!  Try to shoot in different lighting situations too!  Since photography is all about light…..try out shooting under that big oak tree at noon, out in a wide open field at sunset, how about under the porch at dusk?  Just practice and make sure you practice all sorts of different lighting situations to the point where you can walk to a spot and within a few changes know what settings you should be at.

Yes I have a LARGE soap box about shooting in manual mode!  I could go on all day long about it.  There’s a reason the best photographers shoot in manual (period).

I hope you enjoy!

-erika