Learning From Their Experiences:
Learning from other photographers is one of the quickest ways I've improved my photography. Whether it's learning from their mistakes, hearing new techniques you've never heard of, or seeing how they shoot at certain events that you have no experience with, there are so many different ways to learn from another photographer.
My uncle is a photographer who has years more of experience compared to me. His style of shooting is very different than mine but it's because of that difference that I try my best to learn from his work. Something he's good at that I'm not is shooting weddings, engagements, maternity, and family photos. Considering that those are where most of my clients will come from, it's definitely something I need to improve on.
Whenever I can, I try to shadow my uncle or second shoot so that I can watch what he does and ask questions when I don't know how to get a good shot. If I'm lucky, I get to attend an event that he hosts.
The photos I provided in this blog were taken at his 40th birthday soiree. The benefit is that my uncle and his partner have years of experience setting up photoshoots and knowing how to place things. This makes it easier for me to capture nice photos and analyze what makes them nice and why the placement is important.
Learning Editing Techniques:
Learning the editing techniques from other photographers can be vital to developing your style. I used to bring the dark parts of my photos down all the way until they lost all detail until a mentor of mine told me that it wasn't a good look. It's important to ask for constructive criticism and for advice when creating new editing styles. For example, I'm colorblind, which proves to be a huge challenge when it comes to color tones and white balance.
Another way to learn new editing techniques is to imitate other photographers' edits. Of course, you don't want to copy it completely, but sometimes messing with your settings until you achieve the same look will help you understand your editing software more. In this case, I tried to edit the bright style of my uncle's photos to match the aesthetic of his decorations. What I learned was that my photos don't always need to be dark to look good but also that I struggle when it comes to warmer photos.
Imitating and Analyzing: