my top photography tips

Part 1: lighting and kit

It’s still one of the things I get asked most: what kit do you use? Well, the answer is good and bad, depending on you. I’m here to tell you: your kit doesn’t really matter. A good photo can be taken on any phone, camera… anything! It is not down to the camera. You can still take a really bad photo on an expensive camera.

Just like a great chef can cook something delicious on any hob with any food: the tools are not where the skill lies. The camera itself is only responsible for about 10% of an image I’d say. The rest is training your eye, lighting, moving, playing, cropping… so much more.

So I thought I’d start a new series where I take you through all of these. As a self taught photographer who makes a living from it, this is everything I’ve learned in the past 15 years.

Within this series, I’ll share more info on a new topic around photography, whether that’s editing, settings, cropping or how to train your eye. Whether you want to become better at taking photos in daily life, for work, for social media or to become a professional photographer, these tips will help you all.

In this first newsletter, I’m going to start with kit and lighting, because to me these are the basics when you get started, and make such a difference! Keep scrolling for my top tips.

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One of the most common questions around photography is: what camera to use?

Honestly, taking a good photo isn’t down to the kit. We have phones with amazing cameras these days so you don’t have to immediately invest in a camera. If you have a DSLR or film camera you want to play around with then that’s a great thing to do - but it’s not necessary when learning to take a good photo. I’ve taken a lot of great photos on my phone, and a lot of bad ones on a DSLR. And vice versa.

I shoot a lot on my