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My photography process

• ca. 2900 words

While photography is merely a hobby of mine, over the years I have established a routine that makes things productive and predictable while not stripping the process of the fun factor. But there are times when I feel lost or overwhelmed for various reasons, but I still want to get something done. Sometimes I want to start after a long break but I don’t know what to do first. Sometimes I get stuck in the middle and I’m on the verge of deleting hours of my work. So I’m writing this as a guide for myself to help me get back on track in case of doubt.

Prerequisites

I shoot digital only. I have zero experience with film photography and no plans of changing that, but who knows what the future holds (no grudge though, I admire film photographers).

Everything that sounds complicated in my process is my deliberate choice. Nothing stops me from cutting corners to save time and energy, and I sometimes do it. But in general, I enjoy having a say in every step of the creation process, even if I sometimes rely on presets or automated settings.

It’s a hobby, not a job. I try to enjoy the journey rather than reach the goal at all cost, which means I fluctuate between skipping leg days and getting overexcited about trivial things.

Even though this list looks serious and formalized, a lot of steps blend with each other, take very little time to complete, or can be skipped entirely. The point is not to have a to-do list and cross out items but to keep my brain focused and ask myself the right questions at the right time.

Physical preparation

So I have an itch to go out and shoot some pics. How do I get my body ready?

I charge all of my batteries. My camera, my phone, anything that can be charged.

I typically bring at least two memory cards for my camera, both of them empty. Memory card failures happen even to hobbyists like me, and they always happen at the least expected moments.

If I know I’ll be using my phone to take photos, I also try to reclaim storage space for easier organization. My phone, being a fully-fledged online device, can be a mystery box of randomness if I don’t pay attention, and I don’t like losing things in an uncontrolled mess.

Depending on what I’m going to shoot, I decide whether I need any piece of ‘heavy artillery’: a telephoto lens, monopod, flashlight, maybe a tripod. For 90% of situations, I don’t need anything fancy. One standard zoom lens is my daily driver and I switch to a fast wide prime when I know light will be scarce.

While I have a dedicated bag and a backpack for my gear, I always try to discourage myself from using them. Sometimes I’ll purposefully bring a regular backpack just so I pass as a tourist rather than an advanced hobbyist (or worse, a journalist). We live in times when everyone carries a phone and ‘traditional’ cameras are becoming a rare sight. I already stand out by using a camera that looks more ‘professional’ than 99% of cameras carried by other people (even though I have never had a truly professional camera in my hands), so I sometimes need a little extra benefit of the doubt.

Mental preparation

That was the physical part. But what do I need to know before going out?

First, I decide if I’m going to shoot an event or a location.

Shooting an event means I’ll be mostly documenting something unique happening in front of me and I might not get second chances. Therefore, I like to know in advance what type of event I’m going to shoot. I try to figure out the agenda of the event. I look at online maps and try to find interesting vantage points to use. If the event has already happened in the past, I’ll try to find out what it looked like. I appreciate old news reports and photo stories, as they give me a taste of what is ahead of me.

Shooting a location is a vague term for any circumstance when I go out with little to no agenda of what I want to achieve. It can be random strolling on the city streets, shooting a specific place, going after a specific type of shot at specific lighting conditions, etc. For this type of shooting, I don’t do anything fancy for my preparation. The point of this kind of gig is to have fun and learn - I don’t mind being surprised by circumstances.

Also, in both cases, I do at least one of the following things:

Shooting, settings

I arrive at the scene. Anything to know before I start?

I try to arrive at the scene early so that I can scan the environment and find interesting frames and angles beforehand, especially when the event is expected to be crowded. It also allows me to kill time by snapping interesting little details.

I try to set up my white balance beforehand. If I shoot outdoors, selecting a correct setting from the camera menu usually works. For tricky lighting conditions, indoor shooting, or portraits, I may use a gray card. Forgetting about this step isn’t a big deal, but it saves time to get it right in the camera rather than later at home.

Manual or semi-manual settings? I try to decide which setting from the exposure triangle I should prioritize. If I know I’ll deal with things moving fast, I’ll go for shutter speed and adjust ISO and aperture so that I don’t lose any edges of my histogram. If not, my default mode is focusing on aperture, as I usually want my photos sharp, but I also want to play with the depth of field. I often shoot on aperture priority setting - it is useful when there’s plenty of light and shutter speed doesn’t matter that much.

I shoot RAW because this gives me a second chance in post-processing if I make critical mistakes about lighting or white balance. But I’m not Jared Polin (never gonna be, his photo stories are just something else) - I can imagine situations when JPEG works better and I’m fully aware my camera takes excellent JPEG photos. For shooting in JPEG, I have to worry more about white balance and keep my eyes glued on the histogram because if I miss details in the shadows or strong sunlight, they’re probably gone for good.

I have my camera set in burst mode. It’s about maximizing my chances for a good shot in situations I can’t control. But there’s something else: for a long time, I’ve been using DSLRs with APS-C sensor (smaller than a 35mm frame), which also meant I would never see 100% of the frame in my viewfinder. With my current mirrorless camera, it’s no longer an issue, but old habits die hard. In crowded areas, I often have only fractions of a second to take clean shots, i.e. without people or unnecessary details in the background. Burst mode lets me save time waiting for those clean shots.

Copying

Once I’m back, I copy all photos to my computer and format my memory cards. I try to do this as soon as possible. Neglecting to do it may result in photos getting published 4 years after the event or losing them entirely because I can be forgetful.

I rarely do the shooting and post-processing on the same day. Unless I’m on a timer (doesn’t happen often), I find it helpful to let my photos wait a day or two so I approach them with a clean, well-rested mind.

Selection

I nearly always end up with more photos than I need, so I make a selection.

Formal selection: I delete photos that are compositionally incorrect, uninteresting, blurry, or unusable for any other reason. Sometimes it’s possible to save bad shots by some creative cropping, especially when the subject matter is particularly interesting, but if I needed a post-processing fix rather than getting it close to good enough in my camera, then it’s usually a bad photo and I won’t regret deleting it. For multiple images done in burst mode, I choose the most usable shots.

Thematic selection: I choose photos that fit the topic. The rest of them I usually delete without regrets. Sometimes I save interesting shots and add them either to Varia or Warsaw assorted section.

“Natural” selection: Of the photos that survived previous stage of selection, I choose ones I like for any reason and discard others. I never aim at publishing all photos, and I don’t have fixed quotas to meet. Typically anything between 5 and 50 photos is good enough. Quantity is never a substitute for quality.

Post-processing

To make any decisions in this phase, I ask myself: what did this event feel like? What was the atmosphere like? What exactly made this specific atmosphere?

There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to this question.

If it’s about vacation photos in the sunny weather, I’ll go for vivid colors and strong contrasts because they’re in sync with my inner feelings: I’m happy and excited and I see things in vivid colors.

Sometimes I want one color to stand out and desaturate others.

Sometimes I do reportage and people are involved. In those cases, I aim for a fairly natural look&feel but I still want to keep vivid colors vivid, and outstanding details stand out.

Sometimes I photograph dull and grim places devoid of any happiness or color. In those situations, I heavily desaturate my colors.

I don’t switch to black-and-white in post-processing unless I had deliberately planned to do so, but sometimes it works.

Regardless of style, as a personal preference, I like to apply a little extra contrast and clarity / microcontrast to make my photos pop a little more. Sometimes even too much. If my photos involve people and I don’t aim for a gritty look, I try not to go overboard with this.

If the subject has more to do with framing, lights, shadows, or composition, or color isn’t of particular importance for whatever reason, I’ll deliberately desaturate all colors.

Sometimes I may feel lazy and I’ll opt for choosing one predefined preset for my whole collection and call it a day. I don’t do that often, but presets were designed to save time and effort - I don’t mind using them if I feel like it.

I try to do my post-processing either in the afternoon or in the evening so that extra daylight doesn’t affect my adjustments.

Local corrections / detailed post-processing

If a photo contains defects that can be safely removed with patching or cloning, I’ll do it.

Looking at each photo, I try to identify areas of interest and decide if local adjustments could make things work better. Typically, that involves dodging and burning selected areas, adding subtle vignetting, maybe cropping certain things out.

This stage can take a lot of time, and I often don’t know when to stop. If I feel I’m spending too much time on this, I like to stop and get back to it the very next day. Oftentimes, things turn out to be good enough. Sometimes I ask myself ‘what the heck was I thinking’ and I tone various settings down.

Publishing

Once I’m done with post-processing, I sort my photos in the desired order, rename them using the following format: 000, 001, 002… and prepare for publication.

All of my photos are first published on my photography website. I run a setup that automates a lot of mundane stuff (resizing, converting, renaming) for me. But this is a topic for another article.

From now, over time I’ll repost single shots of mine across various social media channels. My favorite places for photography these days are Pixelfed and DeviantArt - on these two platforms, I can find small dedicated communities that actually see and react to things they see. Even Bluesky, despite numerous flaws, feels pleasantly welcoming to my photography efforts. The exact opposite is the reason why I gave up on Tumblr (posting my photos there felt like talking to a brick wall) and feel fed up with Instagram (there’s a handful of people who pay attention, but this platform no longer loves anyone who is too small or doesn’t pay for boosting their posts).

Some of my photos I publish on my 500px profile and try submitting them for paid licensing. So far one photo of mine has attracted 3 dollars worth of sales withn last 8 years. I generally feel 500px has lost a lot of its charm and I no longer pay much attention to it. For more dedicated photographer platforms I feel my photography isn’t good enough, so I don’t feel particularly encouraged to explore new avenues.

Archiving

I keep my RAW files and post-processed source files on two external storage devices. For now, this stage of the process is fully manual, but I sometimes think of getting a NAS or a dedicated small server.

I also backup my photos on my Flickr account, but I’m close to hitting the limit of a free account. I haven’t decided if I want to pay for a pro plan.

Bonus details of minor relevance (really!)

I use DxO PhotoLab for photo management and the majority of editing, as well as Affinity Photo for more complex retouching. Before that, I used Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop, but I stopped as soon as Adobe switched to a subscription model. There was a time I would run a virtual machine with Windows just so I could launch my old copy of Photoshop, but this felt clunky. I also considered buying an old version of Photoshop for macOS, but I was afraid it would stop working with another macOS upgrade.

Since the DSLR days, my favorite zoom lens range is 28-75mm - I had a Tamron lens with that range for my Nikon DSLR, and now I have a similar lens for my current Nikkor Z mirrorless. This choice is rather peculiar for a cropped APS-C sensor, and I sometimes miss a true wide angle, but I enjoy being able to isolate details and shoot interesting things from afar. In many situations, I can’t ‘zoom with my feet’ or carry multiple prime lenses, so a slower zoom lens makes more sense for me.

With older amateur DSLRs becoming more affordable, I would sometimes carry two cameras with different lenses at once. Of course, it looked ridiculous for a random snapper like me, but not having to switch between a long telephoto and wide-angle lens was incredibly useful. These days I’m more likely to use my phone as a second camera. If I decide to buy another dedicated camera, it will likely serve as a video recorder.

I have mixed feelings about the Nikon mirrorless system, and I sometimes think of switching to Canon (I’m jealous of their compact 70-200 f/4L) or Sony (their a9 III with the first global shutter on full-frame mirrorless made me turn my head). But this could be a topic for a different article.

It took me a lot of time to change my opinion about smartphone cameras. Those devices went a long way, and they pack a lot of usable qualities inside a small form factor. They still have certain shortcomings, such as mixed performance in low-light situations, but being able to carry less is something I appreciate. What I don’t appreciate, though, is that they became the default camera for ordinary people, so even a cheap DSLR with a kit lens can make you look like a ‘pro’ and attract unwanted attention.

Summing up

For something I do in my spare time, this is a pretty sophisticated process. But it’s also very relaxed and modular. The sky won’t fall on my head if I skip or rush through some steps. Sometimes it’s very refreshing to take a longer moment to learn new tricks or experiment with different ways of achieving the same goal.

In 2024, I finally started exploring video production, and I enjoy being able to reuse a lot of that process, as well as things I know about still photography, for recording video. It’s not that much different from shooting still images in 30fps burst mode, right?

Originally published on by Łukasz Wójcik