I retired from wedding photography in 2023. Now I spend more time with vintage lenses and wildlife, yet the learning hasn’t stopped.
There’s a strange stage in photography where your images look good to most people, yet you look at them feeling a bit “meh”.
Friends, family, and even strangers tell you the photos are great. But somehow you feel something is not quite right.
That gap between knowing your photos are good and feeling like you don’t really understand what you’re doing yet is one of the most uncomfortable parts of learning photography.
Problem? YouTube, Google, AI are your friends
When I’m faced with a problem I haven’t encountered before, I’ll happily look it up there and then, sometimes it’s Google, sometimes YouTube, sometimes ChatGPT on my phone.
I remember being given just ten minutes’ notice to photograph a sparkler exit (wedding guests form an arch with sparklers and the couple walk through it), something I’d never done and rarely see at UK weddings.
A quick online search pointed me in the right direction, the photo worked beautifully, and I moved on. I couldn’t explain the exact setup now, but at the time I knew enough to solve the problem and that was all that mattered.
Please understand: You cannot “learn all the settings”
One of the most reassuring things I’ve heard came from photographers with decades of experience. People who have shot professionally for 25, 40, even 50 years still say they are learning every time they pick up a camera.
That’s not false modesty.
Photography doesn’t have a finish line where everything suddenly clicks and stays that way.
- Light changes.
- Environments change.
- Your taste changes.
- Even your ability to notice problems improves faster than your ability to prevent them.
Every photographer whose work feels effortless probably has thousands upon thousands of photos they never showed to anyeone.
Understanding matters more than mastering
A lot of frustration comes from thinking you need to master every camera setting. In reality, what helps most is understanding cause and effect.
- Motion blur comes from shutter speed.
- Dark images come from underexposure.
- Shallow depth of field comes from aperture.
- Colour casts come from mixed or difficult light.
Once you understand why something happens, you stop blaming yourself or the camera and start making calmer decisions. That’s also why modes like aperture priority and shutter priority are so useful. They let you focus on one variable at a time instead of fighting everything at once.
Manual mode isn’t a badge of honour. It’s just another tool, and not always the best one for learning.
The “washing machine analogy” that changed how I saw my camera
When I first started wedding photography in 2005, I was so unhappy with my work I booked a professional course to improve my images. During this course, the photographer gave me one explanation stuck with me more than anything else.
The tutor said: find your “40 degrees mixed colours” setting.
She explained that almost all of us have a washing machine at home with dozens of programmes, temperatures, spin speeds, and options. Yet 95% of the time, we use the same setting. For most people, that’s 40 degrees, mixed colours. It works. Clothes come out clean. Job done.
Cameras are the same.
For where I live, Scotland in the UK, with often grey outdoor conditions, my starting point was simple: aperture priority with ISO around 400. That was my equivalent of 40 degrees mixed wash. From there, I could adjust when needed, but I wasn’t constantly fighting the camera.
It’s the same with other tools we use. When you open Word on a PC or Pages on a Mac, you just start typing and produce what you need. There are thousands of features you’ve never touched and probably never will. That doesn’t stop you using the software effectively.
Your camera works the same way.
Understanding the core settings is enough
You don’t need to know every menu option or obscure function to be a good photographer. What truly matters is understanding a small group of fundamentals and how they work together.
- Aperture
- Shutter speed
- ISO
- White balance
- Over and under exposure
- Composition
When you understand these, you can pick up almost any camera and get results, just like being able to drive different cars once you’ve learned the basics.
The other settings reveal themselves slowly, usually when you actually need them. Trying to learn everything upfront only creates overwhelm.
Why experienced photographers see things you can’t
One of the hardest moments in photography is having someone point out problems you genuinely cannot see, no matter how closely you look. It can feel crushing, especially when you were happy with the image seconds earlier.
This isn’t about talent or eyesight. It’s about experience.
More experienced photographers have corrected those same issues hundreds of times before. Their brains recognise patterns instantly, slight colour shifts, edge shadows, subtle exposure problems, in the same way an experienced driver senses when something isn’t quite right with a car.
You’re not blind. Your visual calibration just isn’t finished yet.
Weddings are an especially brutal place to learn
If you’re learning photography through weddings or events, it’s worth saying this out loud: weddings are hard.
- People move constantly.
- Lighting changes from room to room.
- Emotions run high.
There are no second chances. On top of that, you’re expected to get everything right while staying invisible.
Struggling in this environment doesn’t mean you’re behind. It means you’re learning in one of the most demanding situations possible.
Low-pressure shooting, streets, personal projects, quiet moments, often builds instinct faster than high-stakes work ever could.
Practice that actually helps
One exercise I’ve come across is simple but uncomfortable: pick a combination of shutter speed, aperture, ISO, white balance, and focal length (i.e. never use the zoom during this “test”!), then go for a walk without changing anything. Shoot in as many different conditions as possible. Afterwards, review the images and imagine what you would change to improve each one.
Do this often enough and the decisions start to feel less like calculations and more like instinct.
Taking photos frequently matters too. Someone who takes photos every week will progress substantially faster than someone who shoots once a month, even if the monthly shoot is important. Variety helps as well, different light, different subjects, different mistakes.
And when something goes wrong, write it down. Then look for solutions and deliberately apply them next time.
Clients and viewers care about moments, not perfection
Photographers are famously hard on themselves. We notice tiny exposure shifts, half-stops of light, and technical flaws that no one else ever mentions.
But viewers don’t experience photographs that way.
A genuine moment, a laugh, an expression: these beat technical perfection almost every time. A slightly underexposed image of the right moment will be chosen over a technically perfect image of the wrong one.
That doesn’t mean standards don’t matter. It just means self-criticism isn’t the same thing as failure.
Feeling worse can mean you’re improving
There’s a phase in learning where confidence drops sharply. Early on, everything feels exciting and promising. Later, you become acutely aware of what you don’t know, and suddenly nothing feels good enough.
This phase is uncomfortable, but it’s also a sign that your eye is developing.
When you stop noticing problems, that’s when learning stalls. As frustrating as it feels, dissatisfaction often appears right before a leap forward.
Photography keeps you on your toes
There’s no magic number of photos, weddings, or years after which photography becomes effortless. Learning usually starts with frustration, wondering why images aren’t better in a certain way, and continues with curiosity, experimentation, and gradual understanding.
Every time you’re out taking pictures, you learn something. Sometimes it’s technical. Sometimes it’s emotional. Sometimes it’s simply patience.
Photography doesn’t reward perfection. It rewards attention, persistence, and the willingness to keep going, even on the days when you feel like you should know more by now.
And honestly, that’s part of what makes it so good.
