The 20 Step Checklist to Make Your Images Authentically More Creative

Fact: I think photographers are using technology to make images that aren’t very intentional and often aren’t even very good. And instead, I think that we need to shoot more authentically and creatively without using technology as an aide that’s doing everything for us. After all, if we’re outsourcing all of the work to the camera, what’s the point of having you be a photographer?

Here’s the checklist of questions to ask yourself before you even begin to shoot or pick up the camera. And if you can’t answer these questions, then you’ve got a lot of learning to do and a lot more paying attention to you as your artistic brain and technical brain are speaking a second language to one another but not quite saying what they mean.

1. Look at your scene
2. Get inspired by it and think about a way to photograph it in a completely unique way.
3. Describe what that scene is, and write it down
4. Add details: think about the who, what, when, where, how, and why.
5. You’re now going to commit to setting everything on your camera to be completely manual.
6. Without looking at your camera or picking it up, do you know what ISO you’ll use?
7. Without looking at your camera or picking it up, do you know what aperture you’ll use?
8. Without looking at your camera or picking it up, do you know what shutter speed you’re going to use?
9. Without looking at your camera or picking it up, do you know what manually set white balance you’ll use?
10. What will the power output of your lighting be?
11. Where is the lighting coming from?
12. If you added lighting to the scene, how would it look and what value would it add to the scene?
13. What lens filter will you use? Why or why not? What is it adding to your scene?
14. Why do you think this scene is worth photographing the way that you’re doing it?
15. Why would someone else think that this scene is worth photographing the way that you’re doing it?
16. If you showed this image to people without the use of social media, how do you think they’d react to it?
17. Are you going to create motion in your scene? What kind of motion?
18. Is your framing intentional and what isn’t needed in the scene?
19. Why are you shooting from the angle that you’re using?
20. If you printed this photograph and someone couldn’t zoom in on the details to look at them, it would have to stand on its own the way that it is right now. Does it?

Now, look at these questions, and answer them all in around 40 words each. From there, you’ll have a much more clear and concise idea of what you’re doing to make a single photo.