The Four Stages of Learning Photography

Expensive cameras and lenses, complex post-processing techniques, gorgeous visual effects — very often these don't turn a bad photo into a great one; they just turn it into a sharper, more elaborate, more vivid bad photo.

Whether a photographic work is good in the end does not depend on how expensive the camera was or how complex the techniques used, but on the form, content, and ideas the photo ultimately presents.

In my view, learning photography can be divided into 4 stages: gear, technique, form, and content.

"To do a good job, one must first sharpen one's tools." When starting out in photography, it's natural to care most about gear — should I buy Nikon, Hasselblad, or Sony? Should I go straight to full-frame? For a wide-angle lens, 16-35mm or 14-24mm?

Later on, we buy books, hang around forums, follow WeChat accounts, and gradually pick up quite a few techniques. Focusing and exposure become second nature; we get familiar with Camera Raw and Photoshop; we can even chat with friends about "fancy" terms like luminosity masks and focus stacking.

But many photography enthusiasts stay stuck in the quagmire of gear and technique, keen to find out which gear is better and which technique is superior — while the level of their work barely improves.

That is because gear and technique both serve the photo's form — its visual presentation. Teacher Li Tao's saying, "Technique determines the floor; aesthetics determines the ceiling," confirms exactly this point.

Whether a photo is beautiful does not depend on whether we used curves, levels, soft-light layers, or radial filters in post. It depends on whether what should stand out was strengthened, whether what should recede was weakened — whether post-processing actually made the photo more beautiful.

Of course, pursuing only beautiful, grandiose visual effects easily traps us in a cycle of flashy but empty work.

Because a photo's visual effect must ultimately serve its content and emotion.

We apply composition rules, color schemes, and visual guidance in our photos not only to make them prettier, but to highlight the subject, intensify the emotion, and convey a story and a feeling.

A good photo is never a simple record of the objective environment — it embodies the photographer's observation, thinking, and imagination, and expresses their personality, emotions, and reflections.

Gear serves technique; technique serves form; form serves content. Never put the cart before the horse.

When first learning photography, we shouldn't obsess over gear quality — adequate is enough; progress step by step. Building solid fundamentals in shooting and post-processing matters more.

Once the technical foundation is solid, we should go further in composition, tonality, and color grading — that is, in visual form.

After mastering gear, technique, and form, we should return to our original intention: using photography to record and express the world as we see it.

At that point we may realize that a photographer's so-called style is not determined by their gear, technique, composition, or color grading — but by their personality, experiences, and worldview.

This article is excerpted from Thomas's book "The Fundamentals of Landscape Photography Post-Processing" (《风光摄影后期基础》).