5 Reasons Why Every Artist Should Learn Photography

You may have found your true passion in a traditional art medium. Whether it’s acrylic painting, drawing, sculpting, or even digital art, learning the basics of photography can greatly improve your skills in your chosen field of study.

1. Learn to see the details.

As you start your photography journey, you’ll often start searching for subjects of interest. It could be a portrait, still life, event photography, nature, and more. As you learn to search out a subject, the more you’ll start to notice the small details of the subject that you normally might have missed. These details can make all the difference in portraying the story or concept you are looking to get across in your artwork.

2. Learn composition.

One of the key aspects of capturing a compelling photograph is learning composition. Composition is something studied for all art mediums. However, photography can offer you a new perspective by teaching you how to frame the subject, and paying closer attention to the rule of thirds, which helps direct the viewer’s eye towards the most important element in the image.

3. Learn lighting.

The word Photography means light drawing. The Greek word photos means (“light”) and graphe means (“drawing”). In other words, you are drawing or painting with light. Light can completely make or break an entire piece of artwork. By learning photography, you’ll begin to see how light reflects off a subject, and can give a certain atmosphere or mood depending on the light source.

4. Reference Photos

There are many free and premium stock sites on the web. However, they don’t always have what you are looking for, and may have restrictions to its use. By learning photography and taking your own photos, you can start building your own reference library of subjects and textures. Since you’ll be starting from an original resource, your work, in turn, will be more original.

5. Learn how to prepare an image for print.

Once you have captured your images, you’ll begin to learn how to edit them and add your own artistic style. If you’re a traditional artist, it’s not uncommon to want to photograph the work, and create reproductions for print-on-demand purposes. Digital photography can help teach you how to edit those images, and prepare them for the specifications needed for print.

Learn photography online with these classes: