You’re a star darling, work it, work it, the camera loves you. Sorry, I wasn’t talking to you, I was talking to the fish.

Whether you just bought your first “big kid camera,” you’re borrowing your mom’s Polaroid (you know what those are right?), or you’re using your iPhone, you can always take great photographs to remember your epic days of fly fishing with your buddies. Why take better photos? Not only will you get more love on Facebook and around the water cooler at work, but you also have an easy go-to gift for any of your fishing partners. How great would it be to get an amazing photo of your personal best cutthroat for your birthday?

Whether you want to start taking better photos for fun, or you’re looking to quit your job and become a fly fishing photographer, here are a few steps to help you get started. Just make sure that whatever you do, you remember to keep your camera dry. Most cameras don’t like water.

Know Your Equipment

Chase Jarvis, a mega successful photographer, says that the best camera is the one you have with you, and he’s right. No matter what camera you have, the only one that matters is the one you have on you, but regardless of what kind or level it is, you need to know it backwards and forwards to start taking good photos.

Landscape photographers often joke that they know they’re camera so well they can change any setting in the dark, because they’ll often have to in order to capture interesting landscapes. If you start shooting your fly fishing adventures, you’re sure to find yourself in a dark or tricky situation that will force you to change or tweak a setting on your camera without looking. I know it kind of sucks, but read the manual. Seriously.

Paint With Light

The difference between a good photo and a bad photo, besides the fun part I mention below, is the way the light interacts with the subject in the photo. Start looking at photographs from your favorite fly fishing photographers and really pay attention to how they’re using light to shape their subject, or not.

An easy way to get good light is to take most of your photos during the “golden hours,” as photographers call them, the few hours after sunrise and before sunset when the sun is low and the light is more pleasing to the eye. If you want to get really fancy and start controlling the light, you can pick up a bounce for $30 at any photography store, or just make a quick and dirty one out of a big sheet of white paper.

Have Fun

The easiest trick to start making your photos look better is to just relax and have fun with it. Your photos will get a better response if viewers can see and maybe even feel that you’re having way more fun than they are. After all, we’re all probably going to look at the photos while we’re stuck in our cubicles, so it better look like you’re having fun.

Interesting trips make for interesting photos. It can be that simple sometimes. Sure a seasoned photographer is good at making boring scenes look more interesting, but the biggest shortcut to making your photos of fly fishing and fish look better is just having a damn good time. Like you needed that excuse…

 

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