Top 3 Things To Remember As You Get More Serious About Your Photography:

[pm-r]

1.  Watch Your Backgrounds:  It's not enough to capture great action or find a good expression in a portrait.  You need to really watch your backgrounds in your photos as you learn and get better.  Side stepping just a few feet, kneeling to have the sky be the larger portion of your background, or finding a high angle can radically change to overall quality and impact of your photos.

2.  Use Longer Lenses to Photograph People:  Phones horribly distort people when you stand too close to them to make photos.  Their heads are massive sitting on tiny shoulders.  You can turn even a simple portrait into a caricature really fast when you use the super wide lenses in your camera or zoom lens to shoot people.   So back off a little and use focal lengths higher than 50mm to shoot better portraits.  This will also allow the backgrounds (see #1) to be blown more out of focus and become more simple elements in your photos instead of fighting with your subjects.  Remember if you are shooting with a crop sensor camera like any of the A6XXX series, that you are using an APS-C sensor.  All the wide lenses made for those sensors are going to distort people.

3.  Become More Intentional as you Shoot:  See the entire situation unfolding.  Are there moments coming up soon that you need to think about your position for?  Where is the best place to stand for the best background?  What direction is the action most likely to take?  Are you shooting too many photos without checking focus every 2-3 frames?  What is your end goal for the image you wish to produce?  Are you working towards that goal for each shoot you embark on?  These are all questions you should be asking yourself as you head out with your camera whether it's for a paying assignment or just to improve your skill-set.  Get serious about your shooting so that you are seeing growth in both your images as well as your personal vision.

[CarolineJensen]

Oh man...backgrounds. That is why I adore the inverse square law. I don't necessarily love black backgrounds, but it sure makes portraits easier!