How to take photos

Photography is an art. You have to master the tools before you can express yourself. The camera, different lenses, the flash, are all tools that offer fantastic creative freedom if you can use them correctly, if not, they become a hindrance to the creative process. So, it is important to become a technician before wanting to become a creator.

Read your manuals and technical magazines over and over, keep up with what’s new, meet established photographers, go to trade fairs, take a lot of photos, without even having any film in your camera. You need to acquire reflexes that allow you to manipulate your camera without thinking. Your fingers need to do things of their own accord, like those of a piano player. Then, you can delve deep inside yourself and search out the photos that are dear to you.
You have to train your eyes as a photographer. When a new photo is published, people should be able to associate it with you. You’ll need patience, perseverance, and you must be sincere with yourself.

There is no one photographic style better than an other, whatever is good for you, whatever gets you noticed, will be the one that comes from within you. The more you are able to let go the more unexpected inner strength and pictures that are your own will come through. Give yourself up to the artist that is within you; bring out your sensitivity. Work relentlessly.
Before going off on a trip, I try to revive the creative forces that have been hiding behind the daily routine. I stop time, I go to a concert, or contemplate an exhibition of a Flemish artist whose mastery of light excites me, I go to an abbey to visit my friends the monks who inspire me and awaken my senses. Then I go off to the mountains, and, while walking, I try to imagine the pictures that I will be going towards. I try to visualise the photos I would like to take, so that I will be able to seize the moment if the occasion presents itself during my travels. I create my interior voyage before even getting on the plane. Between trips, I take no photos at all, although, every day, I take dozens of them in my head. I photograph for most of the year without a camera, while talking with a friend or walking in the street. You must always compose and centre an image in order to cultivate your photographer’s eye, so that, when you have to take a picture, your visual perception is already alert.

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