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David Middleton: Think About Your Subject Before You Begin Shooting

David Middleton is a Nikon Legend Behind the Lens

See the picture, take the picture, right?

Not necessarily. David Middleton suggests another method: See the picture, think about the picture. "Put your hands in your pockets and wander around for a while," David says. "The biggest mistake people make is that as soon as the idea pops into their heads, they take the picture," David says. "What they should do is look at the subject—the flower, the scene, whatever it is—and ask themselves, is this the best way to take it? So wander a bit and think about it, look for different angles, different views. The accomplished photographer is the one who spends more time looking at the shot, analyzing it and figuring out how to take it than actually taking it."

By that definition, and just about any other, David is an accomplished photographer. He's been an outdoor and nature photographer for over 18 years, has published several books and contributed images to numerous magazines. In addition, he teaches between ten and 15 workshops each year. He has conducted photographic tours and taught workshops for, among others, the National Audubon Society and The Great American Photography Weekend.

"Definitely look to your own backyard," David says. "That's another common mistake. Most people want to go for the glory shot—a bear, a moose, the snow-covered Tetons, the Delicate Arch. But those pictures have been done over and over again. And if you run around taking the glory shots, you end up with a hodgepodge of images. People forget that the best light they're ever going to find is the light they see when they walk out their front door on a beautiful spring morning. Drive around, wander your own area, you'll find more to photograph than you ever imagined." Go deep, he suggests, rather than wide.

David says that a lot of people do "that Tetons, Denali thing because they think it's the way to get published, but it's actually the way to rejection because there are so many pictures of those places already. People think if they bag a large hairy mammal they'll get published. But there are tens of thousands of photographs of large hairy mammals."