How to Improve Art Skills – Photography

It’s simple—grab a camera or your smartphone and go for a walk, looking for interesting angles and lighting. What’s the benefit of this? Let’s break it down.

Composition

When you take photos often, you start choosing angles and positioning objects within your frame. You look at other people’s photos and notice how they play with composition. You can place the subject in the center or on the edge, closer to left or to the right. You can add depth by positioning one object closer and another further away. You can tilt the horizon to add dynamism to the shot. You can even crop a person’s head out of the frame (yes you can do that!) to focus on their hands or an accessory.

Lighting

You begin searching for interesting lighting. Sunsets are great—they often provide one of the most beautiful lighting conditions. I love that short moment of the day when you get both warm and cool tones in the same frame—the classic teal and orange look, warm at light and cold in shades. But that’s the easy part. A much more valuable skill is learning to find angles and scenes where the light naturally highlights the subject, emphasizing its details and form. Or using strong contrast for a dramatic effect, adding depth to your composition. Or even try to create your own lights using basic technic key, fill and rim lights!

Color

Photography also teaches you to work with color grading and post-processing, which will benefit your renders and projects later on. You start noticing subtle nuances and shades—where to desaturate, where to boost contrast, or even change colors entirely to draw more attention to the main subject or character.

Materials

On top of everything else, you'll start noticing how reflections and wear affect materials. Not right away, of course, but over time, this skill will develop subconsciously—the more you observe, the better your eye will get. You'll begin to understand how different materials react to light, their texture, and their properties. Is the surface rough or glossy? How strong is the reflection, and what color does it take on? How intense is the bump mapping, and what’s its scale?

One common mistake I see among beginner 3D artists is cranking up the bump strength so much that it creates visible artifacts, and the scale is always wrong! Photography will teach you to handle this more delicately.

Imagination

This part is one of the most exciting aspects for me personally—I love the challenge. You walk through your own backyard or familiar streets that seem dull after years of seeing them, thinking there's nothing interesting to photograph. You might believe that to take great photos, you need to travel somewhere far, prepare in advance, research locations, etc. But that’s just an excuse—a beginner’s misconception.

The real challenge is finding beauty in the ordinary! That’s what makes it interesting. I love walking through streets I’ve grown tired of and searching for new, unexpected angles I hadn’t noticed before. It could be a tiny object captured in macro, a building, a window, a door, or even a single leaf resting perfectly on a bench with a beautiful bokeh effect in the background. That’s the challenge! And by doing this, you train your imagination. Sometimes, you might even arrange objects yourself—moving something slightly to frame it better.

Final Advice

The most important tip—don’t be afraid to experiment! Try different angles, lighting, colors, and techniques. Learn the rules of photography, but don’t be afraid to break them and see what happens.

Take pictures of everything—thousands of shots, even things that seem boring at first. If you hesitate, thinking, “Is this even worth photographing?”—just do it! Your camera or phone won’t run out of storage because of a few extra photos. And often, when you get home, you’ll realize that what seemed like an ordinary shot was actually one of the best of the day!

And don’t expect instant results. You won’t feel your skills improve overnight, nor will you sit down at Blender or Cinema 4D, or Houdini and etc, after one photo walk and suddenly create a masterpiece—no chance! The real progress comes after thousands of photos. It’s a long process, and practice is key. Just like physical training, consistency matters. Go out a few times a week, take photos in the streets and at home, capture objects and people, and over time, you’ll start noticing your skills improving.

So take all your excuses like "I don’t have a real camera" or "There’s nothing interesting to photograph around me—it’s just a dull, gray courtyard!"—shove them somewhere deep, grab your smartphone, and start shooting everything you see!