How To Capture Dreamy Photos Anywhere

0:00 Do you want to take dreamy photos, but you're running in circles trying to figure out how? Well, you're in the right place. And don't worry, I'm not here to tell you to shoot f1.8 or to slap on an expensive filter or my personal favorite, find a better location. Like, I live in Manchester, mate. The most scenic thing here is a Gregs next to a vape shop. No, I'm going to pretty much tell you how to get dreamy shots every time you go out shooting. And the last one is the secret source to this whole delicious stir fry. While I was putting this video together, I did a quick Google search and I found that to get dreamy photos, the AI says

0:46 to shoot at fast shutter speeds. And well, you chat GBT cuz Max don't play them games. My first piece of advice is to drop kick that shitty bit of information straight out of your life. You heard it. You should be experimenting with slow shutter speeds. I mean, honestly, if you look back at quite a lot of old work from back in the day, you'll see there's actually quite a bit of movement in those photos, and that's coming from slow shutter speeds, whether that's by the camera's design or by personal choice. And personally, I think it looks great because to me, it's photographing how something feels rather than just how something is. Now, I'm not saying that you should shoot slow shutter speeds for every single photo. I

1:31 don't shoot slow shutter speeds for every single photo, but it is something that I think you should play around with if you want to get a bit more feeling, a bit more of a dreamy feeling in your work. And if you want to know exactly how to do that, then go and take a quick look at this video that I made specifically on it. But don't go anywhere. Just because you've learned about slow shutter speeds does not mean that you know what dreams are made of. No, no, no, honey. The next one is so important and so easily overlooked. Most of us pretty much always shoot at midday because it's convenient or because we're lazy or because we're hung over out of our balls and you know you're not getting up and because of that we end up getting some very sy flat

2:19 photos. So what do you do? How do you get this dreamy light rather than getting this harsh midday light? You've got to be shooting at blue and golden hour. You know that time just before and just after sunrise and sunset. It's no secret. We know what blue hour is. We know what golden hour is. But so many of us just can't be asked to get out of bed in the morning. And by so many of us, I mean me. It's me. You see, the blue and gold in our light is so unbelievably soft and diffused that it's kind of hard not to take dreamy looking photos in that kind of light. But it's not just that. The streets are quieter. There's no one around. It's a totally different

3:04 vibe. Sometimes you get like mist in the morning. You get all kinds of different than if it was just the middle of the day. So, don't be underestimating the power of those different times a day. But of course, there's so much more to come, and it just keeps getting better and better. But while you're here, maybe you should sign up to my newsletter. You'll get a free downloadable file which outlines the four things that revived my photography completely and took me from feeling really down about what I was doing to, you know, smashing out some great photography. You'll then also get some super helpful emails just over, you know, every now and then. I won't be spamming you. You won't be getting stuff all the time. It'll just be, you know, things that I've learned over time.

3:49 Sometimes if I'm selling something, you'll get that. It's just nice stuff. It's chill. It's easy. Let's carry on. Anyway, let's get on to one of the most important aspects of getting that whole dreamy vibe. And this is kind of two points in one. So, you know, double trouble. I'm sure if you asked Google's AI about this, it would tell you the complete opposite. And that's why I'm here rather than chat GPT. I feel like the whole time I've been shooting, everything has told me that everything needs to be in focus or your subject needs to be in focus and everything needs to be as sharp as possible for it to be a great picture. Well, forget that noise because rules are made to be

4:34 broken. Unless we're talking about like public indecency or something like that, in which case probably stick to them. But when it comes to focus, I think there are so many ways that you can play around with it. Having your subject be out of focus while the background is in focus is a really cool way of creating a really atmospheric, dreamy image. Or the complete opposite way of doing things would be to have a large portion of the foreground be out of focus while your subject in the background is in focus. There are a lot of ways to play around with focus. And I think this can produce some really striking images that are really compositionally strong. But I wasn't just talking about focusing. There was sharpness as well. I think for

5:21 the longest time, sharpness has been this supposed indicator of image quality. And I mean, I guess it depends how you define quality. And some people might love sharpness. And that's okay. But personally, I love texture because for me, it creates more feeling whereas sharpness is more clean, sort of clinical. It can feel a bit less personal sometimes. texture, which I guess could come from editing or shooting film or movement or a few things really, can feel more dreamy. Like a dream isn't polished. It's not usually HD, I don't think. It's more like a nightly acid trip. So, I guess sharpness

6:06 doesn't have to be that important. And that leads me on to the last thing. And I really do think this is a bit of secret source, unless you know it already. And then I guess it's just like ketchup. But we still like ketchup. But this is about editing. I mean, so much of editing is about figuring it out for yourself, figuring out your identity and how you want your photography to look. And that's part of how you create a personal style. But there is one thing that I'll tell you. Reduce your clarity just a little bit. And be careful because if you reduce your clarity too much and you're doing close-up portraits, then it's going to start to look like Uncle Rico's photo shoot. Now, just imagine you're weightless in the middle of the

6:56 ocean, surrounded by tiny little seahorses. But trust me, a slight reduction in your clarity can really change the feel of your photos. It's like it can give it that like I can't quite put my finger on it quite, you know, that kind of feeling. But seriously, put all of these things together and you're going to end up with some crazy dreamy feeling photos. I mean, that's not everything. You're going to have to develop your own style and figure out what you actually want to photograph. But yeah, I mean, you're well on your way to taking some cool I really hope you enjoyed this one. Sign up to my newsletter, subscribe to my channel. Write a comment about what you did this

7:41 week. Maybe you did something cool. Maybe something cool happened to you. I don't know. And obviously, don't stop there. I mean, take a look at this next video about how to make sure you get amazing photos every time you go out. It's just a great way of doing