8 Embarrassing Photography & Filmmaking Mistakes

Man, ever since I started studying photography, I’ve been flooded with photography tips: “Do this, do that. Don’t forget this.” And of course, those photography tips have helped me a lot. Now all tips are great but some definitely helped me to develop my style and improve my photography over the last decade.

Now, the thing is, no matter how many photography tips I know and how many projects and assignments I’ve done, I still make stupid mistakes. And I do mean stupid mistakes. Now, you might say: “Yeah, sure but you learn from every mistake, right?”. No, wrong, there are a few that I’ve made two, three… five times and it keeps happening once in a while. Here are 8 photography and filmmaking mistakes that I still make after ten years of being a professional photographer.

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1. Card full

You’re on a trip in the mountains. You had been looking forward to it for weeks and you want to take that first photo… Card full. Oh damn. And the problem here is not that the card is full. The real mistake is that your didn’t bring extra empty card and you also didn’t backup the photos on the card you do have. Now what? Well, suck it up and start deleting the photos that you hopefully won’t need. This is not a fun task!

2. Audio cable

A few times now it happened. Finally, I’m done recording and I import all the photos in Premiere or Davince. What the hell? No sound or bad sound. I. forgot to plug in the microphone. You have no idea how fast the good feeling you had can get destroyed by not plugging a cable.

3. Camera Bag Gymnastics?

You really have to watch the video for this. It involves me getting caught up in my camera bag strap.

4. Camera settings

Why am I looking so orange? Why is the footage over exposed? Why is this photo blurry? You just didn’t check the camera settings. You did the same kind of work yesterday and you were convinced that the settings were still the same but… they weren’t. Cry.

5. No Card

Sometimes I decided to go out with just my camera because I feel like I don’t need anything else. And then I want to take that first shot… damn, no card. It’s still in my computer at home.

6. Empty Battery

Another classic. How many times I told myself: “I just used that batter for five minutes. It should have more than enough juice for a day out…” Nope, it’s super cold and you want to do some video too. Too bad, you’re gonna need more than one battery. Now, usually you have one but my Canon M50 has the annoying problem of not saving a video clip when the battery dies. Not every time, but sometimes. And that’s more than enough to make you fear empty batteries while recording.

7. Left the timer on

Ever had to take a portrait of someone and when you hit the shutter button that red light starts flashing? What do you do, keep pretending like you’re still framing or just tell your subject that you forgot to turn off the timer?

8. Left the lens cap on

No need to explain. We’ve ALL done this. And while it’t not a bad mistake because you notice right away, there’s always this guy who starts laughing and making fun of you…