Alan Ranger Photography

31/08/2026

https://youtu.be/mJjSQ4KVD4I?si=l5GaQfD86T_dqja3

Two photographs. Same camera. Same lens. Same person, standing in exactly the same place. One looks like a snapshot from a family barbecue. The other looks like it belongs in a magazine. The only creative setting that changed was one number — the aperture.

In this video Alan Ranger combines Lessons 02 and 09 from the Alan Ranger Photography Academy: Aperture and Depth of Field. They are the same conversation. Aperture is one of the main controls, and depth of field is what it does to your picture. Learn one without the other and you will always be guessing.

Two photographs. Same camera. Same lens. Same person, standing in e...

25/08/2026

https://youtu.be/upb8ZJYUhlE

18/08/2026

Unpopular opinion: "get out and shoot more" is terrible advice. The photographers I most admire shoot less — because they've learned the thing no workshop teaches: your camera should stay in the bag for the first ten minutes. Most pictures are made too soon, out of anxiety dressed up as diligence. Issue 4 of Light & Logic, on the stillness that comes before the frame. When did you last wait long enough for a scene to change in front of you — and did a better photograph arrive?

Issue 4: August 2026 The case for watching before you make Last month I wrote about emptiness inside the frame — the case for taking things out. This month I want to go one step earlier, to something that happens before the frame exists at all.

12/08/2026

https://www.alanranger.com/blog-on-photography/how-to-photograph-a-solar-eclipse-uk

Photograph a solar eclipse safely from the UK with a camera or phone — filters, settings, composition, plus every future UK eclipse date. Expert guide.

26/07/2026

Rule of thirds. Leading lines. Foreground interest. Fill the frame.

Every composition lesson you've ever read answers the same question: what should I put in?

Almost none ask the harder one: what should I take out?

Issue 3 of Light & Logic is about emptiness — the case for what's not in the frame. It opens with a Taoist parable I've been carrying around for years, and it closes with a challenge that most photographers will find harder than it sounds: try leaving something out.

This isn't anti-composition. It's the half of the conversation nobody teaches.

What did you last take out of a frame — and did the picture come alive?

Issue 3: July 2026 The case for what's not in the frame here's a story that Solala Towler tells in Tales from the TAO, and I've never forgotten it. An emperor asks his court philosophers to demonstrate their wisdom by painting a mural.

12/06/2026

A thousand tutorials, and still no photographs you love.
Issue 2 of my Light & Logic newsletter is out today — it's about learning photography from YouTube, and why so many photographers end up technically fluent but creatively stuck.
The short version: YouTube is an ingredient, not a curriculum. A video can teach you the how brilliantly — but it can't see your photographs, can't ask what you were trying to say, and never tells you what to do next.
And before anyone says it — no, it isn't anti-YouTube. I use it myself. That's rather the point.
The photograph here is the one on the issue: The Future, Bassenthwaite Lake — made in the ten minutes after the sunrise forecast failed, when most photographers had packed up. The story's in the article.
Read Issue 2 here → https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/youtube-cant-see-your-photographs-alan-ranger-sxlae/
What's the most useful thing YouTube ever taught you — and what's the thing it never could? Tell me in the comments, here or there.

15/05/2026

I've just launched a new monthly newsletter — Light & Logic — and the first edition is out today.

It's for photographers who've grown past the "what aperture do I use?" stage and want to think about why their pictures work, not just how to take them.

Issue 1 takes on something I've believed for years but never said out loud quite this directly: most photography teaching has it backwards. Camera before seeing. Exposure before intention. Rules before reason.

If you photograph as more than a hobby — or you teach others — I'd love to know what you make of it.

👇 Read Issue 1 here

Issue 1 · May 2026 I’ve taught photography for more than twenty years — beginners through advanced, in evening classes in Coventry and on workshops from Snowdonia to the Scottish Highlands. Over a thousand evening classes.

15/05/2026

https://www.alanranger.com/free-online-photography-course

11/05/2026

A good trip to Anglesey last weekend. Sunshine and dry and many miles of the island explored to work the diverse range of photo opportunities.

13/04/2026