When you’re working on your craft, it’s not always easy to know where you stand. You might think you’re still at the beginner level, but your habits and results may already show you’ve moved on. Recognizing those shifts matters because it changes how you should approach learning and practice.
Coming to you from Pay Kay, this useful video explains five signals that mean you’re progressing into the intermediate stage. One of the first signs is noticing light before anything else. Instead of obsessing over camera settings or new gear, you find yourself paying more attention to how light falls across a scene. That shift is important because it means you’re moving past the technical checklist and focusing on what truly shapes an image. Kay explains how this transition often happens naturally, once you’re comfortable with exposure, shutter speed, and ISO, and you’re no longer slowed down by those details.
Another sign is the ability to previsualize a shot before you even lift your camera. Beginners often see a scene in their mind but struggle to capture it the way they imagined. With more experience, your mental picture begins to line up with your final image. You start recognizing compositions in real life and can reproduce them with accuracy. Kay stresses that this isn’t about shortcuts, but about spending time shooting across different sensor sizes, focal lengths, and conditions until practice sharpens that connection. It’s a process that takes thousands of frames, but the payoff is that your instincts guide you more reliably.
Kay also talks about a clear marker of progress: you’re deleting fewer images. At the start, it’s normal to come away from a shoot with only one usable frame out of hundreds. As your vision and execution improve, your ratio of keepers increases. This reflects not only better technical skill but also sharper judgment about when to press the shutter. The video ties this to the idea of efficiency, comparing it to how a skilled cook wastes fewer ingredients. You begin to anticipate what works and avoid unnecessary trial and error.
Later in the video, Kay highlights one of the most overlooked signals: the ability to identify what makes a photo good. This isn’t about whether you personally like an image or whether it does well on social media. It’s about recognizing intentionality—seeing the purpose behind a photographer’s choices in framing, color, and composition. Kay refers to this as visual language, something you can learn to read and then apply to your own work. This point alone is worth watching, since it pushes you to think differently about how meaning is built into an image. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Kay.
I thought it was buying the newest gear.
I have noticed that some of my best photos have color as the defining subject whether it is the Golden Hour, the water,the sky,fall color, etc., color knee sharpness or other traits has dominated my best work.
Yes, I have GAS... Been buying Nikon gear since the 1970s and only use Nikon FX DLSR's which meter with AI lenses. Had a few 1960s lenses converted to AI.