...it really does make perfect.

Was is the key to getting better in photography? It is not reading books, it is not buying new equipment, it is not going to all the seminars they have to offer, and it is not watching all the YouTube videos out there. Yes, this can help in the quest to getting better, but the actual KEY to getting better in photography is practice. If you don't practice what you read in those books then what was the point in reading them? If you don't practice with that new equipment you just bought then what was the point in wasting your money on it? If you don't practice what you learned on that awesome seminar you just attended, then what was the point of going? If you don't practice what you see in YouTube video tutorials, then what was the point of wasting the bandwidth on it?

You have to practice as much as you can, you have to go out and take pictures that you don't think you could ever get, and then keep on trying until you get what you wanted in the first place. Conceptualize the shoot before it happens. And there are a lot of ways you can practice for any kind of photography. I will give you an example on how I "practice" for children photography, and you will not guess what it is...I'll give you a minute to think and guess. Ready? I go to the zoo. Did you guessed right or wrong?

You might ask "The zoo?", but here is why. I go to the zoo because the animals at the zoo don't care if you have a camera in your hands. They don't care if you have the settings right before you take the shoot. they don't even care what they are doing at the moment. And kids are like that, you go into their world, not the other way around. Just because you have a camera the kids won't behave if they don't do so normally. And just because you tell them smile, they do it if they want, not because you told them too. They move around a lot, and you have to kind of travel into the future even if for just a second to have the shot you were looking for before it happens. Again, go to a zoo and you'll learn a lot of how to shoot kids.

Another thing that I do is that I practice with my equipment what I read from a book, or what I saw in an image, or what I heard in a seminar, or a YouTube video. The more you practice, the more it becomes ingrained into your skull, I've been saying to myself "Head in a clean spot, Head in a clean spot!" for a long time, but now I don't have to do it because I KNOW. It is just like driving, remember that first time you got into the driving side of that first car? You slammed the brakes every two seconds. But after a while, and with practice, you can drive your car and not even think what you are doing, but you are just doing it.
It is easy to press the shutter and take 1000 images and then just delete the ones you didn't like. But it is better to just have that image in your head, set everything up and after a few clicks you have it, your done, on to the next one. Practice every time you want to try something new. You don't have a model? Make one up. I have used soda cans, spray bottles, I even used my bike helmet to see how would a mask would look like in a shot. In this following shot I was testing the octabox that I just got, so I used this little bottle to test it out, and then I took just this one shot of myself afterwards. After that I have done countless light tests with the octabox, so I can make "smart" and "educated" decisions instead of "wing in it" and "praying that there is a least a good image" at the time of an actual shoot with a client.

The key to get better in photography is to practice as much as you can. you can fix things in post process but why would you spend more time in front of a computer when you can take better images on the shoot and do less work in post processing. Practice makes perfect, so go out and practice more. You're images will thank you!