Most of photography happens before the shutter. Learning to see light — its direction, softness and colour — is the habit that improves every frame.
Front light flattens; side light sculpts; back light draws an outline. Walk a subject and watch how a single face changes as the light moves around it.
A cloud, a passer-by, a shaft through a window — the picture often arrives a few seconds after you think it has. Patience is a lens you already own.
Photographers talk about this in our interviews.