You just purchased a brand new, state-of-the-art digital camera, charged the battery, fiddled with a few buttons and started snapping away. But hold your horses, your photos aren’t turning out to be the artistic impressions you’ve been dreaming of…
Let me talk you through four top tips for taking more interesting and memorable pictures…
Tip 1: Make your Pictures Unique
If you’re photographing a popular subject that’s been snapped a thousand times before, try a different angle. When shooting a landscape, don’t just point and shoot – lie on the ground and shoot from there to give a worm’s eye view or climb up high for a bird’s eye view.
In this example, the photographer shoots straight up the middle of the runner bean poles. Isn’t that more interesting than shooting head-on?
Get in closer and pick out details – in short, get creative with your angles!
Tip 2: Experiment with Various Exposure Settings
By exploring the different exposure settings of your camera, make pictures look more brilliant with 0.5 to 2 stops underexposure in bright surroundings, other scenes will benefit from more clarity with some overexposure.
Simple exposure level tuning can express different moods in your pictures.
To get a really good grasp of various exposure levels, take several pictures of the same scene with different exposure levels and study your results.
Tip 3: Blur
By intentionally and creatively introducing blur to a photograph, you can bring extra clarity to important features. This can be done in two basic ways:-
This example keenly focuses on the insect and the flower it sits on, while giving only vague impressions of background aspects.
Tip 4: Create Something Out of Nothing
As an exercise, this encourages you to take a step back and rethink how you can create stunning pictures out of everyday objects.
Here’s an example of a shot taken for a kitchen assignment. Getting close up to an everyday item makes these peppercorns infinitely more interesting.
Take a fresh look at common elements around you, such as lines, space and patterns – roads, bridges, trees, railings, etc.
Can you see the creative possibilities growing before your eyes?!
Now that you have some insight into digital photography tips and tricks, there’s one thing left to do – grab your camera and put our tips into practice!
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4 Simple and Effective Digital Photography Tips and Tricks
Saturday, March 12th, 2011Looking For A Good Digital Photography School
Monday, February 28th, 2011Although photography largely involve an eye for beauty and a natural instinct for clicking the camera, it is still important for photographers especially those that are just starting in the field to gather some experience in actual photography. Some practice on their spare time and learn the techniques on their own but this will take a lot of clicking time and magazine reading.
This is why most will go for the short-cut by enrolling in schools that offer short courses in photography. Of course, this will not guarantee to make you a master photographer in months but at least you already have all the tools that you need to make your way to the world of shapes and colors.
Here are some of the things that you should consider when looking for a good photography school to enroll to.
1.Course outline
This is perhaps the most important thing that you have to think about when looking for a school. The course outline will help you determine if the course is suited to the training that you need. It will contain a rundown of all the lessons that students like you will tackle in the class.
Take a look at the list and try to see if all the things that you need to learn are already there. If you find it lacking, try to shop around for other photography courses in the same school or better yet inquire in another school. With a lot of schools, museums and centers offering photography courses, chances are you will find the one that fits you to a T.
2. Specialization
There are courses that are offered according to certain specializations. For instance, some courses concentrate entirely on nature photography. Others go for portraits and human interest pieces. There are even some that do nude photography classes.
In other words, there are a multitude of specializations that you can go into. You can even take all of them; but of course, you have to shell out big bucks for that.
3. Laboratory and field work
Photography is a largely experiential field. You learn not from reading about it or discussing about the theories but in actual taking of shots and doing field works. In the course outline, try to look for the number of hours that will be spent outside the classroom.
Ideally, about 75 percent of the whole course should be used as practice time in fields or in the dark room. Only a quarter should be spent for theories and basics. Some courses offer a 50-50 ratio. Shop around for courses that emphasize field works and experiential learning as these are the courses where you can learn more.
Become Snap-happy With Digital Photography!
Saturday, February 12th, 2011The digital revolution has made amateur photography more popular than ever before. The days of Fuji film and print processing have been replaced with talk of mega-pixels and memory cards. With hundreds of cheap digital cameras on the market, it’s possible for anyone with a good eye for photography yet little practical knowledge of the mechanics of cameras, to capture great shots with simple “point and shoot” digital models.
For some, a love of photography can turn into a profession. If you’re looking to take your photography to the next level, it’s a good idea to first build up a portfolio of work, and then submit your work to the many dedicated photography websites or competitions. There are hundreds of amateur photography forums and websites where members can submit their work for critical appraisal by other members. Such websites also offer advice and tips on photography techniques.
Another way to get recognition and even payment for your photographs is to submit your shots to magazines. Either choose a general photography magazine to do this, or try specialist consumer magazines. For example, if you are a keen skier, submit your ski shots to a winter sports magazine; or if you enjoy fishing, try an angling magazine. Local papers are also a good place to submit photos, as they are often on the lookout for pictures to accompany their stories.
When submitting your photography to magazines, it’s important to remember that photography is an extremely competitive field and that you will be up against professionals. Therefore, don’t get disheartened if your shots aren’t accepted at first – just keep on shooting and continue submitting; in the world of photography, persistence pays.
Amateur photography competitions are another great way of getting your photography seen, and can win you fans, prizes and even commissions or customers. A good idea is to start small; your local photography club will probably hold various contests; also keep an eye out for other competitions that are within your field of expertise. There are hundreds to enter, and they tend to have set themes – covering everything from travel to sports, nature to nautical and portrait to planes.
The ‘Million Places on Earth’ competition, for example, is offering a top prize of one million dollars for unique location images from anywhere in the world. Other competitions include Embassy Suite Hotels ‘Happiness in Motion’ competition, which carries an all expenses paid trip to Hawaii as their top prize; while UKplus are also holding an online photography competition with a top prize of £1000 for photographs taken within the UK.
Whether it’s for fun, glory, or perhaps a new career path, photography is an extremely rewarding hobby. And you never know – you might just see your picture on the cover of National Geographic one day!