Photography Tips Guide

Posts Tagged ‘Digital Photography Tips’

Learning digital photography in our instant society is only possible by applying the basic principles of good photography. Digital is another tool and there is no real fast way of doing this. BUT… If you are prepared to follow these six quick photography principles you’re on the road to learning digital photography fast. And I really mean fast. So here goes.

1. Choose your subject carefully.

This is the centrepiece of your photo. Make sure you identify a suitable subject and focus on this. Not negotiable. If subject is not clearly identifiable your photo will be below average.

2. Place you subject intelligently.

Divide your image into thirds vertically and horizontally. Imagine 2 lines across and 2 lines down. Where these lines intersect place your subject on one of these points. If you have an horizon in the image, line it up with one of the 2 horizontal lines.

3. Get closer to your subject.

Most times the subject is what you want to remember about the scene you are recording. So get as much of it in your photo. This is especially so with family photos. Have smaller groups of people shot closer to the camera.

4. Exclude clutter from around your subject.

Make sure that there are no trees or telephone poles sticking out the top of you subject’s head. Unless you particularly want to remember the garbage can, bicycle, microwave or signboard, leave them out of the scene. Look for anything that you don’t want to see in 20 years when viewing the photos and exclude it.

5. Look at your subject from a different angle.

Shoot from up higher (above the subject) or lower (looking up at the subject). Find a different angle so that the image is unique a gives you a different more interesting aspect.

6. Change your viewpoint.

Most people stand in front of the subject and just shoot away. Move around looking through your viewfinder and find a different position that gives a more interesting shot. Experimenting is the key.

BONUS TIP

Finally here’s a bonus tip. Choose a subject you want to photograph and shoot it in 50 different ways. Shoot from high, low, the left, the right, directly above. Get in really close, turn you camera at an angle, hold the camera above your head. Change your viewpoint, walk away from the subject, lie on your back or lie on your stomach. It may sound a lot but when you try it you’ll see it’s possible. When you’ve finished, browse through all the images and you will be amazed at your ability. You will have found a new and different angle that will amaze your friends and family. Don’t worry about feeling stupid if you want to get that great shot. Follow these 6 basic photographic principles and your photos will improve dramatically and very fast. Within hours you friends will be complimenting you on your great images.

Starting out with any new venture, or for that fact resurrecting an old venture, there are always the questions where do I start or how do I start? Although the urge is there to try something big, starting at the beginning is essential. Learn to take baby steps first.

If you’ve watched the old time classic movie the Sound of Music, it’s “let’s start at the very beginning”. A very good place to start. So beginning your photography journey you need to look at three fundamentals in order to get going.

1. Get to know your camera

Getting to know your camera is essential for your beginning in photography. A workman who is not competent with the tools of the trade is not going to get very far. I am not talking here of every single little feature but rather all the major features, settings or controls. You need to be able to operate without thinking and often times while you aren’t looking at the controls. Know where they are by feel so that as you’re looking through the viewfinder you can change settings automatically. Do this little exercise and you’ll get to know them fast. Go through your manual and go through each setting on your camera. When you are finished go through it again; this time checking off all the settings you know. Then go through the manual again and learn those settings that you are not sure of. By logically working through your manual and getting to know the camera’s features will be invaluable as you learn photography.

2. Shoot regularly and on every occasion

One of the major benefits digital photography has given us is the ability to take photos without the cost restrictions of film. The problem is that people use this to the detriment of calculated and thoughtful composition of their photos. But if used correctly, digital gives the ability to keep shooting without any constraints. The reason I see that shooting regularly is key to learning is because practise does make perfect. Through trial and error we learn about most things in life. Sometimes you do get a lucky shot amongst the rapidfire shooting sprees but this is the exception. The famous golfer Gary Player always said, “the harder I practise, the luckier I get.” Use every ocasion to practise and then compare images you have taken previously. Evaluation helps to examine your photos and find out where you can improve. But don’t just stop there. Go out and improve the areas you need to and practise more in the areas where you have deficiencies.

3. Focus on the fundamentals of photography

Learning the basics properly is key to anything you do. If you give yourself a good foundation and learn the fundamentals you are going to get off on the right foot and not make the basic errors which need correcting. Find a really good book or e-course take each element of photography and apply it. Don’t try learning a bunch of keys and attempt put them all into one photo at once. Learn good composition before trying to shoot action photos. Rome wasn’t built in a day but our instant society has taught us that we can everything and have it now. It doesn’t work like that with photography. It has step be a logical progression as you learn one step then apply it and move on to the next step. Don’t forget to keep on revising what you have learnt as you need to build on to the foundation of the previous step and so on.

These three steps are just some basics to get you going. There are many others that you gradually need to incorporate into your photograhic learning journey. It’s not all going to happen at once so you need to grasp just a few of the basics to start growing.

The world has gone digital crazy. With many homes having multiple digital camera owners you can’t move without seeing someone taking a digital snap. And the operative word here is a snapshot. Not much thought, creativity or photographic composition. Just lots and lots of digital pollution cramming the millions of hard drives, DVDs and memory cards. Digital has enabled people to take more low quality, thoughtless snapshots. Digital photography could see the death of creativity in photography in general. Why such a harsh statement? Here’s why:

1. Lack of thought.

As a film photographer the consumable costs of photography were much higher. This forced us to think and carefully consider each shot. There was a greater thought process. Using a motor drive for taking multiple shots was for the press photographers who could afford take thirty six images in a few seconds. For the rest of us we had to think more before pressing the button.

2. The Shakespeare effect.

This is the evolutionary idea that if you give a roomful of monkeys a typewriter each and enough time, they will eventually produce a work equal in quality to Shakespeare. There is a similar mindset among digital photographers that if they shoot enough photos, somewhere amongst the thousands will be quality images. You have as much chance as that happening as a monkey.

3. Drive by shooting syndrome.

This is similar to the lack of thought in taking a photo. Because of the multiple shot feature in digital cameras and the low cost of digital photography, it’s quick an easy to take an image. Just like a drive by shooting the camera is pointed in the general direction of the subject and a bunch of images is taken. Then you move on to the next target and fire away again.

So what’s the answer? Plain and simple slow down, right down and smell the roses as the saying goes. The creative process is methodical and well thought out. You need to be able to observe, think and then take action. Because digital photography is so quick, cheap and easy the principles and techniques of photography tend to get sidelined. Here are a few steps to encourage your creative process.

1. Make or allocate time for your creative process.

Creativity won’t be hurried. At times it may come to you quickly but this is the exception rather than the norm. So sit down and absorb the environment. Observe your surroundings, subjects and any activity. Let it become a part of you.

2. Be selective.

Find something that turns you or rather your creativity on. If this is colour then focus on the rich hues and shades. If it’s an object or subject observe it carefully in relation to it’s surroundings. Now close your eyes and picture the final image.

3. Change your position or viewpoint.

By looking at your subject from different angles, heights or positions the image will change as the subject changes in relation to its environment. All of a sudden you see things you never would have seen.

4. Try something different.

Shoot a traditional tourist shot of your subject and then look for a shot that is completely different, one you’ve never seen before. Make it unrecognisable. Hire a boat and shoot from the the water. Go to the top of a nearby building or if you’re adventurous climb a tree or lie down on your back.

Creativity is often just doing something different. Something that hasn’t been done before. The key element that I have found to creativity is time. So take your time and smell the roses. Your photography will never be the same again. Put photography, creative photography back into digital photography.

Digital photography has change so much over the years and you can easily see the difference even when you are not a professional photographer. It seems like just a couple of years ago when you were using film camera instead of the 10.0 megapixels digital camera today. By the way, digital photography is not limited to cameras only. Take a look at cell phones and camcorders. They are capable of taking pictures and these gadgets were never heard of a few years ago.

The widespread of digital photography over these mediums has certainly promoted the popularity of digital photography. You just aim the camera at your subject, press the shutter button, look at the picture and decide to keep or delete the picture base on your preference on the picture. It seems easy. Doesn’t it?

However, some photographers complaint that this kind of photography practice has demoted the true value of the art. They claim that photography is supposed to be an art which you have to be serious in. You ought to carefully frame the shot, decide on the angle and light and challenge your photography skills instead of simply taking the picture and deleting it when the picture doesn’t feel right. It is utterly unacceptable that you rely heavily on photo editing software to make the pictures look better.

Now, does the improved technology in digital photography help you to be lazy or not is a debate. Because there are arguments that digital photography has provided great extend of flexibility where photographer can be free from carrying various ISO films and it is cost effective where the photographer can simply delete the unfavorable picture instead of wasting a frame on film.

Many photographers also believe that they can produce better photographs with digital photography because they can look at the photos immediately and decide what to do with the faulty photos. Imagine you took a group picture on a birthday party only to find out that the birthday stars had shut their eyes during the photo shoot. Now, that definitely spoiled the mood.

However, you can prevent that with digital photography. You can review the picture you took and decide to let the group off when the picture is good. And for the so called defective picture, you can edit it with photo editing software into a candid picture and you just turn something unfavorable into something funny.

Still, that doesn’t mean that you can take advantage on digital photography and ignore the proper skill to get the ideal picture. Imagine that you are developing a career in digital photography. Is that the attitude of the professional photographers to trial and error their pictures before submitting them to the client?

After much talk about digital photography, it is with hope that you understand that film and digital photography do have their pros and cons. You can still see die hard film photography fan out there even though the method is said to be obsolete and as beautiful as digital photography may seems, there are still rooms to improve on this digital method.

You can call it the digital disease of photography or perhaps the death of photography. The reality is that digital has caused a decline in the quality of photography. There are several reasons, one of them being the speed of digital and the resulting lack of thought before the shutter is released. Quick on the draw and not enough careful consideration.

This has been a hobby horse of mine for a few years and some have said get off and stop flogging a dead horse. They may be right and maybe a little wrong. But, there is a solution or rather a number of solutions. The one I want to consider is getting back to basics. In most vocations when skills diminish it’s time to get back to basics. This is where the problem lies in digital photography. The bottom line is that in order to learn digital photography you need to learn the basics of photography.

There are two things that need to be done then. Get back to the basics or if you haven’t learnt the basics, begin with them. Here is where the big question lies. How do we get back or begin with the basics. The operative word is learning. Learn photography or learn digital photography. Picking up a camera and shooting doesn’t make you a photographer. So what do we do? Acquire the skills. This is much easier said than done.

Our current generation is the most fortunate generation as we have the internet and the ability to read, read and read. Again easier said than done. What I would like to suggest is that acquire specific literature i.e. books on photography. The internet is full of them especially electronic downloadable editions. But lets go beyond this and back to the paper books. There are a number I’d consider to be fundamental to any aspiring photographer’s library. So here are a few suggestions:

1. The Digital Photography Book by Scott Kelby

Scott Kelby gives you the simple insider tips pros use. It’s easy to understand and very simple to apply resulting in great photographs.

2. Understanding Exposure: How to Shoot Great Photographs with a Film or Digital Camera (Updated Edition) by Bryan Peterson

Exposure and how to use aperture and shutter speed always confused me until I read Bryan Peterson’s book on exposure. A must have book in your library.

3. The Photographer’s Eye: Composition and Design for Better Digital Photos by Michael Freeman

Michael has been around for donkey’s years and handles a subject that every digital photographer needs. Composition. By understanding composition your photographs will improve a hundredfold.

4. Learning to See Creatively: Design, Color & Composition in Photography (Updated Edition) by Bryan Peterson

For some of us seeing creatively is a natural ability while with others it’s something we need to learn or acquire. This is one of the best books I have read on creativity in photography.

5. Digital Photography Masterclass by Tom Ang

Tom Ang has been around a long time and with this book takes you further along you photographic journey. Great assignments throughout this book. He will take you to a new level.

6. Understanding Shutter Speed: Creative Action and Low-Light Photography Beyond 1/125 Second by Bryan Peterson

This book is linked with his other one on exposure and helps cement your understanding of how to use your shutter speed.

7. Understanding Digital Photography: Techniques for Getting Great Pictures by Bryan Peterson

Getting the shot is what it is all about. Bryan gets you thinking before your press the shutter button too quickly and succumb to the disease of digital. If there was a one man solution to this problem it’s Bryan Peterson.

These are just some of my favourite authors and photographers who have enhanced my photography dramatically. By going back to the principles of good photographic composition and learning photography and not just digital photography you’ll become a better a more rounded photographer. Don’t allow digital to take you backwards. Take the principles of great photography and apply them to digital. Remember, great photographers take great photos using any medium, digital or film. Keep learning and don’t stop making great images.

Do you want to learn more about photography in a digital world? I’ve just completed a brand new e-course delivered by e-mail. Download it here for free: CLICK HERE. You can also learn to take perfect photos in 21 steps by taking a look at my new ebook 21 Steps 2 Perfect Photos Wayne Turner has been teaching photography for 25 years and has written three books on photography.