Photo Tip Articles
“Rain, rain, go away. Come again another day.” That’s a saying I learned on the playground many years ago. Unfortunately, just saying it doesn’t make it so. There are times when I’m out on a photo trip and it rains. What to do? Pack up and go home, wait for the rain to stop, or pull out the camera protection and keep working? If I’ve traveled a long way to photograph interesting plants I usually just tough it out and keep working. Here’s how I keep my equipment (mostly) dry so I don’t end up with an expensive repair bill. Continue Reading »
I love the freedom, flexibility, and creativity that comes from hand holding my camera, especially my pocket camera. There’s something liberating about being able to point it anywhere I choose and quickly change compositions, clicking off multiple variations in a short time span. Yet most of my photography is done with my camera firmly clamped onto my trusty tripod. Why? Continue Reading »
As a photographer you want to control where the folks viewing your images look. A strong focal point, or center of attention, in your photos will almost always make them more powerful and more interesting. We’ve all made pictures, shown them to a friend, and gotten the “what the heck were you taking a picture of?” response. Most of those should go in the trash can. They should have been tossed before you even showed them to anyone.
Where you put your main subject in the frame is most important. If you’ve been around photography or art for any period of time you’ve likely heard of the “rule of thirds” or the “golden mean.” That’s a technique for positioning the main subject at one of the power points within the frame. I’ll write about that in more detail another month.
This month I’d like you to think about using differences in brightness, color, or sharpness to direct attention within the frame. Continue Reading »
Sometimes the boring stuff we face as digital photographers is really important. Backing up all of our master photo files is one of those “must do” tasks. Backups take time. Backups aren’t fun. Backups can save our a**.
I touched on backups over a year ago in my Digital Condoms post. It’s time to return to the subject. Like the previous post, this one is motivated by a friend’s hard drive crash catastrophe. Continue Reading »
What’s fun, fast, better than expected, and more socially acceptable than a nooner? That would be making photographs with your smartphone’s camera.
It seems that everyone has a smartphone these days, whether it’s an iPhone or Android. The advantage of a smartphone camera is that you usually have it with you. Plus, it’s small and easy to use. The disadvantage is that the technical quality isn’t as good as a “real” camera and you pretty much have to accept whatever the automatic controls give you. Continue Reading »
Light doesn’t just provide the photons tjay excite your camera’s digital sensor. It can reveal shape and texture or hide imperfections, depending on the angle of the source relative to the subject. Light is one of the primary tools we use as photographers, whether we’re photographing people, birds, landscapes, widgets, or plants.
While there are many variations, we can boil light direction down to just three concepts: front, back, and side lighting. Continue Reading »
The way light plays across a subject can dramatically change your perception of it. Does your garden appear flat and one-dimensional or richly layered? Does texture appear or disappear in the sand on the beach? Are facial contours accented or hidden? Consider two aspects of light: the size of the source in relation to the subject and the direction from which the light strikes it. This month I’ll discuss how the size of a light source affects its quality. Next time I’ll cover the effect light direction has on revealing shape and texture. Continue Reading »
Light is the stuff from which pictures are made. Light has color. Light has shape. Light brings the world to life.
So often a snapshooter is concerned only about capturing a fleeting moment. The subject is everything. There’s certainly a lot of value in catching the crack of bat against baseball, the warm embrace of grandmother and grandson, or your triathlete husband crossing the finish line. Those are memories to cherish and your photos help preserve them whether the lighting adds to or detracts from the subject. Continue Reading »
This time of year homes and gardens sparkle with millions of shining lights. Maybe you go all-out decorating your home. Perhaps you make an annual pilgrimage to a favorite public holiday light display. Either way, here are nine tips and tricks for getting great photos of the lights. Continue Reading »
10 Things to Look For When Choosing a Pocket Camera
If you’re like me, you’re craving a new small digital camera to carry around with you most of the time. I love my big, heavy, rugged digital SLR that I use for all my professional work. But there are times when I just don’t want to carry over 5 pounds of camera with me and it would be nice to have a quality camera in my pocket. I’ve got a little Canon S70 I bought in 2005 before I went to India but it’s showing its age and I’d like to replace it.
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