Digital Photo Tip: Finesse Time with Shutter Speed

Posted on August, 2016 by Mark Turner

Vernal Fall. Yosemite NP

It’s not exactly time travel, but you can freeze or expand time in your photos by choosing the right shutter speed. Grab your camera and take it out of its fully automatic mode and choose Shutter Priority instead. Now you can select the shutter speed that will treat moving subjects the way you want, rather than however your camera might randomly do it.

Moving water and sports action are two common subjects that benefit greatly from choosing the right shutter speed. Continue reading →

Digital Photo Tip: Lie Down on the Job

Posted on June, 2016 by Mark Turner

Sometimes you’ve just gotta put your face, and your camera, right down on the ground. Yep, down on your hands and knees, elbows in the dirt, maybe up close and personal with your subject.

If you’re like most of us, you make the majority of your photos from your standing eye level. You’re walking around and see something interesting so you put your camera to your eye and snap away. Nothing wrong with that, except that it gets boring when you’re always seeing the world from the same vantage point. Continue reading →

Digital Photo Tip: Photographing Icons

Posted on May, 2016 by Mark Turner

Last month Natalie and I vacationed in Yosemite National Park. It was her first visit, and I hadn’t been there in over 15 years. We spent a week in the park, enjoying early spring weather, grand views, waterfalls at their peak, and a few early wildflowers. While I briefly considered NOT carrying a camera on vacation, I couldn’t bear the thought that I might happen upon really wonderful light and weather conditions and not have the tools that would let me capture a unique view of this very heavily-photographed park. So I packed all my gear, some 30 pounds or so, and hauled it around on my back nearly every day. Continue reading →

Digital Photo Tip: Altered States

Posted on March, 2016 by Mark Turner

Photographs lie. You may think that a photograph accurately represents an instant of reality frozen in time, but that’s not quite true.

While a photo may come much closer to portraying reality than a drawing or painting, as creative individuals we’re always using the tools at our disposal to stretch the truth. At the most basic, we choose what to include and what to leave out of the frame by where we position the camera and which lens we use. Camera position also affects how we perceive the relationship of objects within the frame. For example, by simply moving to one side I can eliminate a tree trunk or post seemingly growing out of Aunt Martha’s head. Continue reading →

Digital Photo Tip: Get Organized

Posted on January, 2016 by Mark Turner

Are you one of those photographers that dump all your photos into one “My Photos” folder on your computer without any organizing structure? If so, make getting your photos organized so you can find them one of your New Year’s resolutions for 2016.

Students in my photo workshops often ask me how I’m able to find all of the photos in my library. I’m a believer in having multiple levels of organization, from the physical way images are stored to detailed captions and keywords. This month I’ll address the bottom layer — physical organization — for digital files. There’s more than one way to address the problem, so figure out what’s going to work best for you in actual practice. The best system in the world is useless if you don’t use it. Continue reading →

Digital Photo Tip: Win with Winter Landscapes

Posted on December, 2015 by Mark Turner

Now that December is here we can no longer pretend it’s autumn. Winter has arrived, even though the calendar says the official start isn’t until December 21. The mountains are buried under snow, days are short, the sun stays low in the sky, it’s cold, and the color palette in our lowlands has turned to muted shades of brown, gray, and dull green. Time to put your camera away, or turn to strictly indoor scenes? Not at all. Here are seven tips to help you create winning winter landscapes. Continue reading →

Digital Photo Tip: Seeing Patterns

Posted on November, 2015 by Mark Turner

Patterns are everywhere in the world around us. Our eyes and our brains are optimized for seeing and recognizing patterns, but turning them into photographs takes a little thought. We can find interesting visual patterns both in the natural world and in the built environment.

Patterns can be abstract or geometric, repetitive or unique. They may be revealed through color, texture, line, or brightness. We can find patterns at any scale from the microscopic to the vastness of interstellar space. With the right tools you can photograph them all. Continue reading →

Digital Photo Tip: Think in Layers

Posted on October, 2015 by Mark Turner

One of the challenges in two-dimensional art, including photography, is creating the illusion of depth on a flat piece of paper or computer screen. Layering the elements in your composition is one way to do it.

Layering is a variation on having a foreground, middle ground, and background in your image. You can place your main subject in any of those positions, although layering is most effective when your subject is in the middle layer. The technique works for many subjects, whether you’re photographing your family, your car, or a favorite landscape. Continue reading →

Digital Photo Tip: Expand Space by Going Wide

Posted on August, 2015 by Mark Turner

A wide-angle lens emphasizes Western Anemone seedheads along the trail to Mount Larrabee. The lens was only a foot or so from the foregound subject.

One of the strengths of compact cameras, and even cell phone cameras, is their ability to shoot wide-angle close-ups. These little cameras focus closest at their widest zoom setting. That seems counter-intuitive but it’s the way they work. So take advantage of this by going close to your subject, but leaving some space around it to show a hint of the environment, too. It’s a great technique for wildflowers, garden flowers, and other nature-type subjects, but not so good for people because the exaggerated effect that can make your sweetie’s face look fat and her nose like Pinocchio. Continue reading →

Digital Photo Tip: Use Aperture to Control Depth of Field

Posted on July, 2015 by Mark Turner

One of the most powerful creative tools photographers have at their disposal is choosing which parts of a photo should be sharp and which parts should be soft. This sharp/soft contrast is a very good way to set a subject apart from the background. We call this depth of field because we’re controlling apparent sharpness from close to the lens to the far distance.

In the pair of landscape photos above, one was made at the relatively wide aperture of f/5 (left side of the slider)and the other stopped down to f/16 (right side). Notice the difference in sharpness in the foreground flowers. My focus point was on distant Mount Baker in both versions. These images were made with my lens at 70mm, a short telephoto. Continue reading →