Well, I suppose to get the old creative juices flowing and what not it is helpful to consider these photography tips each time you want to take a photo, especially if your experiencing some artistic block or another; how annoying is that!
Below I have made a list of some basic tips to follow when taking a photo including some of my own photographic examples to help aswell as some links that you may find useful and should check out.
1. Decide what type of photo you want to take
Ok, well it may sound quite basic and perhaps even pointless but doing something very simple such as identifying your type of photograph can refine your mind and keep yourself focused on the task at hand.
Are you setting out to capture a motorbike hurtling down a road past your house in a panning shot?, or perhaps the rolling hills of the countryside in a landscape photo, maybe you want to take a person's photo in a portrait shot? or even capture the precise milisecond that a butterfly takes flight from the petal of a bluebell without a speck of blur in the photo.
Something as simple as identifying your type of photo can really be a help when you are trying to create your photograph. Whatsmore, if you dont know how to properly take your style of photo then all you have to do is a little research; blogs, internet, photography books. They will all give you the advise you need to achieve the photo thats in your mind waiting to be developed.
 | |||||
| An action shot of a graceful swan flapping its wings is captured by adjusting your camera to a very high shutter speed. |
2. What's your depth of field at?
To give your photos that extra something your depth of field is essential. Most basic cameras nowadays have special settings for each depth of field: Shallow, medium, max; so you can easily avail of depth of field.
Shallow: This depth of field is often used when capturing a portrait or in macrophotography. It's characteristics include a blurred background with the focus on an unblurred object such as a face or the petals of a flower in the foreground. To create this effect change the camera's aperture to a small f-stop number.
 | ||||||
| The focus here is on the harsh textures of the tree bark while the backround remains quite blurry keeping the emphasis on the tree. |
Medium: This depth of field is good for most types of shots if you can't really be bothered to change the aperture.
Max: This depth of field is most commonly used when capturing a landscape or seascape. The foreground, centre and the background of the photograph are unblurred. To create this effect change the camera's aperture to a large f-stop number.
3. More is most definitely more!
Another tip that might not spring to mind straight away is to take lots of photos! Simple no?! Basically, instead of pinning your hopes on that one perfect photo, take a number of shots of the one subject matter so you'll have some spares to choose from should your original photo turn out unlike what you expected.
Try taking the same photo using different settings, change the angle of your photograph, take your photo at different times of the day, mix it up! who knows what end results you will achieve.
- Of course like most things this whole topic of depth of field can be explained in extreme extreme scientific detail so feel free to do a little research for some extra credit!
 | |
| Max Depth of Field: all of the photo can be seen without much blur. |
Try taking the same photo using different settings, change the angle of your photograph, take your photo at different times of the day, mix it up! who knows what end results you will achieve.
4. Bad photo!? Don't worry you can edit that later
Many people feel they are unable to make use of the wide variety of photo editing software that is available today. To those people I say, just give it a try what could it hurt! You would be surprised with what you can learn. For starters if you can't afford, or don't want to buy, professional standard software do not worry there are plenty of packages that you can download for free, however bare in mind that because you are paying nothing the tools available to you will be limited especially when compared to such products such as adobe photoshop.
Here is a list of some free software that you can use to edit your photos:
- http://www.gimp.org/
- http://picasa.google.com/
- http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/tdrc/index.cfm?product=photoshop
Ok, so now that you have downloaded and installed your software... you are still completely lost as regards where to start. No worries my friend, all is not lost. Many websites and blogs offer excellent tutorials on the effects you can achieve using a piece of photo editing software; many youtube sites offer detailed video instructions which some people find more helpful than reading reams and reams of text.
If all else fails, there are books, books, books! If you dont want to splash out on an expensive "photoshop for dummies" then head on down to your local library and get reading. If you don't feel like walking to the library then.. firstly shame on you, get some exercise! 30 mins a day wont do you any harm.. secondly, maybe your college friend is a budding photographer and is maintaining a photo-related library in their house which is stacked to the rafters. Take advantage and borrow some books in exchange for some pizza; it's a win win situation!
 |
| With the right amount of time learning how to use the software who knows what effects you will come up with. |
No comments:
Post a Comment