How To Take A Better Photo - Capturing Great Moments And Working With Light

You’ve almost certainly heard me chatting about how significant it is to get your photos accurate when you photograph them. What does this imply? Well it simply means not to rely on Photoshop to patch up everything. Photoshop is great, and we must use  it, but it’s not a restoration tool. It is a tool for enhancement.

You may improve your photography quite certainly when you know a thing or two. I’ll share some inventive ways to take photographs in these shooting tips. Firstly one of the most ideal ways to take really interesting photos is to take into consideration your light. Light has four major features to it; brightness, colour, contrast and direction.  Shooting good photos is dependent on taking the light in such a way where your photo appears clear and well exposed.

Another great photography tip I can share with you is continuously watch out for some key moments in time. Holiday snaps are pleasant and we all fancy them, but knowing how to take stunning photos can rely on your capability to photograph a defining moment. A defining opportunity might be when two elements meet and interact directly or indirectly to create one powerful message.

Portrait photography is a great way to master the technical features of lighting and create a powerful message as well. You can capture people interacting with each other, showing love and fondness or just having fun. Candid portraiture is specially terrific for this. Taking candid photos of people is a terrific way to learning about watching light and aiming for a good story in your photos.

One great way to take stunning portraits is to bounce the flash off the roof. Nothing ruins a portrait faster than a huge blast of unappealing white light in someone’s face. People are likely to squint and find it such an imposition. Instead, if you can, rotate the flash head to face the roof. When you press the shutter and take the photo your acquaintance will be immersed in a lovely smooth light. This smooth light will enrich facial features, naturally emphasise beautiful skin tone and bring energy to their eyes.

Taking beautiful photos demands a solid comprehension of light and how to generate a story through your photo. If you truthfully want to improve your photography and discover what you will need to take good photographs then patience and persistence are keys. Continuously analyse your own pictures. It’s good to determine what you like, what worked, what didn’t and if you can improve on what you did. This is the way I developed my abilities and eventually things started to fall into place. I am always happy to assist you where I can.

Basic Digital Photo Techniques for Beginners

Photo copyright by Amy Renfrey

There are a lot of ways to discover how to use your camera, but do these things make you a superior photographer? The answer to that is “maybe”. You see, the digital camera is just a tool to generate inventive photographs. It is dependent on the way that tool is ultilised that determines the best and most beautiful photos.

Basic Digital Photography Techniques

To get spectacular images we first need to look at some basic photography principles. The first one I am able to share with you is learn about lighting. Anytime you learn about light and how it forms a relationship with with the direct environment then your shots will get better.

Check out shape and form- Where you place things in the photo is next. Continually consider the vantage points and structures of the things you are photographing. Do they generate a symmetrical shot that is pleasant to the eye? One method to master the techniques linked to photographing ideal composition is to see where these objects guide our eye.

Each time you shoot, try to look for a balance and simpleness. Put into practice these things by shooting uncomplicated things that have nice straight lines, or curved lines and proportioned patterns. Don’t have anything else in the rest of the scene. A nice way to get started with this artistic technique is taking photos of architecture. Architecture is filled with lines. Take shots of walls, angles in the walls, look at how these lines direct us and the way it looks as a photograph. This is great practice. This technique of seeking symmetry will greatly progress your photography, ten fold in fact.

Easy Photography Techniques

Investigating light- One of the simplest techniques I know is to examine and scrutinize light. Try this: every time you have a look at something, note how bright the light is, what direction it is coming from, how much darks and lights it produces and the colour of that light. For the next week, each time you photograph something, write down what you noticed and then how it appeared as a photo.
Once you have effectively mastered this technique start shooting your lines and curves. If you begin shooting in this manner you will see that a) your technical capability increases and b) your photos begin to look creative  and a whole lot more appealing. It’s not just easy to do, but a lot of enjoyment.
You will start to feel like you are experiencing a bond with light. Your comprehension of light improves. As your understanding improves, so do your shots. You will start to know what will work as a photo just by looking at the scene in front of you. It’s a fantastically positive and empowering feeling.

Better Photography Techniques

Better photography techniques come with training. Training takes time. Time takes dedication and a motivation to learn. One of the things that helped me to become skilled at photography was the exploration of light and shape.
Another useful thing you can do is to write everything down on paper. Before you shoot write down notes about the light. Ask yourself and write down the answer to:  What is the light doing? How does it make your scene appear? How does the light change the mood of your scene

 Next, write down:
•    Notice the quantity of light
•    What direction it is coming from
•    How much differences between light and dark it creates
•    The colour of that light.

Then, if you are shooting in auto mode, write down what the internal light meter is saying as you point the digital camera to that scene. note the shutter speed and f stop it requests to shoot at. (It will be mistaken and generally underexposed, but more about that another time.)
Then, change your cameras mode to the manual setting and modify the adjustments to what the auto setting just said. It will be incorrect, so make sure you put the dial in the center, or slightly to the right of the middle.

Subsequently, look at the lines and shape of the subjects in your photograph. Where do they direct your eyes? Are there any irrelevant elements in the scene that you really don’t want?  Imagine that shot as a two dimensional medium and look again. Is there someone in the way? A tree that doesn’t really look like it fits? A lot of cars whizzing by that detracts from the intensity and authority of the building?

Always ask yourself these things before photographing.

Digital Photography Specialist Techniques

One of the greatest ways to become skilled at photography is becoming good at a photo editing program. Photoshop is an incredibly wonderful application to have but it needs time to gain knowledge of it's finer points for better photos. It’s very complicated to the starter so take some formal lessons if you need to. You can also learn Lightroom, which is a simpler version of Photoshop. It’s easier to learn and you may not always need official instruction.

Whichever way you decide to go, specialist methods come from not only nice photography and shooting techniques but tactics in post processing. Post processing is a term given to editing, increasing colour and vibrancy and fine tuning your photos in a software program.

There are so many extremely extraordinary things you can apply in both Photoshop and Lightroom. Softening the outer areas of a photograph and improving colour and contrast are just some of the basic features within both programs. You can also include items that were not there prior. You also have the ability to remove irrelevant subjects in the environment. These programs are dynamic for wedding and portrait photography because you can add depth to colour, create smoothness for skin tones, make facial features glow and the eyes sparkle. A whole new world opens up to you as you realise what Photoshop and Lightroom can give you, and, how much improved your images can appear.

You can become absorbed for hours when you are post processing, so gain knowledge of good techniques. The last thing you want to do is spend 1 hour taking pictures and 6 hours retouching all your photos. The faster your post processing methods are the better photographer you turn into.

On-Camera Flash Techniques for Digital Wedding and Portrait Photography

The most horrible way to use your flash in wedding and portrait photography is front on. Firstly, others hate the flash being blasted in their eyes. Also, the direct flash is not really meant for front on work (unless it’s a special circumstance, in which case it would be turned to its lowest intensity.)
The flash is made for brightening shadows. Professionals usually have an external flash and face it up in the direction of the ceiling, to the wall or place something over it to reduce its intense, white effects.

I never ever use flash front-on for weddings and portraits because the light is too bright. When we have light that’s strong and white on someone's skin, we lose a lot of the smaller and softer details of a persons face. It makes people look horrible in photographs!

Digital Black and White Photography Techniques

Techniques for photographing in black and white are no different to shooting in colour. Still, on saying that, you may want to photograph black and white things with the aim of generating a black and white photo. That’s okay too.

If you would like some really striking black and white photos then strive to photograph items that have a naturally brilliant contrast. For example a white sign with deep black letters next to a silver building may appear really nice. A person’s face with cherry lipstick and deep eye make up looks great in black and white.

Digital Photography Lighting Techniques

I have covered how to assess light and how to use the flash properly, but what about ambient light? Ambient light is the light that exists within the environment we are photographing in. Light from a window that fills up a room is regarded as ambient light for instance. It’s imperative to take note of ambient light just as much as extra light sources.

Ambient light is reflected light. It’s light that arrives from a light source and fills up the environment without a distinct angle. This is quite critical to take note of since it determines how you take the photo. If you have a lot of ambient light you may have light evenly spread all the way through your photograph. This is nice. But what if that’s not the effect you require? What if you want a moody and sombre photo instead? In that case, you would try and shoot anytime the intense light source is at an angle. Using a hard directional light that generates deep shadows can really create a dramatic photograph. The way light is within a scene has an effect on  the way you take the shot and the create the mood of the photo. This is very important, do not underestimate this.

Canon Photography Techniques
I got asked yesterday what camera I owned. I replied a “5D Mark Two”. It delighted the person I was talking too. The fact is that no matter what digital camera you shoot with you will still need to get behind the methods  of good photography and master them. There is in truth no such thing as exact photography principles for a Canon and a set of different methods for a Nikon camera. It’s still photography and light is one of your main concerns.

Digital SLR Photography Techniques
 
You have better opportunity to control the digital camera if it is a dslr. There are extra controls and more approaches to get the specific effects you care for. I am not saying that it’s dreadful to have a point and shoot camera. I am simply saying that you have greater influence over the way your images turn out. I have looked at some spectacular images come out of small compact cameras because the photographer understood how to scrutinize and work with light and composition.

The main reason I use a Dslr is because I want more management over my image making. I want to be able to amend my focal length and have various kinds of lenses on the camera if I choose. I also need the chance for high speed camera work if the occasion calls for it.

I also want a very fast shutter speed from time to time. A really fast shutter speed takes place when you use a fast lens. This will mean that the maximum aperture of the lens is quite wide. A lot of light can come in to the lens and you have more light to work with. You may get a fast shutter speed this way.

Dslr cameras have more various controls such as a high ISO, multiple frames per second, the capability for exchangeable lenses, the ability to have an external flash and much more. You will still be able to get lovely shots with a point and shoot camera, but after a while you will start feeling restricted in what you can do.

To really master photography it’s most ideal to be trained by someone who is experienced at it. This comprehension can save you years of mistakes and disappointments. Learn to control light, composition, your compact  and you will have the structure to be an incredible photographer.








Want to learn more about photography? Come and visit me and learn better photography techniques to make your photos look stunning. You can also talk to me personally on Facebook.

What is composition in photography?
By Amy Renfrey

If you look at all the great masters of photography you can often feel like they knew a secret. Well, this is not far from the truth. The fact is the greats like Sebastio Saldago, Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham (just to name a few) did indeed know how to frame and compose their photos.
So how did they do it? The secret is that they know how to design and structure their photos long before pressing the shutter button.  Design elements are applied to photography which creates the arrangement and formation of your subjects within your photo. Let’s look at some of them now.

Photography composition basics

A good photo is one that forms a strong story. It is clear and provides a good structure for us to base our assumptions on. There are a number of design rules that allow us to do this and as a result, create some powerful imagery.

Basic photography composition is not only working with the rule of thirds, which I’ll explain in a moment, but it’s understanding why we need to photograph things from certain angles. Lines and shape are the basis to this understanding.

The elements of visual design

To begin with let’s look at tone. Tone, very simply put, is a variety of brightness and shadow. The variation is referred to as tonal range. If something has a large tonal range is has many variations of brightness and shadow. Think of a really nice black and white photo. What makes it so beautiful? It’s often because it has a wide tonal range. This means there are many variations of bright and shadow in the photo.

 "Concrete" by Amy Renfrey

These variations enhance the photo because highlights tend to “move” forward and dark areas tend to look as if they are further behind. This makes it look like the photo is more three dimensional. The more that a photo looks three dimensional the better it tends to appear.

Always think about how your brighter areas work with your darker areas to make shapes look the way they do. Consider if you can make them stronger and give them more contrast to emphasise lines and shape.

Let’s look at the lines within a photo and what they mean. Every single photo has shape and much of that shape consists of lines within your photo. Whether it is the horizontal line of a horizon in your sunset photo, the vertical lines of a street sign or curving lines of a beautiful shell you find on the beach, you will still need to place those lines in certain areas of the photo for maximum visual appeal.

The great thing about a little bit of knowledge is that it can yield powerful results. Lines can be used to direct the viewer’s attention to a specific part of the photo.

• Horizontal lines represent stability and calm. 
• Vertical lines represent strength and power, and a sense of firmness. 
• Diagonal lines represent energy and motion. 
• Curved lines represent beauty and sophistication. 
• Converging lines represent depth and perception. 
• Crossing lines represent complexity and rapid movement.

  "Mess" by Amy Renfrey

 "Into The Future" by Amy Renfrey

 So how do we compose our photos with such specific structure like this to create beautiful images? There’s no hard and fast way, but the rule of thirds might help you further.

Photography and the rule of thirds

The rule of thirds relates to the placement of interesting parts of your subject on areas of your photo. For example, it might be a little bit uninteresting to place someone’s smiling face right in the center of the photo. If you moved the camera and positioned their face closer to the edge of the frame it might be more interesting. It might give a more positive message and captivate your audience a bit more.

The rule of thirds is an imaginary grid that we place over the top of an image. We place the interesting elements of our subject close to the junction points. This gives the opportunity to deeper and more meaningful photos for years to come.

You can create beautiful photos anytime. Start by looking at your lines and tonal range. These two things can prove to be powerful visual elements for creating beautiful photos.