PHOTO TIPS                                                

When taking photography, it can be hard to capture that perfect shot. Experts will tell you to practice, practice and practice some more. But what they really should do is give some solid advice as to what you should be practicing. This article will give you three digital photography tips that you can practice and start seeing results fast.

Tip Number One:

The first tip is pretty easy. Keep it simple. That's all.

What I mean by this is that you should try to keep your photo as simple as you can. Now, when you master simplicity then you can make more complex shots, however, try to keep it simple right now. To keep it simple here are some guidelines

-Get closer to the subject you're photographing. This will make the subject more pronounced and stand out more. It will also make for less clutter as the subject will take up more of the frame

-Get Down Low and Shoot up. This will make the shot simpler since you won't have all that clutter behind the subject and only the sky.

-Get Higher and shoot down. This will make it so the background is the ground and not the cluttered background that would usually be there

-Use a shallow depth of field.

Tip Number Two:

The second tip is a little more detailed. Basically, keep everything that isn't of importance and minimize or remove it. For example, if you photograph a subject that is green and there are bright red objects of unimportance around this subject. Those red objects are of no importance and are distracting the viewer from the true subject. Get rid of those red objects, unsaturated them in an editing program, do something so that the picture isn't so complex and confusing.

Tip Number Three:

Have a solid concept you want and stick with it throughout. Have you ever written a paper and been criticized that it goes everywhere? The same can happen when taking pictures. You want your picture to be focused on primarily one theme. For example, the theme could be peace. You could have a picture of a couple at a beach enjoying a drink. Now, if there's a homeless man in the background that's going to be distracting from the main theme of peace.

Al Sanez has a Free Photo course that teaches beginners digital photography tips. He also has another free program on how to Sell Pictures Online

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TAKING GOOD PHOTOS

Portrait photos are very impressive. A good portrait can project so much emotions and feelings and captivate the viewer. Taking high quality portrait p

hotos is an art that takes time to master. This article will give you a few guidelines that can help you achieve high quality portrait photos in a short time and without being a professional

photographer.

When taking portraits photos try to follow the following guidelines:

Choose the right background: A portrait photo is all about the object’s face. The most important part of the photo is the face. Choosing the right background can make sure the viewer is focused on the face. Pick a neutral background that does not attract attention. For example a soft solid color background is better than a busy street background. Avoid having people or moving objects in the background.

Blur the background: In addition to choosing a neutral background you should further blur it. This will put even more emphasis on the object instead of its surroundings. Blurring the background is best achieved by taking a photo using a shallow depth of field. This can be accomplished by using a zoom lens and shooting from a short distance or with a wide aperture manual setting. If your camera does not allow you to blur the photo by setting a shallow depth of field (for example it is hard to achieve such a depth of field with simple pocket cameras) you can always blur the background later using photo processing software on your computer.

Focus on the eyes: The center of a good portrait should be the object’s eyes. Before taking the photo look at the object eyes and try to figure out what story they tell. Depending on what you would like to capture in the portrait guide the object to look straight to the camera or maybe sideways focusing on some object. Adding a smile is also recommended unless you specifically want a face that does not smile in order to send some message to the viewer.

Use natural lighting: Natural lighting is necessary in order to capture the full color range and warmth of the skin. It is best to take portrait photos outdoors during the day. When shooting outdoors position the object in a way that the sun light hits it from the side. Never take a photo with the sun behind the object – results in shading – or right in front of the object – results in over exposing the face and distorting its natural colors. If some shades appear on the face use a soft fill-in flash to get rid of them. If you have to shoot indoors and use artificial lighting always use indirect light sources such as bounce flash or lights that illuminate the room instead of directly shining on the object.

Take many photos and experiment: I can not over emphasize this. In the digital era the cost of taking another photo is zero. One of the best ways to shoot a great photo is simply by shooting many photos. In fact all professional photographers do that they keep on shooting more and more photos so don’t be shy about it. Experiment with different settings – lighting, object position, white balancing settings to get different color temperatures, exposures, depth of field and more. When you are done sit down and sort the photos until you choose the one that you like the best. It is common sense that the chances of finding that one great photo are much higher if you tried 500 photos than if you just shot a few.

In conclusion if you have a good camera and the willingness to experiment portrait photo shooting you will quickly achieve the skills needed in order to shoot great portraits and impress your friends with portraits photos that look impressive and professional.

Ziv Haparnas is a technology veteran and writes about practical technology and science issues. This article can be reprinted and used as long as the resource box including the backlink is included. You can find more information about photo album printing and photography in general on http://www.printrates.com - a site dedicated to photo printing.

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 LIGHTING

In photography, it's all about lighting. The most successful photographers are the ones most able to control, manipulate, and use it to capture what they see in their mind's eye. There's generally 2 approaches when it comes to lighting.


Use what's there, modify and adapt to it--- this is primarily where most photographers start out
Come up with a totally staged pre-conceived vision and light the scene starting from scratch like working in a controlled environment of a studio--like an artist illustrating on a blank canvas.

In both instances the photographer must understand light well to "predict", not only what the camera will capture, but also whether the image will reproduce faithfully in print.

The 1st approach requires subtlety. This means you may or may not choose to supplement the light already in the scene. This is usually how photojournalist work.

They often meter their scene after deciding where their subject will be, determine the number of f-stops between highlight and shadow. Then they boost the shadow area if there are important details there.

The key is to preserve the "mood" and "feel" of the scene. This approach usually requires little equipment since the photojournalist works mostly on location.

The 2nd approach resembles how an artist "paints." He paints his scene by lighting every element.

The ambient light is not a factor at all. It's almost as if the photographer is working in a dimly lit room and he has to light everything in the scene.

By careful positioning of his lights and varying their intensity, he creates shadows and highlights selectively. How realistic or natural the scene looks depends his skill in execution and his conceptualized image.

If outdoors, and if he wants to create a picture that is natural, then his scene will have to appear to have just one dominant light source--like how our one Sun lights our natural world.

The operative word here is "appear to have one dominant light source." He will most likely use more than one light source because of the contrast, but his shadows are carefully controlled.

Even though photography is a two-dimensional artform, good control of light creates 3-dimensions by giving pictures depth. The good use of shadow and highlights in a picture is what conveys depth.

A common misconception about "good lighting" is that there has to be a ton of it. Well, maybe not a ton, but an eye-squinting-tear-producing amount.

A scene that is so bright like at high noon tends to be problematic. Light levels with such intensity require small apertures so that invariably the photographer has to deal with too much depth-of-field.

So good light doesn't necessarily mean an exposure of 1/2000 sec at f11 iso 100.

It all depends on what you're photographing. There is such a thing as too much depth-of-field.

If you're photographing something that's moving fast, and if your aim is to "freeze" the moving object, then in that particular instance, that suits your purposes, so it is good light. You're able to use high shutter speeds to arrest that motion.

That "high noon" light is probably only good for gunfights. There are very few instances when a photographer will choose that time of the day to schedule a shoot.

Well-lit photographs don't usually happen by accident. If shooting in available light, you can bet the photographer planned to be at that very spot at that time, after doing some reconnaissance beforehand.

Possible places with good directional light which can give you a nice ambiance or mood are:


Doorways and windows
Reflected light e.g sunlight bouncing off the water in late evening or early morning
Incandescent light in homes.
Candlelight and campfire light

Read the illustrated version of this article on lighting.

Peter Phun is an adjunct photography instructor at Riverside City College. He is a freelance photographer, web designer and stay at home dad. He previously worked as a staff photographer for 18 years at The Press-Enterprise, Southern California's 4th largest daily newspaper. Peter is the webmaster for the Mac user group in the Inland Empire. For more information about this Riverside based photographer, visit

http://www.peterphun.com

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