Composition in Photography Tutorials

Well finally we get to see some sun and very welcome it is. Of course the shoot I had to do today was indoors in a church, so low light and candles but at least the walk back to my car lifted my spirits.

We are soon starting our Composition In Photography – Seeing Pictures course (06.03.2013) but some of you who don’t live in Oxford might find the commute rather long so here are some online tutorials that might be interesting

http://digital-photography-school.com/digital-photography-composition-tips

http://photo.tutsplus.com/tutorials/composition/master-the-art-of-photographic-composition/

http://photoshoptutorials.ws/other-tutorials/photography-tutorials/10-important-tips-improve-composition-photos/

http://oxfordschoolofphotography.wordpress.com/2011/04/05/4-rules-of-composition-for-landscape-photography/

http://oxfordschoolofphotography.wordpress.com/2011/02/01/how-to-use-natural-frames-to-enhance-photographic-composition/

http://www.lynda.com/Photography-Photo-Assignments-tutorials/Foundations-of-Photography-Composition/80299-2.html

Videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VRwyZ2CPQw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMTRQjAl-m0

 

 

14 Ways to Improve Your Photography in a Few Days

This article by Chase Guttman,  an award-winning travel photographer, whose love for travel and adventure has allowed him to photograph his experiences in over 40 countries, on the Lightstalking website is on the button, I don’t think I can disagree with any of his points.

Some might argue the point that photography is an art form.  Training your eye to see the world and translating your perspective visually takes time and patience. Yet, there’s also technique involved in creating arresting images. There are ways to quickly improve your photography and impact your creative vision. Let’s take a look at a few of them.

Here are just a couple of the points Chase makes

1. Read The Manual. Resist the impulse to cavalierly toss your manual in the trash as it holds a plethora of knowledge. For savvy shooters, manuals are the holy grail of photography books. They teach us the functions, capabilities and basics of our most important piece of equipment. The camera manual should be the bible for your gear. I recommend placing it in your camera bag. It will be worth the extra weight.

You could take our Understanding Your Digital SLR Course which would also help

3. Lighting Lessons in a Flash. Beginners seem to misunderstand the magic of a flash.  Keep in mind that most flashes illuminate only about ten feet in front of you. Furthermore, there are two main ways to optimally use flash — flash fill and bounce flash. In flash fill, you use the light source to attempt to fill the shadows created by natural lighting sources such as the midday sun. Bounce flash on the other hand is when the flash’s light is bounced off a wall or surface so it lights an indoor room evenly. To take better pictures, try to diffuse your flash by either aiming the light away from the subject or by using gels to minimize the light’s strength. Harsh or strong light isn’t kind on a subject’s face. Additionally, if the light isn’t diffused you may experience flash blow out, where your subject is a pitch white color and there’s a lack of highlights in your image. For maximum creativity and flexibility purchase an external flash.

We completely agree with this and have a course designed specifically to help people make better use of flash in their photography, here is a link to that course

©Keith Barnes 2012

Chase has more great advice on getting better at photography go here to see the rest

Full details of our course schedule can be found here

Click Here: 14 Ways to Improve Your Photography in a Few Days

The full monty of photography links and tutorials

From Toad Hollow via Lightstalking

The internet plays host to so many fabulous photographers and artists, and Toad Hollow Photography searches high and low every week trying to find the best links to tutorials, great photography and blogs of interest to share with everyone here.  This week’s list is chock-full of awesome images and great posts by a wide variety of super-talented people.  We really hope you enjoy checking out the photographs and posts as much as the Toad did in bringing this list to you.

Casting a shadow on an autumn frosty land by broo_am, on Flickr

Have a look at all the tutorials and links here

TUTORIALS

Top 7 Natural Light Portrait tips that I’ve learnt – a fabulous list of tips and tricks for doing portrait photography in natural light settings.  Tristan Jud outlines a short series of thoughts here that can really help you make the most of this genre of image production.

DIY: Keep Your Turkey Company with Beautiful Photo Place Holders – what a neat idea!  With the Thanksgiving Holidays nearly upon our American friends now, this timely article shows how you can incorporate great photography into dressing up the dinner table.  This step-by-step tutorial takes you through the entire process.

Click Here: This Many Awesome Photography Links May Be Hazardous to Small Children

So many photography tutorials

From Canada to Australia to Oxford links and tutorials to keep you occupied. Toad Hollow Photography to Lightstalking to you how great is that

As fall begins to settle in Toad Hollow Photography searches high and low online to find the very best links to tutorials, great photography and interesting blogs to share with everyone.  This week’s list features some fabulous pieces as posted by some of the truly talented photographers that the Toad encountered during this week’s adventures.  We really hope you enjoy reading these posts and seeing some of these awesome images as much as the Toad did in bringing this list to you.

Let It Go by CEBImagery.com, on Flickr

Sign up for the Toad’s regular newsletter which features news from The Hollow and the world of photography, as well as link’s to interesting places.  As the Toad is near completion of his second eBook installment, which he will be making available for free exclusively to his newsletter subscribers, you will want to get signed up to make sure you don’t miss it!

TUTORIALS

A Detailed Guide to Photographing Fall Foliage – the term detailed doesn’t even begin to describe the incredible depth this article goes into in terms of sharing tips and tricks for great fall photography.  A large series of incredible photographs illustrates all the points mentioned, making for a complete and authoritative online guide to this type of image creation.

Quick Photo Tip: Be An Observer Of Your Surroundings – once again Joe Baraban shares some insight into capturing one of those “OMG” photos that we all strive for.  Sometimes the simplest lessons contain the biggest rewards, and this article discusses this facet of photography.  One of the best parts of this post is Joe’s incredible imagery that he shares to illustrate his point.

GREAT PHOTOGRAPHY

Iceland by Michael Schlegel – epic and dramatic landscape shots are presented in this post that features the black-and-white photography of Michael Schlegel.  Iceland is a very unique place and these incredible photographs shares some of the vistas that have given it this reputation.  Michael’s incredible compositions share a sense of scale in some of these shots, and removes it in others.  Definitely a collection you won’t want to miss in this week’s links list!

Click Here: Roughly a Billion Cool New Photography Links for Your Enjoyment

Enough Brilliant Photography Links to see you through to 2013

From Toad Hollow via Lightstalking

It’s been a terrific week in the world of photography, and Toad Hollow Photography has been busy searching the internet for links to the very best tutorials, articles, photography and blogs to share here with everyone.  This week’s list is full of fabulous works by some truly talented folks in the field.  We really hope you enjoy checking out the links provided as much as the Toad did in bringing this list to you.

In the TRAIN by Kai Nicolas Schaper, on Flickr

Here is a taste of the tutorials section, go here for all these links

TUTORIALS

Vasona’s Tree of Life – Selective Color How-To – selective color in an image can be an extremely powerful tool to convey an expression to a viewer.  Adam Allegro shows us step-by-step the process he went through to create a stunning landscape photograph that uses selective coloring to make a tree stand out.

10 Top Tips for Capturing the Winter Cold – a great collection of tips for the outdoor photographer trying to capture some of the magic in winter.  This list is a basic set of tips full of ideas on how to use this time of year to your advantage to create stunning imagery.

Understanding Image Stabilization and Avoiding Blur – this article discusses a common problem in photography that can be tricky to overcome.  Bill Jones discusses the various types of image stabilization and presents a few tips and tricks for how to overcome the dreaded blur.

Click Here: Enough Brilliant Photography Links to Implode the Universe

Awesome photography links

Here is your weekly dose of fantastic photography links and tutorials, collated by Toad Hollow Photography and brought to you via Lightstalking

It’s been a very exciting week in the wide world of photography and Toad Hollow Photography has been very busy checking out all sorts of places and sources for the very best links to tutorials, great photography and interesting blogs to share with everyone.  This week’s list is full of great images and blog posts from some very talented artists and photographers, representing the very best of the craft today.  We really hope you enjoy checking out this week’s list as much as the Toad did in bringing it to you.

Anthophora affabilis, M, face, Pennington County, South Dakota_2012-11-15-16.21.13 ZS PMax by USGS Bee Inventory and Monitoring Laboratory, on Flickr

Here is a taste of the tutorials and links for the full Monty go here

TUTORIALS

Learn Studio Tabletop Photography step by step: a Droid shot – master product photographer and teacher Alex Koloskov takes us on an in-depth, behind-the-scenes tour during the creation of a great photograph for a customer.  By showing us how he configures and places his lighting, we all get the benefit of learning some of his advanced techniques.  Even if you don’t work in this specific field in photography, the information provided is pretty much guaranteed to teach everyone a little something about lighting.

Photographing Architecture | How to Tips and Tricks – this is a short article that gets right to the heart of the matter, discussing tips and techniques for capturing great architectural photography.  Lighting, angles and crops are all examined, producing a concise guide that is sure to expand almost everyone’s concepts on this genre of imagery.

How To Fix Extreme Wide Angle Shots – Blake Rudis delivers a video tutorial taking the reader through the process of fixing issues in extreme wide angle photography.  Natural distortion produced by the lens and composition is a non-trivial issue to solve, and Blake’s great video tutorials always show us the best and most straight-forward method.

GREAT PHOTOGRAPHY

Photos: The Ruins of Detroit – this is a poignant and profound piece that photographically details some of the key ruins found in the Detroit area after it’s financial struggles.  This collection portrays a sad and forlorn city, but finds strange beauty in the weathering and decay.  This series comprises a selection of shots that Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre have included in their book recently published featuring these incredible structures and their history and story.

Hammersmith Riverside – the incredible power behind the capturing and delivery of blue hour images is displayed in this breathtaking photograph from the studio of Chris Maskell.  The Hammersmith bridge sits in the far distance with it’s lights illuminating a pathway across that forms a great natural leading line in the frame.  The soft reflections from the lights in the river add further to the shot which really finds its star-power in the rich blue hues and tones prevalent throughout the picture.

Click Here: Don’t Miss This Incredible Collection of Recent Photography Links

Photographing Fireworks

 

See our previous post here

DSLR Video Recording: HD movies and what you absolutely have to know

In class last night someone asked about HD video recording with a DSLR. I started to answer some of their question and quickly realised it would take more than the 10 minutes left of the class and said I would do a little research and send them some links about it. I found this article which although hardly definitive does go some way to answering the questions many people have. I will return to this subject in later posts but for now if you are thinking about using your DSLR for video read this article from Digital Camera World

We take it for granted that new cameras these days come with the capability of recording HD movies. Once scoffed at, DSLR video recording has come into its own, and this feature is now one of the first things people check on the specification list when new cameras are announced. In fact, advances in DSLR video capability have created legions of dedicated HDSLR users, who find the versatility of being able to record HD movies on your camera a wonderful creative freedom.

In this tutorial we’ll start by answering some of photographers’ common questions about DSLR video, then explore some of the finer points of making HD movies, such as how to pace your film, understanding frame rates and what direct controls on your camera can make the DSLR video process easier for you.

If you want more go here

Depth of Field

At this point in our term we find ourselves talking about depth of field a lot to our students on our Understanding Your Digital SLR Camera Course and on our Understanding Your Compact Camera Course and on the Portrait Photography course it will also get an honourable mention on the Composition course. Depth of field is something everyone recognises but often ignores because it is not catered for in the fully auto settings many beginners choose to use. We think it is one of the most creative tools available to any photographer who photographs things that are reasonable static, which let’s face it is most of us. So I thought a little round up of past posts on the subject would be useful and make it easier for you to find these things on our blog.

©Keith Barnes Laos 2011

http://oxfordschoolofphotography.wordpress.com/2011/11/26/depth-of-field-a-photographers-guide-a-light-stalking-guide/

http://oxfordschoolofphotography.wordpress.com/2011/05/16/understanding-depth-of-field-and-showing-some-self-control/

http://oxfordschoolofphotography.wordpress.com/2011/08/04/8-effects-every-photographer-should-know-about/

http://oxfordschoolofphotography.wordpress.com/2011/12/27/cambridge-in-colour-tutorials-intermediate/

Photography Tutorials and Links 14.9.2012

From the vaulted halls of Lightstalking comes this from Toad Hollow Photography. A weeks worth of great photography links and tutorials in one hit.

Sometimes referred to as a “photography addict” the Toad never seems to stop hopping around the internet looking for great tutorials, photography and interesting blogs.  This weeks list contains a comprehensive set of links to some of the best resources that Toad Hollow Photography could find during the course of the week.  We really hope you enjoy viewing and reading these images and articles as much as the Toad did in bringing them to you.

Enjoy the Silence… by 85mm.ch, on Flickr

Check out the Toad’s latest blog post that takes us inside the oldest schoolhouse in Western Canada to see what life was like over 150 years ago!  The feature “Don’t Be Late For Class” showcases 15 new images of the interior and discusses the rich history and heritage that makes this one of Canada’s most prized National Historic Sites.

Here is a small taste of what is on offer this week

TUTORIALS

Let’s Talk About Water: Tips for Photographing Waterfalls – this brief article from Blake Rudis discusses varying techniques to use to capture waterfall images.  Blake includes a set of example images in this post to help illustrate the point he is making here.

Photographic Equipment: The Reflector – as a natural light photographer myself, I use reflectors periodically in my work.  This is a brief but good article discussing this practice by Joe Baraban that also includes 12 sample photos that showcase the results.

Master the Art of Photographic Composition – this is a fabulous post that discusses the art of composition in photography.  Illustrated with great images, this feature goes in-depth into the concept of composition, with the promise of more articles to come in the future.

Click Here: Photographers, Grab a Coffee. These Links Will be Keeping You Busy for a While