Five Ways to Improve Your Eye for Composition

Here is another post to get you seeing and shooting better. There is no doubt the best thing you can do is to practise your photography, that doesn’t mean practising taking great pictures it means learning by repeating techniques so that when you really need them you know them by heart. Imagine you were learning the piano you wouldn’t just sit and play pieces you would practise well do the same with your photography.

This article on Digital Photography School By: Andrew S. Gibson should help you by giving you some specifics to concentrate on

An eye for composition is one of the things that elevates the work of the best photographers above the rest. One of the best ways to learn about composition is focus on applying one idea at a time. You can treat it as an exercise that will help you improve your composition skills, the same way that piano players practice scales. Here are five ideas to get you started.

#1 Use a single lens

Lenses have an enormous influence on the look of a photo, and the best way to learn exactly what effect they have is to spend some time using just one lens. Ideally it would be a prime lens, but if you have a zoom you can use a piece of tape to fix the lens to one focal length (some lenses have a locking switch you can use instead).

If you use a single focal length you will become intimately acquainted with its characteristics.

While it is useful to own multiple lenses, the ability to switch from one to another may mean that you don’t get to know any of them very well. This exercise helps overcome that tendency.

 #2 Work in black and white

My favourite recommendation for learning more about composition is to work in black and white.

Colour is such a powerful element that it dominates most photos. It becomes more difficult to see and appreciate the underlying building blocks of composition liketexture, line, pattern and tonal contrast. Take colour away and all these things become easier to see; once you are aware of them, you can start using them to improve the composition of your photos.

For example, in the black and white photo above, did you notice the shapes in the photo? I’m referring to the white rectangle of the cinema screen (yes, that’s what it is), the shapes of the Chinese letters and the diamond pattern in the stones on the ground. All these things are easier to see in black and white.

Do you want to see the next three ideas…..go here

9 Crazy Cross Eye 3D Photography Images and How to Make Them

OK the headline makes it sound….well crazy, but the simple fact is that 3D is now part of our lives in some form or other and will increasingly be part of future viewing experiences, these images and tutorial make it a possibility for all of us to create 3D pictures, do you want to? That is a hard one to answer, if it adds to the image then I guess we would say yes but the reduction of a 3D world to 2D representation has been part of what we as photographers have done for over 150 years, but then we used film for most of that time. Change will come whether it is a good thing the future will tell us when it is too late. Stereoscopic images (3D) are not new, the first invention that allowed 3D imagery was in 1838

The photographer behind these images and tutorial is Neil Creek and this is what he starts with..

“A revolution in photography and videography is coming. The 50’s cliche of the 3D movie and nostalgic childhood 3D viewers like the Viewmaster were ideas ahead of their time. Pretty soon 3D will be everywhere. Thousands of US cinemasare being upgraded to show new 3D movies, new computer display technology is bringing 3D without glasses to the desktop, and a growing enthusiastic community is breathing new life into time-honored 3D photography techniques.

If you haven’t experimented with 3D photography yet, now’s the time.

Anyone with a camera can take 3D photos, and with a bit of practice, most people can learn to see the 3D effect on their monitors without special glasses. I’ve collected here a few examples of some of the cool stuff that photographers are doing with 3D photography today. I hope these images will entertain and inspire you to explore the third dimension in your photography, and put you ahead of the new wave of 3D imagery which will soon flood our culture.”

Read more: here is the rest of the article

Tutorials to help improve your photography for the weekend

From the Digital photography school we have a selection of tips and advice to help you take and make better pictures, have a look

15 Tips for More Powerful Portraits

From those nice people at dps A Post By: Oded Wagenstein

15 tips every portrait photographer must know for making more powerful portraits! See them here

©Keith Barnes Vietnam 2013

The Ultimate Guide to Food Photography

From those nice people at DPS a collections of links all explaining how to make great food photographs. Go here 

Following are our most popular Food Photography Tutorials (all 18 of them) which together form our ‘Ultimate Guide’ to the topic of Food Photography. They cover a range of different styles and techniques of food photography – some are more beginner in nature, others more advanced.

7 Tips for Photographing Kids

Digital Photo School over in Melbourne have many useful tutorials and guides, this one caught my eye as I had recently seen some very poor examples of kids photography. This article is by Darlene Hildebrandt

Notice something about the title of the article? It doesn’t say how to take “portraits” of kids! Kids, especially those five and under, pretty much dictate how the photography session is going to unfold, and it usually involves moving. Fast! Over the years my style has evolved from format portraiture with medium format film camera (which is NOT conducive to movement) to 35mm, and finally to digital. Digital allows much more freedom of motion and with a few tips you should be on your way to some great photos of kids. 

THE SEVEN TIPS :

• have patience
• be ready
• get down to their level
• using natural light or flash
• choose your focus mode carefully
• be a goofball
• let them run the session, don’t try and control it

©Keith Barnes

Read more: http://digital-photography-school.com/7-tips-for-photographing-kids#ixzz2e2Mo7UyI

30 Things you Should Know to Help you Start a Photography Business

2 of my favourite photography blogs are based in Australia, in some ways I am not surprised by this as down under photography is taken seriously. You see photo galleries even in small towns and professional photographers seem to be genuinely interested in the craft of photography rather than it just being a means of making money. Does that mean I don’t think photography is taken seriously in the UK, well maybe. Not amongst the people who read our blog or come to us as students to learn but I do find many commercial operations are satisfied with the pictures that ‘Sarah’ from accounts can take because she has a good camera. Yes I exaggerate but the idea that making good pictures is just about having a decent camera does seem prevalent. The concept that a photographer with an understanding of communicating through images and experience of different situations and knowledge about the technical aspects is not one that many organisations take to heart when requiring images for a web site or brochures. So it was with pleasure that I found this from Digital Photo School in Melbourne suggesting that being a photographer requires more than just owning a camera.

©Keith Barnes

So here is some of the article from Digital Photo School by Gina Milicia that I suggest you read if you are thinking of becoming a photographer

1. Find the best photography course or workshops that work for you. try OSP as a start

If you are going to invest in a photography course/workshop do some serious research first.

It’s a huge investment so find out who the teachers are. Are they industry professionals that are going to be teaching you relevant styles and techniques?

Is the style of teaching suited to your personality and photography?

Who are the ex students that have gone on to create successful careers?

Consider weekend workshops and online courses held by experts in their fields.

2. Find a great mentor

3. Get as much industry experience as you can

4. Be Flexible when looking for an internships

The details of these points and the other 26 can be found here

 

 

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/

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

https://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

 

 

Wildlife photos: How to take the best shots

From the BBC website we have this

Even though the latest digital cameras can take dozens of photographs within a matter of seconds, and reveal instant results, it is still not as easy as you might think to snap a winning image.

The Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition – run by the Natural History Museum and BBC Worldwide – receives thousands of entries. With the 2013 entry deadline approaching, what could you do to make your images stand out? Watch this slideshow – click here – to get some expert tips.

Enter Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2013 now and take part in one of the world’s most prestigious photography events. The competition is open to professional photographers, amateurs, young and old, worldwide until 25 February 2013. Full details here

Adults may enter up to 20 images for £20.00.  Entrants aged 17 and under may enter up to 10 images FREE.

Here are some other great tutorials that will help you to get great shots

12 Great Online Tutorials on Wildlife Photography

10 Tips for Improving Your Wildlife Photography

 

 

Exploring Metering Modes

Digital-Photo-School are based in Australia, this article is by a guest contributor to their site called Andrew S Gibson, he lives just down the road from us here in Oxfordshire UK, weird the way the world is so interconnected, great too.

This article is a pretty full explanation of the different metering modes available on your camera and how and when to use them.

“This is the third in a series of four articles about exposure by Andrew S Gibson – author of Understanding Exposure: Perfect Exposure on your EOS camera. You can read the first lesson, which explored the reasons for using program, aperture priority and shutter priority modes, here, and the second lesson, which explained why your camera’s meter gets exposure wrong, here.”

Read more: http://digital-photography-school.com/exploring-metering-modes#ixzz1wSlasxX9