5 Fundamental Elements of Great Photographs

Yes I agree with all of these points made by

Jacob Maentz

I’m a freelance travel, culture and documentary photographer based in the Philippines. My passion lies in creating images that communicate a strong sense of place and cultural awareness in unique, challenging situations. You can see my work at www.jacobimages.com

There are five common elements that great images typically have; Good use of light, color, a captivating moment, correct composition for the given situation, and the photographers choice of distance to their subject. Many times good images will use one or two of these elements, but lack strength in the others.

I will be the first to admit that it is difficult to have all of these elements come together in one frame. Rarely do I take what would be considered a great photograph, but by aiming to capture all of these elements makes me strive to be better. Essentially, these are five tools we have as photographers to work with allowing us to create higher quality photographs. If we start to recognize and become more aware of how to best use these elements we will start to make more great images rather than good images. Bring them all together correctly under one frame and you will have something really special.

1. Light – Light is the fundamental element all photographs need because it illuminates the scene or subject. Whether it be natural or artificial light the quality and direction of light is what’s important. Light helps to create a particular mood within the photograph and can bring emphasis to key elements within a frame. Likewise, light can help create depth and textures in an image by creating a mix of highlights and shadows.

Everyone knows there have been countless books and tutorials on this subject and this article isn’t the place to go into depth with this. However, we should recognize that light is probably the most important tool we have to use as photographers to create better quality and beautiful images.

2. Color – Like light, color helps to set the mood of an image and can play a significant role in touching the viewer on an emotional level. Color is one of the main factors responsible for making a photo feel mysterious, exciting, sad, or gloomy. Evoking emotions is important in creating strong images and color is one of our primary tools to do this. Again, this is an in-depth topic which this article will not go into, but be thoughtful that by using appropriate colors in our images we can better convey different emotions and make a stronger impact on the viewer.

 

want to see what the other 3 essentials are….go here 

The 7 Essentials of Crowd-Funding Your Next Photography Project

This article By Jacob Maentz on Lightstalking maybe just what you need to gain funding for your photography projects, this could be a series of images, an exhibition a book.

“Crowdfunding is a relatively new phenomenon that has emerged over the past few years to help creative people fund their personal projects, including photographers. Kickstarter was the first company to offer this type of platform and others such as emphas.is and IndieGoGo have emerged since. Crowdfunding is a unique way to raise funds for projects by offering creative rewards to individual backers who pledge various amounts. Recently, we successfully funded our project on Kickstarterand wanted to share some lessons we learned along the way.”..….MORE

©Keith Barnes – Worcester College

Click Here: The 7 Essentials of Crowd-Funding Your Next Photography Project (and How We Funded Ours)

Essential Keywording Tips and Strategies for Photographers

“Keywording is a tool to assign or tag meaningful words to your photos so people searching may find them. I often think of stock photography when I hear the word “tag” or “keyword” because it’s an important step in that industry — allowing photo buyers to find appropriate images. Although this is the case, adding keywords to your photos is also important in building your exposure on the web. Most online photo sharing sites, search engines, and web galleries use keyword recognition to help people find your images.

Keywording photos can be a time consuming endeavor, but it should still be included in your workflow if it is not already. There are programs that help you select words (just do a search on Google for “photo keywording tools”) but the best way I have found is to brainstorm and figure them out on my own. Every photo is unique and should be given time for tagging appropriate keywords. The great thing about digital photos is we only need to add keywords to our images once. By saving keywords to our photos’ metadata we are essentially storing them for use at anytime in the future.”.…more by By Jacob Maentz at Lightstalking

Title: Mangrove Seedling
Description: A single mangrove seedling in its coastal environment.

Click Here: Essential Keywording Tips and Strategies for Photographers

Click Here: Essential Keywording Tips and Strategies for Photographers

5 Key Steps in Creating an Online Stronger Portfolio

By Jacob Maentz over at Lightstalking

“In our growing digital world an online portfolio of images is now the preferred way most photographers choice to showcase their work. Whether you want to attract more business from potential clients or simply show off your best photos to family and friends, here are five key steps to help you create a stronger online portfolio.”

Click Here: 5 Key Steps in Creating a Stronger Portfolio

8 Useful Tips For Your Next Photo Documentary

From Lightstalking and By Jacob Maentz  I thought this was a very useful post and telling stories with your camera is so much more satisfying than just taking pictures

“There are numerous things to think about and often challenges to overcome when working on a photo documentary. Here are eight useful tips that I believe will make the process easier and help you create more compelling and powerful stories.”.…more

Click Here: 8 Useful Tips For Your Next Photo Documentary