PopPhoto Flash

Tip of the Day: Basic Design Techniques

Helpful design concepts that can be applied to the composition of your photos:

• Simplify content.

• Vary the use of horizontal and vertical formats.

• Limit static compositions by placing the main subject off-center.

• Create balance or tension by arrangement of tone within the frame.

• Explore alternative vantage points from which to view the subject.

• Arrange lines within the frame to reinforce or express feeling and to guide the viewer through the image.

Adapted from Digital Photography Essential Skills by Mark Galer (focal press, 2008; $30)

Tip of the Day: Back Me Up

Simple, uncluttered backgrounds are a fundamental element to most good photos, but they are extremely important in still life images. Here are two examples of effective still life backgrounds.

• Try a seamless black velvet, it will absorb any light hitting it so no shadows or reflections will show up in your photo.

• If you use a white background, you can make it look as if your subject is floating in space by lighting the background separately at two stops brighter.

Adapted from The Ultimate Field Guide to Photography (National Geographic, 2006; $25)

Tip of the Day: Low-horizon Sunrise

When shooting landscapes, and seascapes, it is common to include more of either the sky of the land/sea rather than places the horizon in the middle of the picture. For sunrises/sunsets, it’s best to be where you want to take the shot about 20 minutes ahead of time. Look out got very high clouds in the sky and break in the clouds on the horizon where the sun is going to set/rise, so the light from the sun can hit the bottom of the clouds—this is what makes for great colors.

Adapted from Hot Shots: Tips and Tricks for taking better pictures by Kevin Meredith (Chronicle Books, 2009;$17)

Tip of the Day: 3 Ways to Break the Laws of Nature

Once you’ve mastered the basics of nature photography, learning how to break the rules can yield even better images. Here are three situations in which the exception to the rule might give you the best results.

1) The rule: Slow your shutter speed to give streams and waterfalls a silky look. How to break it: Use intentional blur somewhere other than water. When to break it: With a stationary subject, try zooming your lens in or out while you snap the photo, or use selective focus to make elements of a scene blurred (Lensbabies are great for this).

2) The rule: Always put the horizon one-third of the way from the top or bottom of a landscape. How to break it: Toss out the Rule of Thirds and place your horizon dead-center. When to break it: With a symmetrical landscape, such as a mountain and its reflection in a lake, a centered horizon may work best.

3) The rule: Nature photos should remain pristinely unpopulated. How to break it: Put a person in your picture. You might think that nature photos shouldn’t include any sign of human encroachment, but a well-placed person can help give your viewers a point of connection. When to break it: To reveal the scale of your subject, or to illustrate the interaction between humanity and nature, you’re going to want at least one person in the frame.
—Kathleen Davis
Assistant Editor

Tip of the Day: 7 Reasons to go Vertical

When should you shoot a vertical? Whenever you shoot a horizontal. Seriously, many photographers overlook the advantages of the vertical shot, which are many.

•  Portraits: Verticals aren’t called “portrait orientation” for nothing. The 3:2 aspect ratio of most film and digital SLRs closely matches the proportions of the human face. The best way to avoid a distracting background is to leave it out to begin with, so turn that camera sideways and fill the frame with the face.

•  Deep space: Verticals let you get a wider angle of view with the same focal length, as they can take in low foreground detail without losing the background.

•  Reflections: For those puddle/pond reflections, go vertical. This will let you take in more of the skyscraper or the mountain. Try framing nothing but the puddle reflection.

•  Dynamic space: The vertical (standing) format is inherently more dynamic than the horizontal (reclining) format. If the picture looks flat and lackluster, add a jolt with a vertical. Curves and lines moving through the frame help.

•  Neater stitches: If your widest-angle lens isn’t wide enough to capture your subject, and you decide to stitch, verticals attached along their long side give you a more manageable final image shape (a conventional rectangle) than merged horizontals, which become unwieldy long ribbons.

•  It’s only natural: Some things are by their nature verticals—skyscrapers, redwoods, statues, giraffes. You’d be surprised how many people forget this. Defy expectations: Take verticals just for the heck of it, even if you know it should be a horizontal. Look for an interesting crop of the big horizontal scene. You never know.

(Picture Doctor, January 2009)

Tip of the Day: Reading Photos

People in Western cultures read from left to right. One compositional trick, then, is to place the focal point of your photo on the left cross points. This exploits a viewer’s natural tendency to scan an image from left to right, enabling him to immediately hone in one your photo’s area of interest.

Adapted from Composition Photo Workshop by Blue Fier (Wiley, 2007, $30)

Five Tips for Composing Photos

Here are five things to keep in mind when composing your picture. Of course, as with all rules, they are made to be broken under the right circumstances.

1. Rule of Thirds- Imagine a grid with nine squares on the photo.  Place subject where two lines intersect. Avoid centering subject in the center horizontally or vertically.

2. Complimentary Colors- Remember the color wheel from art class?  Watch for complimentary colors for pleasing images. Certain colors work together better than others.  Red and green, blue and orange, yellow and purple are all examples of complimentary colors, when placed together they stand out more and appear brighter and more colorful. 

3. Use Depth of Field to Your Advantage- To blur out background use a wide-open aperture.  If the background is important to your image use a smaller aperture.  Use the right aperture to keep your subject in focus.

4. Watch your Light- Make the light work for you not against you.  Light can make or break an image.  Backlight can create beautiful silhouettes, afternoon light is more directional and has golden tones.  Watch for shadows that can add contrast to your photos.  If you are not sure how to work with the light shoot with it coming over your back.

5. Shoot Tight- Don’t be afraid to take a step closer and shoot tight to isolate your subject.  Shoot from further away if the surroundings add to the mood of your photo. Keep your backgrounds clean. 

6. Leading Lines- Compose your photos with consideration of leading lines or lines that catch the eye and guide it through the photo. When possible have your subject looking into the image, not out of it. 
—Melissa Macatee
Contributing Blogger

Tip of the Day: 5 Simple Steps to Save Your Shots

1. Get the Proper Exposure. This is not always as easy as it sounds. There are times when your digital camera’s built-in lightmeter is fooled by an element in a scene. For example, in snow, all of the white will trick your lightmeter into underexposing your photo, and if you subject is wearing all black the camera will overexpose your photo. Some cameras have a spotmeter, which takes a meter reading from something specific instead of the whole frame.  You can also find something neutral, not too dark and not too light, in the frame and take a reading from that and set your camera to Manual and use the settings from the reading. 

2. Stabilize Your Camera. It’s common knowledge that you should stabilize your camera for longer exposures or macro images. But even sports photographers who shoot at fast shutter speeds will use a monopod for larger lenses.  Night and landscape images will benefit from a tripod and allow you to consider your composition more carefully. Stabilizing your camera for a macro shot will improve your photographs by keeping your camera still for such a close-up shot.  Consider a remote trigger, self-timer or cable release with your tripod shots, this will further eliminate the possibility of camera shake. 

3. Use the Lowest ISO. As a rule of thumb, always shoot at the lowest ISO.  There are exceptions, but generally you will get cleaner images at a lower ISO. The higher the ISO, the more digital noise you introduce into your photo.  You can improve the photograph with software, but avoiding the noise in the original file will give you better quality enlargements. Decide what shutter speed and aperture you want to use and use the lowest ISO that you can and still maintain your settings.  Sensors are improving with each generation of new cameras but it is still recommended you avoid the higher ISOs if possible.

4. Clean up Your Backgrounds. When you look through the viewfinder, pay careful attention to anything distracting that is behind or near your subject.  The cleaner the background is, the more attention the viewer will give your main subject. Trees coming straight out of someone’s head can be very distracting.  Be prepared to move around to find the cleanest background.  A step to the right or the left can usually solve your problem.

5. Work with the Light. Train yourself to pay attention to light and what is does when it hits things. Whether it is in or outside, light can make or break your images.  Harsh midday sun is hard to work with while early morning and late afternoon light really add to a photograph.  You can make the sunlight to work to your advantage, consider light falling on your subjects hair, it adds definition to the hair and can be bounced back at your subject to light up their face. The more attention you pay to the light, the more you will realize you can make it work for you instead of against you.  Also don’t be afraid to use a fill flash in broad daylight especially during the middle of the day to fill in the harsh shadows.
—Melissa Macatee
Contributing Blogger

Tip of the Day: Frame Your Images

From Digital Photography School:

One way of adding interest to an image and to draw attention to the main point of interest that you’re attempting to highlight is to incorporate an internal frame into your composition.

A frame serves numerous purposes:

1. It gives the image depth and helps to give the perception to viewers of it that they’re looking at something that is more than 2 dimensions.

2. Use correctly, framing can draw the eye of the viewer of an interest to a particular part of the scene.

3. Framing can bring a sense of organization or containment to an image. This won’t work with every shot - but if you’re after a more ordered or formal feel it can be useful.

4. Framing can add context to a shot. A photo of the woman in the first shot (left) without the window frame would tell you less than the shot you see with the rustic looking window frame around her.

Frames can take many forms - from an overhanging tree, a window, a bridge, arch or even part of another person etc. When using this technique - look for a frame that has a similar shape to the main subject that you’re framing.

Frames can also be in the foreground or background of images (although more often than not they’re in the foreground).

(Dollhouse Photo by Flickr user foreversouls, building shot by Flickr user YourGuide)

Tip of the Day: A Family Portrait One Shot at a Time

After your big meal, avoid the wide-angle table view. The distortion will make you family—already fat and happy—look even fatter. Instead, make a more natural and flattering photo by shooting each person individually at about 50mm.

If you need flash, use a hot-shoe unit turned backward and slightly up, so that the light bounces off the wall behind you (bounce it off the ceiling if the room has dark walls).

Now that you have all of these individual shots of everyone at the table, use basic panorama software to stitch them together into one big, happy photo.

(From John Owens Editorial in the November issue)