The job of a landscape photographer is far from easy, and he often has the elements of the weather against him, but for those who have mastered the art of creating excellent images, the outdoors are a perfect place to do a days work.

Landscape photography is [...]]]>  

Tips for capturing that perfect landscape scene.

The job of a landscape photographer is far from easy, and he often has the elements of the weather against him, but for those who have mastered the art of creating excellent images, the outdoors are a perfect place to do a days work.

Landscape photography is one of the toughest forms of photography; it demands a great deal of care when selecting a location to shoot. One of the biggest mistakes amateur photographers make when arriving at a scene is to start shooting straight away. They end up shooting dull, lifeless images that lack colour and impact.

When arriving at a scene the first thing a photographer should do is to walk the scene with your camera and a compass. The compass is used to see where light will rise in the morning and set in the evening. I bring my camera just in case I arrive at a perfect moment.

I start by recording the scene. I record the best time to return so the morning light will bring out the best in the area. I also try to record how the evening light will embrace the scene. Low morning light usually brings out the best in any landscape setting and adds mood and impact to a scene.

When I return to the area that I have selected, I try to arrive as early as possible. I don’t leave home without a good tripod, a cable release, and a few photography filters. A polarizing filter is very handy for side lit scenes and a warm-up filter is very useful for a scene that seems cold and dull.

Composition for landscape photography depends on a range of things. There are many different types of composition that can be used; one that normally works with most landscape scenes is the Rule of Thirds.

The Rule of Thirds is pretty straightforward and is based on where you place the focal point of your landscape scene. The law behind it is that when you draw two vertical lines on your scene and two horizontal lines across your scene, you should have nine rectangles of equal size. The four points where the vertical and horizontal lines meet mark the area where you place the focal point of your image.

You may use any of these points – it’s up to you. If you are unsure take four shots of your scene. Compare the results when you return home. This will also help to develop your eye. Once you are happy with the composition you will need to calculate the correct exposure.

To get the correct exposure, you should invest in an exposure meter and a grey card. Take a light reading from the sky and if possible take some readings from the ground in front of you. The chances are that if you are shooting a low light scene you may need to add an ND filter to compensate for the light difference between the foreground and the sky.

When shooting landscapes you should remember that the weather will plays a very important part in your day to day activities, and you should be always be prepared for the worst.

TJ Tierney is an award winning photographer and a freelance writer. To find out more information visit his free photography and digital photography site.

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(1) Shoot at sunrise and sunset for the best light and color.

Photograph during the first and last hours of the day; the times just [...]]]> Fall photographs have a special magic. The colors are enchanting, rich and varied. Here are a few tips to help you make the most of this wonderful time of year:

(1) Shoot at sunrise and sunset for the best light and color.

Photograph during the first and last hours of the day; the times just around both sunrise and sunset give a quality to the light that will yield great photos. There’s something about the soft, golden light around this time which brings out the reds and gold’s in your photos which we all  love.

(2) Use a tripod.

This is especially important when shooting around dusk, tripods really, really help. Turn off your flash, set your ISO to 100 to reduce noise (sharper detail!) and start shooting. Experiment with your shutter speed. Very slow speeds –  between  1 and 3 second – are great, they serve  still the foliage and the colors, while letting the rest of the world  blur.

(3) Underexpose your shots slightly

You will be able to do this with  most cameras, even point-and-shoots.  This will deepen the saturation in your colors. You can then use your computer’s photo software (iPhoto, Picasa, or Photoshop) to increase the contrast and adjust the color saturation to warm things up slightly.

(4) Make-Your-Own Leaf Studio

If it’s too windy to get great shots outdoors try bringing some leaves home. Use some clear tape to stick the stem to a large open window that has some natural light coming through it, so that the leaf lies flat against the window. Now set up your camera and start shooting. Hey Presto, brilliant leaf close-ups!

(5) Experiment with your white balance settings.

Don’t be afraid to take your camera off Auto mode and play with those settings. Increase the numbers manually, or change a white balance setting like “cloudy”.

As with everything in photography it’s a question of practice, practice and more practice. Most of all have fun and enjoy your fall photographs.

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Composition should not be seen as a set of ‘rules’ to follow but rather [...]]]> The art of Composition is the creation of a visually compelling picture, a picture that evokes the interest of the viewer. Composition is a key element of good photographs; it is the combining of distinct parts or elements to form a whole.

Composition should not be seen as a set of ‘rules’ to follow but rather a set of guides to assist in the creative process.

Composition has many elements that affect it including cropping, lines (implied, imaginary, diagonal, s-curves, (vertical or horizontal), perspective (depth and distance), depth of field (background/foreground focus), the balancing of elements, symmetry, texture, and the list probably could go on.

Whenever we see something, our eyes take in everything within our angle of view. The mind processes and evaluates this incoming data, compares it to past experiences, and reaches certain conclusions about what you’re seeing. This process can be enhanced or manipulated to evoke the required feeling in the viewer.

There are some techniques that can help in the process.

Framing

Framing is the technique of drawing attention to the subject of your image by blocking other parts of the image with something in the scene. This serves to;

• Give context to the picture.
• Impart a sense of depth.
• Lead the eye to the subject.
• Intrigue the viewer.

Perspective

The angle that you shoot from can significantly affect the drama of a photograph. Try the following;

• A subject can be made dominant (shot from a low viewpoint) or submissive (shot from a high viewpoint).
• When photographing a child get right down to their level.

A small change in perspective can remedy things like a tree or pole growing out of a subjects head.

Cropping

This refers to the removal of the outer parts of an image to accentuate the subject matter. This helps to emphasise the subject by removing extraneous elements. Cropping lets you:

• Eliminate distracting parts of the photo
  Emphasize part of the image to give it more importance
• Change the composition by moving the subject out of dead center
• Change the orientation by making a horizontal image vertical
• Make a pair or series of images uniform in size or shape

Rule of Thirds

When we compose a photo our tendency is to put the subject in the centre of the frame. This is OK, it will give you some pleasing photos, but by moving the subject off centre you can add more impact to the finished image

Now try this, imagine the viewfinder is divided two horizontal and two vertical lines to give a noughts and crosses (tic-tac-toe) grid. By placing the subject at one of the points where the lines meet you will find your photo has a wow factor you’ve not seen before. This is the rule of thirds in action. Images composed this way are considered to be more balanced and pleasing to the eye.

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The white balance is a sensor that analyses the lighting conditions colours of a scene and adjusts it so [...]]]> Before the digital age, corrective filters or special films were mostly used for color correction in outdoor portraits. With digital cameras, the color can be corrected using your white balance setting (expressed as color temperature in degrees Kelvin).

The white balance is a sensor that analyses the lighting conditions colours of a scene and adjusts it so that the whites appear white. This also ensures that the other colours are rendered as naturally as possible. This is a major advantage that digital has 
over film photography. Film is balanced for a particular lighting condition, e.g. daylight or 
tungsten. If the conditions change them you need to fit a balancing filter, which greatly reduce the amount of light hitting the film, or fix any colour cast in the 
darkroom.

Most digital cameras let you choose between automatic white balance or a number of pre-set conditions such as full sun, cloudy, tungsten etc.

Automatic white balance will work for most conditions. There are times when you need to “warm” the picture up to enhance the colours, such as for portraits or 
sunsets. The best way to do this is to set the white balance to “Cloudy”. This will enrich the colours and improve the skin tone in portraits.

Digital SLR cameras today do a pretty good job of automatically adjusting the white balance for outdoor exposures. The skin tones in Portraits will be enhanced by setting the white balance to cloudy.  

If you would like to experiment with your manual white balance setting use the table below as a guide. 

Temperature     Typical Sources

1000K…….           Candles; oil lamps

2400K…….           Early morning sunrise

3200K…….           Tungsten light bulbs

4000K…….           Fluorescent

5200K…….           Typical daylight; electronic flash

6000K…….           Cloudy Day

7000K…….           Shade

Keeping your composition simple, controlling the depth of field, and eliminating objects that may distract from your subject, all help to accentuate your subject as the focal point of your portrait.

Controlling the available natural light and correcting the white balance of your photographs can reveal and enhance the true beauty of your subject.

Beyond this, make it your aim each day to unleash your creativity so that you see the world around you in fresh and unique ways. Never be content with seeing the ordinary as ordinary.

Art is created by those with the ability to see beyond the ordinary, to interpret their world in an exceptional way, and to reflect their interpretation for others to see.

So, experiment and don’t be afraid to try something new. The world is abundant in forms, textures, colors, and patterns of light.

 Grand landscapes and magnificent manmade structures are not required for great photos in the

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Conveying information and giving shape are the two main purposes. In portrait photography the brightness of background matters. In portrait photography, if the background is near the subject, it’s difficult to light separately. The same light that hits the subject, also hits the background. That’s why it is well and good [...]]]>

Portrait Photography essentials.

Conveying information and giving shape are the two main purposes. In portrait photography the brightness of background matters. In portrait photography, if the background is near the subject, it’s difficult to light separately. The same light that hits the subject, also hits the background. That’s why it is well and good to have ten to fifteen feet between the subject and the background. That kind of distance allows the background to fall-off. You can also the control the focus of the background by having the most possible distance.

The background light in portrait photography.

The purpose of the background light in portrait photography is to relieve the shadows so that the idea you’re attempting to portray in your photo is achieved. The fill light lightens the shadows. The darker the shadows are, the more dramatic the shot. Depending on the subject and the background in your portrait photo, the intensity of the background may need to be either brighter or darker than the last time you used it. It should all depend on the individual situation in each individual portrait. If the background is dark and the subject is a family portrait, maybe the background light needs to be pumped up a bit. Maybe you want the subject to blend into the background for some reason. Then in that case, maybe the background light isn’t needed at all. It will all depend on your vision.

The hair-light in portrait photography.

The purpose of hair-light in portrait photography is to separate the subject from the background and supplementing a little more dimension to the shot. A light placed from above and slightly behind will give roundness to the shoulders and lightens the upper edge of the subject. Suppose if the subject is dark and the photographer wishes to keep the background dark too, then this light tends to brighten just the hair and shoulders separating and brightening in the right proportion. If the hair light is too forward then it will highlight the nose than brightening the hair alone.

This article provides wealthy information about portrait photography . The articles written by this author on wedding films are valuable citations as well. This article on wedding photography prices is an excellent example for his writing skills and knowledge on Wedding Photography.

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You’ll want your black [...]]]> There are several ways to achieve black and white digital photography. Many digital cameras come equipped with a function to take these types of photos. If your digital camera does not support this function, you can still change your photographs into black and white with software programs such as Photoshop Elements.

You’ll want your black and white digital photography to look its best when you are finished. A technique that can help you get the best image out of your digital photograph is through image manipulation. You may find it better to convert your eight-bit colour images (which are usually jpegs) into 16-bit colours first. This is important because an 8-bit RGB can be the same as a 10-bit grayscale.

You can find information all over on the Internet to help you with your black and white digital photography. These resources can be found in everything from websites to magazines. Colour pictures can look truly beautiful as a black and white display. You will usually have to convert your graphics, because although there are options with digital cameras, there are no true black and white digital cameras.
Correct the Colorcasts

An important part of black and white digital photography is correcting the colorcasts. These are caused by bad lighting, but you can use software such as Photoshop Elements to make the relevant changes by using their editing applications. The Imaging Factory is also software that can help you to easily convert and fix lighting areas in your graphics to get the best look with your black and white digital photography. If you want to turn your graphics into black and white digital photography, you can step into a completely new dimension in photography. You can do an endless array of projects right from your own computer.

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Today digital cameras users can choose and adjust the metering mode, or how the camera measures the brightness of the subject.  Here is a brief introduction to the most common metering modes [...]]]> Metering Modes and Exposure

A camera’s metering mode generally refers to the way the camera itself comes about the correct exposure for a picture.

Today digital cameras users can choose and adjust the metering mode, or how the camera measures the brightness of the subject.  Here is a brief introduction to the most common metering modes available.

Spot metering mode;

Spot metering takes a reading from a very small part of the image and ignores the exposure of the rest of the scene.

• 1 – 5% view finder area is measured.
• The readings are usually taken from very centre of the scene.
• This method of metering is very accurate.
• Spot metering is usually used very high contrast scenes.

Center-weighted average metering mode;

Here a metering is taken from the whole of the scene first, then the central spot.

• 60 to 80% view finder area measured.
• It is usually possible to adjust the weight/balance of the central part to the peripheral one.
• Less influenced by small areas that vary greatly in brightness at the edges of the viewfinder, more consistent results can be obtained

Average metering

• Light information comes from the entire scene and is averaged for the final exposure setting.
• No weighting to any particular portion of the metered area.

Partial metering mode

This is most common in Canon cameras.

• 10-15% of the view finder area is measured.
• Partial metering is used when very bright or very dark areas on the edges of the frame would otherwise influence the metering unduly
• Partial metering is found mostly on Canon cameras.

Multi-zone metering

A type of metering first introduced by the Nikon, zone is a type of metering which takes readings from several different areas – or zones – within the scene to produce a calculated average.

• Also called Evaluative/Matrix (Nikon), Evaluative (Canon). This is the default/standard metering setting on a number of cameras.
• Light intensity measures from several points in the scene, and then combined to find the settings for the best exposure.
• The idea behind multi-zone metering mode is to reduce the need to use exposure compensation

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