Photography Tips For Beginners

Although most people think that taking a picture is just as simple as pointing and shooting, there really is an art form to it. Typically, your photos never look quite as good as you imagined they would. However, once you learn the proper techniques, it really is simple to take great pictures.

Though you may not think you need a flash outside, take a look and make sure. The sun can create drastic shadows. If your camera has a “fill flash” option, then use it when taking pictures in bright sunlight. This can help to illuminate even deep facial folds and creases.

You need not stand directly in front of an object to photograph it. Whether you settle on shooting from above, below, the right or left, experiment, or take shots from each angle to decide post-shooting.

When it comes to taking pictures of kids, sometimes the best thing you can do is to just go with the flow and work with them. Children are just not designed to sit perfectly still and pose for photos, they prefer to be up and about and running around. Have some fun instead, and capture the photos of the children in action.

Imagine there are lines traveling vertically and horizontally dividing your viewfinder. Place your subject at the point of intersection, instead of in the middle of the shot, and suddenly your picture has a sense of drama. Move in closer to whatever subject you’re taking a picture of. It’s frustrating for the viewer to not clearly see the details of the subject because the camera was too far away. Try to make it easy on your audience to be able to see images clearly and vividly.

Master photographers agree, less IS more.

You should never have tons of clutter or other elements in your shots. Keeping things simple in your photos is what catches your viewer’s attention; simplicity often creates a big punch!

Learn when it’s okay and not okay to use the flash with your camera. Your flash shouldn’t be on all the time. Too much or too little light has ruined many pictures. At other times, low light makes a flash necessary. So don’t forget to use it when you need it.

Even though people think white is great to wear during a photograph, it is generally a bad decision. Many photographers use the auto focus setting on their cameras. This setting doesn’t work as well if the camera can’t pick up different shades in its lens’ range.

For example, if a subject wears white and the background is also white, the camera won’t focus properly. With white clothing, the camera has a hard time adjusting to keep the whites looking good, while preserving detail on peoples’ faces, and photos can turn out looking under or overexposed.

Adjust the focus to create a unique photograph.

Reduce the f-stop setting to maintain focus on the closer subject. This is especially good for portraits. In contrast, increasing your f-stop setting will also increase the field depth and bring all elements of the photograph into focus in a more even manner. This would be fantastic for landscape photography.

Nighttime photography can totally change how a subject looks. When adequate natural lighting is not available, it is even more important to make sure that supplemental lighting is properly set up and utilized. Make sure you use the flash feature and adjust your camera’s shutter speed setting to shoot better photos at night.

Food photography can be difficult.

Food will melt and shift positions, making it hard to develop the proper shot. That’s why when shooting food, you should have napkins, glassware, and silverware ready first. Make sure you have the right lighting, and then put the food down and shoot!

Pre-focus your camera and move to where your subject isn’t dead centre in the frame. Having your subject in the middle of the picture is very expected and subsequently uninteresting. Try off-centering your shots to make your subject appear more interesting to the viewer.

Make sure you support the camera from below and on the sides, while keeping your arms tucked tightly into the sides of your body. Holding the camera in this way, you will reduce camera shake and make shots that are in clear focus. With your hands positioned at the underside of the camera and below the lens, it will help prevent accidentally dropping the equipment.

Always keep charged batteries in your camera. Using the LCD on a digital camera drains the batteries, so always ensure that the battery is fully charged before leaving the house. You should also carry spare batteries so that you can avoid missing a photograph opportunity.

Your photographs have perhaps disappointed you in the past. You will never face such a complication again, if you seriously implement the information you got right here in this article. With the ideas presented here, you can take breathtaking shots that you want to hang on the wall for everyone to admire.

Photography tip #1 – Composition

Always keep the rule of thirds in mind when composing your photo.  In the rule of thirds you use four lines to “divide” your camera’s viewfinder into nine equal blocks.  The theory is that you should use these blocks to form your composition.  (The most powerful area would be in the top left-hand corner where the first “cross” is made)  For instance if you are photographing a landscape with a beautiful sky, compose your shot in such a way that one thirs of the frame is filled by the landscape and the other two thirds are made up of the sky.

Photography tip #2 – Patience

Always take an extra minute before pressing the shutter button and take a good look through your viewfinder at exactly what will be included in your shot.  Is there a tree “growing out of someone’s head” of maybe a “for sale” sign right behind the bride (yes it’s a comical thought but you need to decide is this the shot you want or do you need to re-compose slightly)

Photography tip # 3 – Lighting

If you are shooting in midday sun (try to always avoid this if possible), try and take the photo with your subjects standing in full shade (this may result in a slightly bluish tinge on your photo which can easily be fixed with the correct colour balance setting on your camera)  This way your subjects won’t be covered in distracting highlights in their faces and they won’t have squinting eyes.

Photography tip # 4 – Posing your subjects

Posing your subjects can sometimes be a very daunting prospect when you are just starting out.  I would recommend that you take a few magazines and look at poses and why you like them.  If you find ones you like, make copies and put them into a “posing” file.  Take time to have a good look through these pictures, what is the reason that you like it?  The placement of the hands, is the pose feminine / masculine, is the subject’s head slightly tilted etc.  In essence why do you like the pose.  After doing exercises like this you will find that posing subjects will come to you as naturally as breating.

Photography tip #5 – Know your equipment

Get to know your equipment!  You can even take photos of flowers in your backyard, the key is to experiment with various settings and having a close look at how they affect the final outcome of your photo.  Play around with your shutter speeds and apertures, change the white balance settings and move the ISO up and down.  This will give you better understanding of your camera and when it comes to shooting you can decide on the “effect” you want to achieve and then make t happen…

ENJOY!!!

Riani

Photography Tips

With being a photography STUDIO, we sometimes get very little chance to experiment with all different creative facets of photography. With studio equipment, one can more easily control your lighting, and many poses, set-ups and constructed situations in the studio works well and we stick with them, knowing we’ll get the right amount of atmosphere, dimension and feel with the different shoots. When doing anything environmental, you are more delivered to the grace of nature, and what that may offer.

When doing a “painting with light” exercise outside, it is a fun adventure figuring out where the light is going to light your subject, when using things like flashes, strobes, sabers, candles, burning steel wool, sparklers etc. Painting with light, means playing with light sources, when your shutter is open for a longer time than normal flash lighting exposure, which is anything from 125-5000^th of a second. We had a lovely time experimenting, and used quite a dark, interesting, colourful location, to be able to use the lovely graffiti available, and get that dark alley-feel. Painting with light can be done anywhere, where it is dark enough for the shutter to stay open, and although there can be some ambient light, true painting with light, requires as much darkness as possible, and “painting” your subject with different light sources. Torches work well, because different colours of transparent paper could be used to colour the light. The shutter should be open more than a second at least to have the light sources at least make some effect, and exposure can run into tens of seconds and even hours.

It’s a fun activity to do for anyone wanting to experiment, and has a sense of adventure, and it’s quite satisfying to see your cool results. The last image we added was an exposure of 20 seconds, and the model was flashed separately, and thereafter, each individual pillar. We had tremendous fun, and it was a welcoming diversion to what we usually do, we challenge anyone to try it.

Yolandi Jacobsz & Riani Labuschagne

Photography Techniques

We had a ball on Sunday whilst photographing “J”s 3rd birthday party ath The Mighty Jungle in Bedfordview (and got sunburnt… anyways)  I was looking through some of the photos and throught why not write a photography tip for the day.  When you are shooting on location (espcecially outdoors) try to ensure that you have your subject’s face (even their whole body) in the shade.  So that the intensity of the light is even.

Take a look at the two photos above, yes the expression on “J”s face is absolutely priceless and sometimes you will just have to capture the shot when you can’t control the lighting   But if you were taking a few family photos it would have been better to move them into a shady corner with a uniform background.  The first photos with Gramps was done under an unbrella so we have even lighting on both their faces (with no sunny patches blowing out)  In the second photos the subject was standing halfway in the sun and so we have a very distracting highlight on the right side of his face.  So my photography tip for the day is to always be aware of the light and ensure that you photograph your subjects in the shade…  If you have any comments or queries please don’t hesitate to contact us as we can always learn a lot from each other

Riani

Photography tip for the day

Haven’t you found that there is just so much information on the internet all surrounding the topic of digital photography tips?  Well you have stumbled upon some useful tips…  Let’s have a look at the difference the colour of a background can make to your photo.

In these three photographs the lighting techniques are slightly differetn as well as the outfits, but the biggest impact is made by the changing colour og the background.  Can you choose just one which you really like the most…?  I find that you have to put a lot of thought into something as simple as a background.  In the first photo we have the mottled red background which gives the photo a really “warm” almost heartwarming feeling.  In other words it would work really well for family photos with little kids.

The second photo on the black background is really well suited to modelling photos as it really makes your model stand out and is very versatile.  It draws your eye straight to the model instead of taking in the whole of the picture first.  Then the last photograph shot on the white background is very standard.  It could be used for a multitude of things like being put onto a company’s ever changing website etc.

My top photography tip for today is to always try and make your photograph unique.  If you are lucky enough to be doing a photoshoot on location take your photos to the exact specification of your client but also remember to try and do some creative shots.  This not only keeps your creative eye in training but serves to impress your clients every now and again as they didn’t know you were capable of a shot like this.

My tip for shooting silhouette shots like above (which was taken at Roedean School for Girls in South-Africa for their marketing campaign) is to try and expose your shot for the background which tends to be the skyline most of the time.  This will ensure that your subject is “dark enough” to make them into a silhouette and it will also give you nice colours in the sky. 

They say a photo is worth a thousand words and this shots goes to prove it.  It was taken as St Margaret’s which is the Grade 0 and Grade 1’s.  Throwing the girls into silhouettes serves the purpose to show you that this could be your daughter or any other girl who will have the privilege to attend this culturally rich school.  So always try for the impossible…

Riani

Event Photography

Friday afternoon was spent in glitz and glamour taking photos of Aisha’s matric farewell dress, gorgeous shoes and awesome limo…  I was enjoying myself so much and had time to take a silhouette photo (which is actually really easy to do)  Here is my top photography tip for the day.

When taking a silhouette photo keep in mind that you are losing alot of detail so your silhouetted shaped has to be recognisable.  You will see in my shot that I specifically asked Aisha to turn her face to the side so that we would have a beautiful profile showing.  Then you need to have light cming from behind your subject (windows in north facing houses are ideal for this.

You have to then set your exposure for the background behind your subject (which is lit much more brightly than your subject) and this will in “underexpose” your subject , in technical terms, and create a silhouette.  Now you try…

Riani