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Tips & Tricks to get the Most out of your Camera and Photography II
Oct 8, 2008 Tips, Tricks & Tutorials 5 Comments
Earlier, I wrote a little bit on some beginner tips to photography and digital photography in general. Since there is such a wealth of information available, I’ve decided to split what I know and what I have learned into three or four posts. This post I’d like to cover framing your photos, little details, rule of thirds, and leading lines, all simple and excellent ways to improve your photos.
Here are some simple, cost effective, no need for extra bits and pieces tips to help you take better shots.
Framing & Composition : the first one actually has nothing to do with wood.
When you think of a frame for photos, does your mind immediately think four pieces of wood around a photo hung on the wall? I bet it might–but that’s not the kind of framing I’m going to be talking about. I’m going to be asking you to think outside the…ahem…frame for a moment to look around you for things which you can use that isn’t wood.
For instance, take a picture of something in an empty window with a vista of trees and green grass in the background. You can use the window as a frame for the shot–a door way, support beams–anything that can create a frame within the picture leads to a more eye-drawing shot. If you’re still confused as to what I mean, here is a great stock example:
See it? It’s a great way to compose an image. Here are some quick tips on photo composition:
- Some times, people aren’t the most important subject. If you’re at an event, wedding, baby shower, picnic, family reunion, don’t just fill the card or roll of film with images of people–try capturing the environment around you to help preserve memories. Take photos of the meals, the drinks, clasped hands, wedding bands, decorations, baby booties freshly unwrapped and still in the gift box, streamers on the floor and so on. Capturing the environment events take place in often helps preserve the emotion and atmosphere, perhaps preserving a precious moment and memory for long after it has passed.
- Try to be aware of what is going on in the background anytime you take a shot. A too busy background, with buildings and cars and people and kids and dogs and godzilla might not help in taking that intimate portrait of someone. Be conscious of what’s going on behind your subject or object, if it’s too busy or comical (such as branches of a tree looking as if they are magically sprouting from behind your subjects head) change the angle of where you are shooting.
Use your negative space. Negative space is generally just space without much in it. It’s a great way to focus the eye on your subject or that which you want your viewer to look at. An example of this would be to take a portrait of a loved one on a bare painted or textured wall. The eye is forced away from the negative space of the wall to focus in on the person in the photo, for a great example of negative space use, take a look at the image I’ve put up to the left. Your eye is drawn to the bowl of m&m’s in the center, isn’t it? This is a great example of using negative space!
Always experiment, you are never holed up into one guideline or rule. In fact, feel free to set up your shots the direct opposite of what you are told not to do. Why? You never know what you’ll get! You may end up with a fantastic shot by breaking all the “rules”!
This way to the awesome! Using leading lines to direct a viewers attention.
Leading lines can be a great way to also draw the viewer along to the focus of your image. Lines pretty much represent a path between two points and lines in your photography don’t always have to be straight. They can be curvey, jagged, vertical, horizontal, or diagonal.
Lines imply and suggest motion.- Lines can be implied to your viewer. You don’t have to actually find real no foolin’ perfect lines. You can use shapes, objects and other things to suggest lines, the mind just needs a suggestion, most people will see them or have them form from such a suggestion.
- Did you know that, even the way you place a line in a shot could even determine emotional impressions? Horizontal lines could imply tranquility and rest, while vertical could imply power and strength, curved of S shapes could imply quiet, calm or sensuality.
- Lines that meet can suggest depth, scale and distance–like shots of railroads and fences.
Look for lines around you to help your photo!
Rule of Thirds, its not for diets.
Having the object you wish to take a picture of, or the subject of your image smack in the middle of every image every time isn’t always the best way to photograph someone or something. The rule of thirds basically divides your images up into nine even squares, with three lines both ways, splitting your image into thirds. Your subject or object should align somewhat near these lines or near the intersection. Lining your subject up to the left, right, top, or bottom instead of in the middle can create a far more attention grabbing, and, not only is it more interesting to look at? You are almost forcing the viewer to have to take a look at all of your photograph, taking in it’s entirety and the scene.
There are of course, several other things that can help you compose a great shot, but I feel that these are some of the more important tips to think about when you are just beginning. I hope that they’ve helped you as much as they have helped me!
If you are interested in reading the first article I wrote, you can do so here: Tips & Tricks to get the Most out of your Digital Camera and Photography I
Thanks & Credit goes to these Deviant Art photographers for the use of the wonderful stock:
clasixart - m&m’s
riktorsashen - Smith River
vw1956stock - Happy New Year
welder-stock - alps through columns
Their Blog-shakes bring all the subscribers to the yard.
Oct 7, 2008 Misc 8 Comments
Ladies and gents! Children of all ages! Adam of Creadiv fame, Danny Cooper of Linkersblog and Arunabh Singh of The Geek Lawyer, all whom I’ve met through Blog Premier– are having themselves a little RSS reader competition. You can read about it here: Blogging Competition.
Adam writes:
“Here is the premise. We each work as hard as we can for 45 days to get as many subscribers as possible using any tactics that we can think of. All is fair in blogging and war right? Well at the end of the 45 days whomever had the biggest increase is the winner and the other two competitors have to review the winners site and explain why the winner is such a better blogger than they are.“
A great little contest to get the RSS juices going, not to mention help raise traffic to their blogs. All three Gents have some excellent posts and websites. If you don’t have them bookmarked and in your favorite RSS reader, shame on you! Especially since it’s a great way to watch the competition!
Also, its my little way of thanking Adam recently for his excellent CSS tips, helping me figure out some spacing issues here at 2phatgeeks, AND, most important, his slew of comments as well as his habit of coming back. Definitely a great guy with a great blog–so go one over and tell ‘em 2PG sentcha!
Tips & Tricks to get the Most out of your Digital Camera and Photography
Oct 6, 2008 Tips, Tricks & Tutorials 6 Comments
A lot of people generally can’t afford top of the line digital cameras, or at least, the more expensive top-of-the-line DSLR’s available to them, but still want to know if it’s possible to improve the photos they take with their off-brand cameras. Here are some simple tips to help improve the quality of your images.
What’s this button do?
No matter what brand of camera you have, R. T. F. M, Or Read the Freaking Manual. Take time to read it back to front then back again, learn what your camera can do. Learn what the controls are and what they can do. If you don’t understand a setting or explanation, thankfully Google is everyone’s friend and there are a million web sites out there that will help explain things like shutter speed and aperture.
And Mel said: Let there be light.
Light, first and foremost is going to be the most important thing in any photograph you take. Learn a little about light and what settings of Flash your camera has. Then you can start playing in it, whether it’s a lot of light or a little, everything you do should revolve around light. There are some things to keep in mind when it comes to light and how to use it in a photo.
- Sunlight/Natural light is pretty much the best kind of light around for photos and for those of us who can’t afford recreating it. Unfortunately, the weather and other factors can muddle that up a bit. Believe it or not, however, a bright, but nevertheless cloudy day can be an excellent environment to shoot in. The clouds can often soften the usual harsh shadows that sunlight creates.
- When shooting in daylight, put the sun to the side of your subjects, because behind them (if it’s not the effect you want) will give you a dark silhouette of the subject. The sun directly in front of them might make them squint.
- Think about the angle of light. Shadows can be powerfully cast over one half of something depending on where the light is coming from and where you have the subject.
- Time of day can influence the color of light in your shots. Early morning shots generally have a red or orange hue, morning to before noon is more yellow, noon is obviously the brightest part of the day and most shadows are gone. This is the best time for landscape photography but often considered the worst time for photographing people. Day to evening gets you similar colors as what is in the morning sun.
Do it over and over and over and over and over again.
Yes really. Take a bajillion pictures of the same thing, from seven different angles. Set a side a day and take pictures of everything you do if you don’t have anywhere “exciting” you can go to. Take pictures of your loved ones. The old saying is practice makes perfect, and it suits photography. It’s not just ‘pick up camera, take awesome shot.’ You might get a great shot 1 out of every 500, but why not practice so that it’s a great shot every time?
See the photo before you take it.
Start thinking in photos. Instead of seeing a tree with the sun behind it, start imagining a photograph of it. What about the top of the tree with the rays of light just poking behind it? Or maybe lay under the tree and see what the sun is like through the branches? Maybe have the tree and the sun to the left and blue sky fill the right? Imagine what the picture you are about to take might look like.
I can see your nose hairs.
Think outside the frame/focus. Get right on top of your subject, go far, far away. Lay down on the ground or floor to take a picture at the same height of something down there, or to take images from up above. Try turning the camera upside down–or if you are very brave, you could even try taking a picture while tossing it! Experiment with angles and strange camera positions to get an interesting image.
Hold it!
How you hold your camera can determine whether or not that shot’s going to turn out sexy, or shaky. Hold your camera in your dominant hand, (left or right if it’s comfortable, generally the button you need to use to take a photo should be near and easily accessible) and keep your elbows close to your body, not outward. Your opposite hand should curl around the lens (if it can) for further stability. If your camera doesn’t have lens like that, you can of course, grip the other side of it. Your feet should be shoulder width apart. This stance will help you take your images in a bit steadier of a grip.
There other do-it-yourself tips and tricks too, to keeping your camera steady, such as the bottle cap tripod, and pocket tripod, as well as shelling out for an actual tripod if you can afford it.
Flash. And we’re not talking the guy in the leotards.
You’ve got to know when to hold it. Know when to –okay, okay, sorry. But it’s true, there’s a place for flash and there are places where flash should never go. First, keep in mind that flash generally has no use for objects far away. Your camera’s manual should tell you exactly how far your camera’s flash can reach before it becomes moot.
- Use Flash for objects up close indoors, don’t use flash for taking pictures of objects 4-6 feet away!
- You CAN use flash outdoors. On bright, sunny mid-days, sometimes the sun creates extreme and harsh shadows across the subjects you want to take a picture of. If you have it, Fill Flash will be your friend for those bright noon-day images. Fill flash does exactly what it says, it will try and fill the shadows with light.
- If you are taking pictures of multiple subjects with flash, try and make sure they are all the same distance away from the camera. Otherwise, the objects within the images will all be exposed to different intensities of light.
- If you are using a disposable camera, or a camera where you just cannot turn the flash off at all, get in close and try experimenting with a diffuser.
- Diffuse or direct the flash yourself. A roll of semi-opaque tape over your flash, a cigarette box with top open, a small white piece of paper of card held in front of your flash tipped to the ceiling to throw it away from the subject, experiment with this to find what works for you and your camera. Bouncing your flash from the ceiling or a wall instead of the subject can also help to reduce red eye.
- Your camera does NOT always know when to use the flash and when not to. Don’t trust your camera to use a flash when it should or shouldn’t. If you are taking photos inside, on a well lit sunny day with plenty of light, turn off your flash. You shouldn’t need it and it will just wash out your photos, creating harsh shadows.
- For indoor photos, make sure that you are in between the window and your subject. The light should be at your back and falling on the object in front of you.
- Experiment with everything. Experiment with your camera’s flash setting to get to know its in’s and outs and what works for you and what doesn’t.
This is really just the icing on the cake when it comes to photography in general, leaving out composition, rule of thirds, framing, leading lines, photography at night or in low-light, which I plan on covering in a second part, as well as an endless list of little DIY tips and tricks I wasn’t able to cover. But for a beginner with no clue (such as myself) I think these might start you on the right path to improving your photos, let me know if they help and let me see any photos you have!
Sorry, my womb just up and wrote this.
Oct 5, 2008 Rants 15 Comments
First, let me preface this by saying I am the least political person on the planet–in fact, ask Shawn. When the discussion of politics comes about I immediately start drooling, my eyes roll back into my head after they turn glassy and if I don’t go into a coma right then and there I twitch off some place politic safe.
That out of the way, let me point out to you this delightful article written by Ms. Luscombe for Time magazine: Why Some Women Hate Sarah Palin.1
Some stunning highlights from the article for those of you who might miss it:
“..that is never to discount the ability of women to open a robust, committed, well-thought-out vat of hatred for another girl.”
I know. I mean, I sit here all day at my computer so that I can figure out which chick to hate today and then do so with the gusto as well as dedication one can only find in the screeching herds of women during wedding dress sales.
“We savor the discord. We draw it out. We share our contempt with our friends, like a useful stock tip, or really good salsa.”
We do? Oh, yes of course we do, don’t we ladies? That’s what I want to do for the rest of my life; exchange delicious recipes of salsa-hate. I want to make a little hate-club where we meet for little hate-sessions with salsa and these cute little hate-hats. They’re just to die for!
“The hatred women have for Sarah Palin, and others had for Hillary before her, is not necessarily about politics.“
It isn’t? Really?
I love this article. Thank goodness for this article. Without it, I wouldn’t have known how petty and childish we women are. You know, for the longest time, I thought I didn’t like Sarah Palin because she thinks making rape victims pay for their own rape kit is a good idea, or perhaps because she believes that if a woman is raped by a stranger or her uncle, she doesn’t have the right to chose whether or not to have that child. I thought actually, maybe I disliked her, because as a woman with a soft spot for animals, her portraits standing by slaughtered wolves were just a tad alarming, not to mention her stance on wolf-hunting.
But no! That’s not it at all! Thanks to Ms. Luscombe, the truth of why we women really hate Sarah Palin has been revealed to us. Oh, rejoice! it’s because:
- She’s too pretty
- She’s too confident
- She could embarrass us
Man. I am so grateful that someone pointed this out to me, otherwise I would have continued on existing in my little bubble world of shopping, popping out babies, gossiping with the neighbors and spending seven hours a day on my make up.
Certainly, these three things are of the utmost importance. Everything else should be deemed as just shallow feminine pettiness! Ladies, let’s not get side tracked by policies, taxes, pithy things like laws and what not–let’s remain true to the heart of the matter! I mean, did you see the shoes she wore during the debate? Tch.
Oop! Got to go–my womb sense is tingling hate in another direction.
1It’s come to my attention that this article is supposedly political satire, or might be–I missed the part that was supposed to be, y’know, funny. So my post stands and I’m not going to edit it.
The first ever face meltingly Awesome Blog awards.
Oct 4, 2008 Computers and Internet 3 Comments
I’d like to take that opportunity to properly thank those who have supported us and been there with us, wherever we have chosen to blog. So without further ado, I would like to present the Face Meltingly Awesome Blog Awards tooOooOoooooo:
Eve
Eve is a gorgeous lady who just happens to be twin of a gorgeous lady, and they are both extremely talented ladies–hey, ladies.
Eve’s strength (though I have a strong idea she might deny some of this) is with the written word, imagination, and photography. Her Wordless Wednesday posts showcase a fantastic eye for the camera that I sincerely hope she’ll continue showcasing. In her brain resides an entire fantasy world thriving with fantasy creatures which she writes about and shares on a forum. This realm has entertained those who have had the honor of reading it and sweeping them along with epic story lines and tales.
When we created 2phatgeeks, she was one of the first to begin Stumbling our articles and giving them thumbs up. She’s helped behind the scenes in this way and she’s been commenting since the very beginning as well. Her blog is a wonderful place for you to lose yourself in, and so, in thanks, I’d like her to know that her blog melts my face.
The Junky’s Wife
I can’t specifically tell you when I found The Junky’s Wife blog. I know that Shawn and I had not yet created 2phatgeeks, but I know that I found it as a random Stumble using Stumble Upon one night.
Her writing captivated me, her strength kept me. She is candid with her flaws in a day and age when some blog writers hide their humanity behind tips for making money or how to create awesome photo shop effects. She is truthful and honest about the dark little places she carries, that we all do, that draws you in and keeps your eyes reading. She is a poet in everything she does when it comes to what she writes. The honesty and joy over living, the good and the bad is shared to readers with a talent to make us relate to her and one another.
She’s been with 2phatgeeks since we started and was also one of the first to leave her commentary on our writings. She also commented occasionally on my live journal, and I’ve learned to love Yoga through her many posts about its benefits.
She’s a remarkable human being and I am glad to know her and know of her. I’d like her to know that her blog melts my face with it’s awesomeness.
Stay tuned in the coming months! This will be a regular feature here at 2phatgeeks!
Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes, we turned ourselves around.
Oct 2, 2008 Misc 24 Comments
Holy Crap
Since we’ve opened 2phatgeeks.com in early March of this year, we’ve seen quite a bit of growth. Today we hit the big one thanks to some kind Stumbler who thumbed up: Two phat geek’s simple secrets to a happy marriage.
(Originally, when this post was made, we had 2, 281 views) Now it’s 1, 907 for that single post alone, and 2, 126 views in two days. WOW. That’s amazing traffic for our little corner of the internet and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
In celebration of growth, we’ve decided to change the layout of 2phatgeeks to a different template from one of our most favorite (among many) designers. This one’s called DailyPress and it’s by Jai of Blog Oh! Blog fame.
Why’d we change the layout yet again?
Yeah, we know. Three layout changes in nine months or so, must be driving our readers batty! But, there’s a reason! While BlueWeed by Blog Oh! Blog is a sweet ass layout, we were finding now that we’d decided to venture out into trying to make a little more money with 2phatgeeks that the arrangement wasn’t working. We had one big giant recent post pushing the sidebar, ad spots, blog roll and categories down the page making you, the viewers, have to scroll to the center of the earth to find them. Not fun. So we decided to chose a pretty swanky layout that wouldn’t make you guys have to climb Mount Posterest in search of info, and of course, to give our interested advertisers prime real estate.
We love you and want to squeeze you and even call you George.
So in thanks for your patience, your loyalty, and your continued visits to 2phatgeeks.com the first 10 to comment to this post will get themselves a free link in our links page!
We love you guys for sticking with us! Thanks so much!
