Welcome back to our camera club meetings.

I have included below some recent articles in a wide range of photography topics which may be of interest to you.

GENERAL

How To Be Different And Make Your Photography More Unique – When starting on the path of learning photography, it is common for some to already have an idea about what their work is supposed to look like. They admire and look at the work of photographers and want to be able to do similar work themselves. While this is an important part of the learning process, the best photographers all eventually go off in their own direction, and creatively it’s very important to think in this way. You want your work to ultimately be different. Here are some steps to help you figure out how to go against the grain and make your photography more unique. – READ MORE

Aperture: Get Creative – The primary purpose of the aperture setting is to regulate the amount of light that passes through the lens. Along with the shutter speed, it determines the quantity of light that reaches the camera’s sensor (or film) and forms a third of the ‘exposure triangle’. But, of more interest to most photographers is the creative potential of the aperture and shutter speed settings. I wrote about shutter speed a few weeks ago and today I’m going to explore some ways of making the most out of aperture. – READ MORE

Why Semi-Automatic Mode Is The Best For Choice For Wildlife – There is a mindset that a lot of photographers seem to have around anything but manual mode is cheating. Not only does this frustrate me as a statement, but it’s just bad advice, that hinders the photographic progress of others. I would argue that there’s no cheating in photography, and that using your camera in fully manual modes actually makes it harder to achieve the photo you’re looking for – so let’s take a look at why semi-automatic modes are a good choice for wildlife photography. – READ MORE

More Ways To Create Better Images Without Buying More Gear – Jay Maisel has to be one of the most interesting photographers alive today. He is 85 years old and he still makes a point of carrying his camera with him every day, everywhere he goes. I recently watched a few videos where Scott Kelby spent a few days with Jay, just wandering through the streets of New York and later, walking through Paris. – READ MORE

Now To Achieve Background Blur or Bokeh – If I show you two different portraits, one with a blurred background and one with a sharp background, you will automatically prefer the one with the creamy bokeh. Why? Because that’s just how it is. No, the bokeh effect is very flattering because it isolates the main subject by separating it from the background.

If you did not know, bokeh means blur in Japanese, and it is purely aesthetic.

Most portrait photographers blur their backgrounds, and I certainly do it because when I take a picture of someone, I want the viewer to focus on the person’s face and not what’s going on behind them. – READ MORE

5 Ways To Keep Your Photography Talent Sharp – There are so many rewarding aspects in life, and one of them is growing in something you love, something that you’re good at. Not only do we feel a sense of accomplishment, but we feel larger on the inside. Whether you’re a professional photographer or an enthusiastic hobbyist with a knack for photography, improving your talent is a special thrill. On the flipside, there are few things more frustrating than that feeling of being stuck under a glass ceiling where you feel jaded, your work starts to feel dull, your passion begins to wane, and your creative juices dry up. We all plateau from time to time, and it’s important to get out of the rut quickly. So, how do you sharpen your photography talent? Here are five ways to get back on track. – READ MORE

COMPOSITION

7 Musts Of Great Composition In Photography – Speaking of musts, every discussion about photography and composition must begin here. Before you ever hoist your camera or touch your shutter, you should say to yourself, “This is a picture of a ____.” When you fill in the blank, be as specific as possible. The more specific you are, the better the picture you can take. This is one of the truisms of photography. To have a great picture, you must have a clear, unmistakable subject. – READ MORE

5 Ways To De-Clutter Your Composition – You’ve probably heard a number of “rules” of photography composition such as the rule of thirds, leading lines, and adding foreground interest. But there is one other simple guideline that you can apply to all of your compositions that will help raise the quality of your photos to a new level: de-clutter!

Simple compositions with only a few elements tend to have more impact than photos that include too much. – READ MORE

The Importance Of A Focal Point In Photo Composition – A focal point is the part of an image that draws the eye of a viewer to the most important part of the image or the area that you want to highlight. How you do this will make or break the final image. If you don’t know how to create this point then you will not achieve much in your photography. – READ MORE

LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY

5 Tips To Nail Focus In Your Landscape Photos – Focus is a topic that comes up often in my landscape workshops. How should I focus my camera? What do the different focus areas do and when should I use them? Where in the scene should I focus?

Here are 5 focusing tips to help you nail focus and get tack sharp landscape photos. – READ MORE

Tips For Doing More Spectacular Sunset Photography – The first thing I was told to do when I wanted to learn how to photograph landscapes and cityscapes, was to always shoot during the sunset. I have always asked myself why, but the answer is actually pretty easy. You get amazing colors in the sky, dramatic clouds, and soft light. – READ MORE

NATURE/WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHY

5 Tips For Better Wildlife Photos – Wildlife photography is a pursuit that can be challenging, frustrating, but ultimately rewarding to any photographer. The arrival of digital cameras has inspired a whole new generation of photographers to take an interest in wildlife photography. – READ MORE

FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY

Why Off-Camera Flash Isn’t As Scary As You Think – The word alone has the potential to cause dread, even among experienced photographers, bringing to mind images of overexposed faces and red eyes. Because of this, many photographers avoid flash altogether, keeping a safe distance at all times. I think that’s too bad.

It’s a missed opportunity. Sure, flash may not always be applicable to your situation – but it’s very helpful to have another tool in your bag of tricks if and when it is needed. – READ MORE

Soft Box Lighting Techniques To Sculpt And Shape Your Model – Lighting setups tend to fall into two categories—simple and complicated—especially when it comes to multiple light setups. However, lighting plays a significant role in the overall outcome of your image, despite the complexity of your setup. In this helpful tutorial, professional photographer Wayne Johns shows how you can use softbox lighting controls to sculpt and shape your model: – READ MORE & VIEW VIDEO

For this month’s Photography Tips webpage, we have included some of the most recent articles under the following categories:

GENERAL

The Ultimate Guide For Mastering Light In Your Photography – In photography, if you do everything ‘by the book’ and lack some experience, you’d think that selective focus is what makes the eye focus on the subject, and that light is used to make everything look nice and beautiful.

While that is partially true, both light and focus play the exact opposite roles as well. Beginner photographers often don’t realize that light is everything. Light is beauty, light is focus, and light by itself can make or break a photo. – READ MORE

How To Photograph Weather – Welcome to another instalment of “Great Subjects”! Today we’ll discuss how to photograph weather and make the most of snow, rain, fog, clouds, wind and even sun.

Outdoor photography is highly dependent on the weather, which can often be a little bit unpredictable. Depending on where you live you might be enjoying sunshine on the snowy streets, enduring a storm, sloshing through rain puddles, or basking in the heat of the desert.

Every great landscape photographer needs to know how to make the best of any type of weather. After all, photography is less about the subject itself, and more about the light it’s seen in. – READ MORE

Photographic Standard: How To Critique Your Own Photos – It has been that said the most difficult thing for man to do is to judge his or her creative work, objectively. Be honest, can you tell when your work seems to be missing something? More importantly do you know what it is that’s missing? You can only improve your photos if you set a high photo standard to compare yourself against.

When Time-Life selected 250 photos for the Great Photographers volume of their Time-Life Photography series; they chose 68 photographers out of thousands. Those editors defined “great” photographers based on three main factors. – READ MORE

5 Steps To Increase The Sharpness Of Your Photographs – Somewhat of an obvious point, but a very important one nonetheless. If your lenses and/or filters have dust or debris on them, however small and unnoticeable to the naked eye, it can create ugly soft spots on your photograph. There have been countless times I was in such a hurry to go shoot, I didn’t check the glass to see if it needed a good cleaning. This especially holds true if the lens I am using has been sitting on my shelf for a while, collecting dust. Even if the lens has been wrapped up in a pouch with a cap on top, it can still accumulate dust on the outer element. – READ MORE

The Dutch Angle: Tilting The Camera To Dramatic Effect – The Dutch Angle (or Dutch Tilt) is a technique that involves tilting your camera to one side, resulting in a frame that isn’t level. Jacob T. Swinney of Fandor created this 3-minute compilation video showing the technique being used in a large number of movies.

We see slight tilts of 5 degrees all the way up to huge tilts of 90 degrees. The Dutch Tilt “can be used for dramatic effect and helps portray unease, disorientation, frantic or desperate action, intoxication, madness, etc…” – READ MORE

Landscape Photography

Beginner’s Guide To Better Landscape Photography – If you’re new to photography, you most likely get a little confused when it comes to keeping all the jargon, camera settings, and composition rules straight. We’ve all been there. And those of us who are visual learners will appreciate this helpful landscape photography infographic below, which clearly illustrates all the basics. – READ MORE

5 Tips For Beginner Nature Photographers – Candace Dyar (formerly Candace Bartlett) is not a household name in landscape photography circles and if you were to see her images you would question, why not? After visiting Candace’s website, we were so impressed that we decided to invite her to an interview for our InFocus Magazine. Naturally the question we asked was how can someone just getting started in landscape photography capture stunning images like the ones she has. Here is what she had to say:

Since beginning my photographic journey roughly six years ago, I have absorbed a great wealth of information along the way that has helped me to evolve and advance my abilities both in the field and in the realm of post processing. While some tips can seem very basic and mundane, they may also prove to be extremely helpful in the long run. Here are the first five out of ten tips I have compiled for aspiring landscape and nature photographers who are just getting their feet wet and want to eventually take their photography to the next level. – READ MORE

Five More Tips For Beginner Nature Photographers – I have compiled for aspiring landscape and nature photographers who are just getting their feet wet and want to eventually take their photography to the next level. While it was difficult for me to narrow it down to ten tips, I tried my best to provide as much helpful information as possible.

If you are passionate about landscape or nature photography, this is the most important skill that you should nurture and develop. Although it does not apply to all situations, attractive and high-quality landscape photos are frequently defined by the light in which they were taken. This involves looking around for appealing combinations of shadow, light, texture, and color. Keeping the sun in front of you creates silhouette scenes and can also provide a pleasing dramatic or burst type of effect, depending on the conditions and your composition. – READ MORE

5 Tips For Great Sunset Photos – Sunsets and sunrises are inspirational subjects for any photographer. In fact, a good sunset photo is often the reason people become interested in nature photography. You don’t need to have a great camera or professional training; almost anyone with a camera can take great sunset photos.

The great news is that good sunset photos are surprisingly easy to take. In my gallery, I don’t actually display many sunset photographs. You see, they are hard to sell, because almost everybody has a few great sunsets they have photographed themselves. Rather than buy mine, they are more likely to grab their camera and show me the picture they took the night before! – READ MORE

Macro Photography 

Micro-sculpture: Incredibly Detailed Macro Insect Photographs Reveal Their Beautiful And Bizarre Forms – These incredibly detailed images of jewel-like insects reveal the beautiful, surprising, and often downright bizarre sculptural forms of some of the tiniest creatures on Earth. And when they are printed at up to three metres across, these macro photographs allow the viewer to examine each insect’s unique evolutionary adaptations.

The breathtaking images, taken by British photographer Levon Biss, are being shown in an exhibition, titled Microsculpture and held at the Museum of Natural History in Oxford. On show in the museum’s main court, the largest of the photographic prints measures up to three metres across and virtually surrounds the visitor. Placed alongside the tiny insect specimens themselves, this transformation of scale reveals the array of sculptural forms visible at a microscopic level. – READ MORE

Portrait Photography

How To Capture Dramatic Hard Light Portraits With One Flash – For a lot of photographers, hard light isn’t the first choice when it comes to making portrait photos. There’s a lot of negativity around hard light, making photographers think long and hard before planning a shoot with this light.However, hard light isn’t always a bad thing. When you use it in a clever way, hard light can produce some really dramatic results. Pye Jirsa demonstrates:

“Hard light can be a little bit cumbersome to work with. You have very hard highlights, very deep shadows, not a lot of transition. So, you really have to work with the posing. But the cool thing about hard lighting is that it can really chisel out your subjects in scenes that are very complex.” – READ MORE

 

 

 

 

 

For this month’s Photo Tips webpage, we have included the latest articles on a wide range of topics which our club members have expressed an interest in.

Specific articles and videos are under specific topics below:

CHRISTMAS PHOTO IDEAS

Tips For Taking Photos Indoors This Holiday Season – Find as much light as you can – you’d be surprised how much of a difference opening up the curtains, the blinds or a door (if the weather allows) can make on the amount of light available in the space where you’ll be taking photos. When possible shoot photos as close to one of these natural light sources as possible. – READ MORE

GENERAL

A Helpful Checklist To Use Before Photographing Anything – If you are reading this you probably find photography exciting, maybe even so exciting that from time to time you forget changing your camera settings according to the subject you’re shooting. You have probably already missed at least one amazing shot, just because you forgot to change the ISO or shutter speed. – READ MORE

Your Guide to Creating Unique Conceptual Photography – What is conceptual photography? Have you heard about it, but not been able to work out what it is? Who are the artists doing it? How can you do it? If you have asked yourself any of these questions, then read on and see if they can be answered for you.

Conceptual photography is a type of fine art photography. Like the latter, everyone you ask will give you a different definition. It is an art form that has been around for as long as people have been making art. It seems to be something that people have only started talking about in the last 10 years or so. – READ MORE

6 Tips for Using ISO Effectively With Your Camera – ISO has long been called the third corner of the exposure triangle, but was it really? In the film days you couldn’t even change your ISO, except by changing your film. In the early days of digital, you could change your ISO after each shot, which was a definite improvement. But, if you dared to increase the ISO, your picture would probably end up with a lot of digital noise in it. The reality is that most of us were confined to a very narrow range of ISO values when making our exposures.

Times have changed though. Newer cameras offer a lot more flexibility when it comes to ISO. First of all, they are capable of taking pictures at higher ISOs. Cameras now will routinely shoot at ISO 25,600 (and higher), which was almost unheard of just five or six years ago. Secondly, when newer cameras do shoot at higher ISOs, they produce less digital noise. – READ MORE

COMPOSITION

Leading Lines: From Roads & Borders To Infinity – You may have seen these two photographs being shared around the Internet. They strike at something very profound in us, although we might not know exactly what it is. The Tuscan highway glows with lively warmth at a cool, meandering pace, while the Swedish/Norwegian border is cold and biting, but exhilarating. The images are completely different in tone and texture, yet we can all feel that they are the same—parallels of each other from flip sides of the European continent. They are both endless, stretching as far as the eye can see in either direction. They are the Yin and Yang, identical and opposite, adding up to the infinite. – READ MORE

Diagonal Leading Lines In Photography Composition – Of all the lines used in photography, diagonals are the most dynamic. You can use them to create a strong impression of movement or you can use them to create a tremendous sense of depth. All images are created with lines—some vertical, horizontal and others converging—but knowing how to place them affects the mood and composition of the final image. – READ MORE

How To Think Like A Pro – Improving your composition is one of the biggest challenges in photography, and sadly there isn’t a convenient button on your camera you can press to fix poor framing (although you can often turn on grids to help you adhere to the rule of thirds, etc). Composition and framing decisions take place before you press the shutter button, and although there is a certain amount you can fix in software through cropping, it’s best to get it as right in camera as you can. – READ MORE

FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY

Outdoor Flash Photography Tips With Children & Pets – As we all know, photographing children can be very challenging. It is tough enough just to keep them in sharp focus. Who in their right mind would complicate the task even further by adding pets and flash lighting to the mix? You should! Adding the right amount of flash at the correct angle can turn an ordinary snapshot into a work of art. – READ MORE

LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY

Chip Phillips: 5 Tips For Photographing In Winter – I’ve done a lot of winter photography in the Canadian Rockies, the Tetons, and various mountains in my home state of Washington and it’s one of my favorite times to shoot. Ice and snow can convey so much drama and color, and create really beautiful and unusual opportunities for composition. It does, however, come with its own set of challenges. Here are some tips that I’ve found helpful along the way. – READ MORE AND VIEW HIS IMAGES

NIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY

Night Or Low Light Photography Tips -Twilight is a magical time. Just because the sun is down doesn’t mean you should put away your camera. When the sun sets, a different looking world exists for photographers. Colors don’t appear the way they do in daylight. Instead, colors display based on your camera’s white balance setting and how that setting matches the various light sources in your scene. – READ MORE

WILDLIFE NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY

How To Photograph Nature And Wildlife – Nature has the endless mine of wonders and beauty which we all want to capture. We often get amazed by the stunning nature or wildlife photographs in the popular travel or science magazines. So what is the secret of taking stunning nature photographs?

Well, as true for every form of art, photography is something which you need to master. Knowledge, practice, creativity and a good camera is what you need most of the time. Please be aware that this article is not meant for pros. This is targeted to help someone who has just got started or thinking of getting started. – READ MORE