For this week, I have included some of the most recent articles and videos on a wide range of photography topics.

These tips are grouped together under the following categories:

GENERAL

12 Photography Cheat Sheets That Will Change Your Life – We love photography cheat sheets; they offer an easy-to-understand visual explanation to aspects of photography that trouble many of us. Here we’ve listed 12 of our favourite photography cheat sheets – we’re pretty sure that they’ll change your life! [NOTE: click the links or the pictures to go to the full version] – READ MORE

6 Eye-Catching Photos And How They Can Help You Improve Your Photos – Each photographer has their own way of approaching a scene, choosing which settings on their camera will best reflect their vision, and then crafting the final image. You get to make this series of decisions each time you take a photo, and it’s a highly personal experience.

But you can still learn a lot by going behind the scenes of a photo, and hearing how the photographer made their own decisions. Whether you pick up a new tip for creating an interesting effect, a new way of looking at a scene, or simply the inspiration to go and shoot, it’s both informative, and a lot of fun too. – READ MORE

COMPOSITION

7 Tips To Great Photography Composition – Famous photojournalist Robert Capa was once quoted as saying “if your photos aren’t good enough, you aren’t close enough.”

Capa was partly right; framing can make or break, a photograph. In this video, in less than three minutes, nature and landscape photographer John Greengo walks you through his tried and true framing rules that can elevate your work from cluttered and confusing to clean and beautiful: – READ MORE AND VIEW VIDEO

Shoot For The Light – Improve Your Composition – Here is one of my most valuable tips. The one I will offer to someone who comes to me, complaining that after 20 years of taking photos they can’t get out of their usual compositions, and want to get into a new level of creativity.

It may sound like something you have heard before. Yes, photography is all about light, and if there is a good light then there is a good photo. – READ MORE

Visualizing Your Masterpiece – This is probably the hardest part of my process to describe. Hiking in the highlands, I am privileged to have access to some amazing landscapes,; as I walk through them I am overwhelmed by options. This makes it hard to identify when I see a truly special scene, since it can be drowned out by choice. However, I can increase my awareness by asking myself a question every time I raise the viewfinder to my eye: “Why do I feed the need to photograph this scene?” It kicks starts a little bit of dialogue in my head. Once I’ve answered that question it naturally leads to others: – READ MORE

COURSE

Karen Kroeker has forwarded us the details on a forthcoming Miksang Institute workshop called “Opening The Good Eye:An Introduction to Contemplative Photography” check out the details on this workshop here.

LONG EXPOSURE PHOTOGRAPHY

7 Long Exposure Photography Tips – One of my favourite photographic techniques has to be the art of long exposure photography, it is the most relaxing creative process as it forces the photographer to sit, pause and consume the landscape. Following the release of The Long Exposure eBook I am regularly asked for tips on how to get the most from the process of capturing long exposure images. Away from the science and equipment here are seven simple tips that will help improve and your long exposure photography excursions. – READ MORE

37 Ethereal Almost Supernatural Long Exposure Photographs – Landscape photographers use a technique involving long exposures to create those milky smooth waterfalls, and misty images of coastlines. But what other ways are long exposures used?

Here are a few long exposure photographs that seem almost otherworldly or supernatural in their appearance for you to ponder and enjoy: – READ MORE

MACRO PHOTOGRAPHY

How To Photograph Anything: Best Camera Settings For Macro Photography – With the camera on a tripod and a static subject, you’ll have plenty of time to adjust your settings when shooting many close-up or macro subjects.

Using Manual exposure mode will give you complete control, but as the subject and camera are static, the aperture is more important than the shutter speed. Start by setting this to f/11. – READ MORE

Macro Photography Tips – Many of the images below have been taken with a Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro lens, the settings can be reproduced with any real macro lens. You’ll aslo notice they were photographed with an entry level camera, demonstrating that anyone with a DSLR can shoot awesome macro photographs. – READ MORE

5 Tips For Getting Fresh Ideas For Macro Photography – Are you seeking some inspiration for getting creative with some new macro photographs? Perhaps you’ve grown tired of taking close-ups of typical macro subjects like flowers and insects. Help is on the way.

There is a whole world of macro photography available to you that doesn’t involve the typical subject matter so often associated with close-up photography. There are some amazing images of insects and flowers to enjoy on the web, but what about going in a different direction? – READ MORE

HDR PHOTOGRAPHY

Natural Looking HDR in Photoshop and Lightroom in 5 Easy Steps – HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography was developed out of necessity to overcome limitations of photography equipment, mostly in digital cameras’ sensors. From the beginning, the technology was intended to make photographs as close as possible to human experience by bridging the gap between what the human eye perceives, and what the digital camera can actually capture. – READ MORE