In this age of digital cameras and social networking, the Internet has been bombarded with pictures and pictures of cats in boxes, toddlers sleeping, and drunken college kids passed out with things on their heads.
But not you. No, you are above all that. You have an eye for picture taking; it’s your passion and what you live for.
So how do you make your album stick out from all of this mess?
Related Posts:If you love breaking your fast every morn, and you love your own face, then you will undoubtedly enjoy seeing other people’s faces associated to what they break their fast with every morn’ as well. Photographer John Huck made a collection of just such subjects, and it is pretty interesting to see what people constitute as a breakfast (such a single grapefruit, single beverage, bacon-ladened bagels, etc.) This would also give good inspiration to those who are wondering how to add the spice of life* to their morning routine.
If you want to know what I eat every morning, it’s usually a bowl of granola with some various dried fruit and seeds in it, plus milk, plus a thick piece of toast with some cheese melted on it. If I’m in a hurry, I will consume with ferocity aloe yogurt, which is more delicious than you will ever know (probably because you don’t have ready access to it in the first place.) As for my mug, well just picture a bunch of laughing turtles with hemorrhoids and you get the idea.
*it’s called variety, folks.
Related Posts:Adobe Photoshop CS2 is an intensely powerful program, so it’s no wonder I didn’t discover this photo editting technique until I wanted to get rid of an ugly yellow hue that a lot of my pictures came out with from being in a setting with nasty lighting.
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Note: All of the pictures used here are my own. You can take a look at my Flickr page for more pictures (not all of them are that good/interesting) or can you can also look at my livejournal for pictures as well. Please do not use these photos without my permission.
A lot of people would be taking far more interesting pictures if they took the time to learn the in’s and out’s of their digital cameras. Since all cameras basically operate the same, here are some tips you can apply when taking photos. Most digital cameras nowadays have a little wheel on top or on the back that you can switch preferences with. Find the one that lets you change options in the LCD menu, and use this as your starting point to follow the tips below.
1.) Exposure
Just like when your eyes dilate in order to take in more light when it’s dark, cameras have an option to change how much light it takes in before it snaps a picture. For optimal pictures, you want to take them when there’s a good amount of light out so you don’t have to use the flash. If it’s too bright and you see that everything is being washed out in your picture, lessen the exposure. If it’s getting dark out, increase the exposure (usually called the shutter speed or f-stop) so the camera will take in more light. Be careful, though: the more you increase the exposure, the longer time the camera will use to take in light, and this will result in blurry pictures if you don’t have a steady hand or aren’t using a tripod.
2.) Don’t Use Flash
Now that you understand how exposures work, try to avoid using the camera’s flash unless you really need to. The camera’s flash adds harsh shadows and washes out the subject, which makes for a less-than-ideal picture. By using natural lighting, your pictures will turn out far more stunning. If you have a fancy-pants camera with a large flash, consider using a coffee filter to diffuse it.
3.) Focus
Did you ever wonder how some photos can have extreme close-ups of objects, where when you attempt this they come out grainy and sad? That is because the photographer knows how to manipulate the camera’s focus. Your camera should have an option of setting how far away the subject is. My Sony Cybershot has options to focus the picture in the center, focus on multiple objects, focus on things 0.5m away, 1.0m away, etc… This is good to play around with when you want the attention to be on particular subjects.
6.) Use Angles
Instead of taking pictures of subjects head-on, try it from a bunch of different angles. Your pictures will come out much more dynamic this way. I love pictures that are taken of objects or bugs from their point of view.
7.) Avoid: Centering and Posing
To me, centering the subject in the center of the photo is boring. Say you are taking a picture of a friend. If you are outside, tell your friend to do whatever as you take the pictures. Pictures of people who aren’t intentionally looking at the camera look more natural and spontaneous. Take pictures that try to get the entire subject in–i.e., not just your friend from the waist-up, but his or her entire body. Don’t center them, but try taking pictures of them more to the right, left, bottom, top–whatever, so long as it’s not the center. Aim to get the scenery too, since it’s more interesting to see the subject interacting with their environment.
This picture was taken at the hospital right after this little guy was born. He is off-center (towards the bottom) and I tried to get his “environment” in the photo as well. The focus was at about 0.5m and naturally, I didn’t use the flash. The soft colors speak for themselves.
