Friday, March 5, 2010

Top 10 Tips Photos

These photos represent the Top 10 Tips for Photography. One tip will be displayed for every week.



Week 1 - Get down to their level (first 2 photos). Direct eye contact can be as engaging in a picture as it is in real life. When taking a picture of someone, hold the camera at the person's eye level to unleash the power of those magnetic gazes and mesmerizing smiles. For children, that means stooping to their level. And your subject need not always stare at the camera. All by itself that eye level angle will create a personal and inviting feeling that pulls you into the picture.




Week 2 - Use a plain background (photos 3 and 4). A plain background shows off the subject you are photographing. When you look through the camera viewfinder, force yourself to study the area surrounding your object. Make sure no poles grow from your head to your favourite niece and that no cars seem to dangle from her ears.




Week 3 - Use flash outdoors (photos 5 and 6). Bright sun can create unattractive deep facial shadows. Eliminate the shadows by using your flash to lighten the face. When taking people picures on sunny days, turn your flash on. You many have a choice of fill-flash mode or full-flash mode. If the person is within five feet, use the fill-flash mode; beyond five feet, use the full-flash mode.




Week 4 - Move in close (photos 7 and 8). If your subject is smaller than a car, take a step or two closer before taking the picture and zoom in on your subject. Your goal is to fill the picture area with the subject you are photographing.




Week 5 - Move it from the middle (photos 9 and 10). Centre-stage is a great place for a preformer to be. However, the middle of your picture is not the best place for your subject. Bring your picture to life by simply moving your subject away from the middle of your picture. Start by playing tick-tack-toe with subject position. Imagine a tick-tack-toe grid in your viewfinder. Now place your important subject at one of the intersections of the lines.
You'll need to lock focus if you have an auto-focus camera because most of them focus on whatever is in the centre of the viewfinder.




Week 6 - Lock the focus (photos 11 and 12). If your subject is not in the center of the picture, you need to lock the focus to create a sharp picture. Most auto-focus cameras focus on whatever is in the centre of the picture. But to improve pictures, you will often want to move the subject away from the centre of the picture. If you don't want a blurred picture, you'll need to first lock the focus with the subject in the middle and then recompose the picture so the subject is away from the middle.
Usually,you can lock the focus in three steps. First, center the subject and press and hold the shutter button halfway down. Second, reposition your camera (while still holding the shutter button) so the subject is away from the center. And third, finish by pressing th shutter button all the way down to take the picture.




Week 7 - Know your flash's range (photos 13 and 14). THe number one flash mistake is taking pictures beyond the flash's range. Why is this a mistake? Because pictures taken beyond the maximum flash range will be too dark. For many cameras, the maximum flash range is less than 15 feet -- about 5 steps away. In photo 13, you can see the flash's range, and how the subject is too far away, and the flash did not reach the subject, so therefore the picture is dark. However in photo 14, the flash is close enough for the picture to lighten up and the subject is brighter than in the previous photo.




Week 8 - Watch the light (photos 15 and 16). Next to the subject, the most important part of every picture is the light. It affects the appearance of everything you photograph. On a great-grandmother, bright sunlight from the side can enhance wrinkles. But soft light of a cloudy day can subdue those same wrinkles. Don't like the light on your subject? Move yourself or your subject. For landscapes, try to take pictures early or late in the day when the light is orangish and rakes across the land. In photo 15, you can see how shadows affect the subject, it covers some of the subjects face, and his placement should have been changed. However, in photo 16, the light is enhancing and creating a great picture. The light brigten's the coat of the dog, and makes a nice light picture.




Week 9- Take some vertical pictures (photos 17 and 18). Is your camera vertically challenged? It is if you never turn it sideways to take a vertical picture. All sorts of things look better in a vertical picture.




Week 10 - Be a picture director. Take control of your picture-taking and watch your pictures dramatically improve. Become a picture director, not just a passive picture-taker. A picture director takes charge. A picture director picks the location: "Everybody go outside to the backyard." A picture director adds props: "Girls, put on your pink sunglasses." A picture director arranges people: "Now move in close, and lean toward the camera."

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