Category: Photography Tips & Tricks

Do you hate it when people say “cheese”?

By John Watson
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Continuing on my journey towards total photo snobbery, I’ve come to realize that my friends and family and I have different ideas about what makes a “good” photo. I’ve actually gotten exasperated requests at Christmas to “just send regular pictures.”

I prefer a documentary style approach to photographing my family and friends. I prefer more reality in my photos, capturing people doing stuff besides posing, looking natural and relaxed. But many people prefer smiling mug shots. I don’t go all prima donna and refuse to take requests. No, I just bury my pain deep inside of me where it can fester and create raging internal conflict and turmoil useful for artistic endeavors, smile, and say, “Say cheese!”

They like but I prefer

They like but I prefer

They like but I prefer

They like but I prefer

I give them both. Once in a while, they like my version better.

… Continue reading Do you hate it when people say “cheese”?

Big and Tasty Food Photography Tips Roundup

By John Watson
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I’ve got a nice roundup here of food photography sources with a ton of great tips, tutorials, and videos for making food look tasty on camera. How seriously you take this probably depends to some extent on whether you’ve ever heard the term “food stylist.”

Last week felt like food photography week with several blogs posting about it. It was interesting timing for me because I’ve coincidentally been shooting a lot of food for the past couple of weeks. I don’t have much to add tip-wise except this: it is more challenging than it looks.

If you’ve got food photo tips, please share them in the comments!

Photo credit, above right: Mr. G (cc-by)

Tips, Tutorials, & Inspiration

The Ten Tastiest Food Photography Tips, Photojojo.com

Tips from Pixar’s Sharon Calahan, the director of photography for Ratatouille, Becks & Posh

Food Photography—An Introduction, Digital-photography-school.com

Tasteful Food Photography,

… Continue reading Big and Tasty Food Photography Tips Roundup

Review: Arizona Highways Photography Guide

By John Watson
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Arizona Highways Photography Guide

The Arizona Highways Photography Guide was written by the editors and contributors to Arizona Highways magazine. It’s broken down into three parts of about 100 pages each: The Basics, Types of Photography, and Places for Photography. Read on for a short review and how you can get a free copy.

This book covers a broad range of photography topics and, while it doesn’t go very deeply into any of them, it does provide a lot of very practical information. Every single page is filled with beautiful color photos that are used to illustrate a point and are each accompanied by a useful tip.

For example, page 40 includes this tip under a photo of a fast-moving motorcyle rider: “By using a slow enough shutter speed and panning with the motocross rider’s movement, the photographer was able to blur the background to heighten the sense of speed,” and it includes the shutter speed, ISO, and aperture settings.

Page 78 discusses depth of field and hyperfocal distances with helpful and clear diagrams. The tip on page 138 explains how color plays an important role in the composition of a photo of a bobcat at the top of the page.

… Continue reading Review: Arizona Highways Photography Guide

Flickr for Good—A Joint Project

By Elizabeth West
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flickrtechsoup.jpgFlickr has caught on not only with individuals, but also with certain organizations. They have discovered that flickr can bring attention to their causes, their members, their goals, and their achievements. Recently, flickr and TechSoup, which helps nonprofits share and learn about technology, began a new program called Flickr for Good.

Flickr for Good will provide 10,000 almost-free pro memberships to registered nonprofit organizations and certain libraries in the United States and Canada. I say “almost-free” because while the memberships themselves are free, there is a small administrative fee of $3 per account.

Many groups have already taken advantage of this offer. For example, The Nature Conservancy has a flickr site that ran a digital photography contest that received more than 11,000 entries. Interplast, a group that provides free reconstructive surgery to children in underdeveloped areas, shows before and after photos of patients, as well as images of their own workers. Oxfam sponsored a Starbucks photo petition showing images of people holding signs that said “I support Ethiopian Coffee Farmers.”

Organizations can use flickr to publicize themselves and their work,

… Continue reading Flickr for Good—A Joint Project

Feeling Adventurous?

By Ray Davis
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I have long been an outdoor sports enthusiast. I love to hike, bike, kayak, and climb. My camera sometimes comes with me, but often not. There are two reasons I usually leave the camera at home, firstly it’s relatively heavy which, especially for hiking and climbing, is a big deal. And secondly I fear I will either fall and crush the camera, roll over in a kayak and submerge it in a river, drop it off a cliff face, or destroy it beyond repair in some other manner.

But I recently came across an article in the August 2007 issue of National Geographic Magazine showcasing an adventure photography gallery and it has inspired me to be brave and try combining my love of outdoor adventure with my love of photography more often. National Geographic describes adventure photography as “probably the only field of photography that is exclusively shot by participants.” Below are some tips to balance your participation with good photography:

… Continue reading Feeling Adventurous?

Learning Composition: The Rule of Thirds

By Nicholas
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Whether you’re feeling artistic or not, good composition is important for making images that resonate with viewers. Everything else being equal, poor composition can create an itch in a viewer—a subconscious and annoying one that can’t be scratched.

Composition in photography refers to the arrangement of elements in an image. Those elements can be subjects, foreground, background, and props. They can also be color, focus, and balance.

rule-of-thirds-1

It can be a difficult concept to grasp which is why people invented “the rule of thirds.” In this article, I will explain everything you need to know about this rule, along with all the examples you will need to become a master at it.

… Continue reading Learning Composition: The Rule of Thirds

The making of a “simple” snapshot: a photo essay in four frames

By John Watson
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Last night, as she tucked our son into bed, my lovely and talented wife came into the office in search of the camera. Our conversation went something like this:

Wife: “Where’s the camera? I need to take a picture of your son. How do you get this thing off the tripod?”

Tripod head

Me: “Wait a second. You’re going to need some light.”
Wife: “This is supposed to just be a quick snapshot.”
Me: “Do you want a blurry mess or do you want to be able to see what’s in the photo?” (Set flash to TTL BL, +1 EV, on-camera, oriented to bounce off ceiling and adjacent wall. Camera set to ISO 200, P mode, +0.7 EV)

SB-800 Speedlight

Me: “Oops, you’re going to need some film.”
Wife: Grrr.

Flash memory

Me: “There you go.”
Wife: *Click!*
Me: “Hey, presto!”

Snapshot

Scene and composition: The Lovely and Talented Wife
Camera setup: Me

… Continue reading The making of a “simple” snapshot: a photo essay in four frames

Anatomy of a photo: The silly faces project

By John Watson
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The silly faces projectI recently published this photo on Flickr (click here to view larger) and it received a lot of interest so I thought I’d share how I made it. Taking 64 photos like this may look like a lot of work but it can actually be done quite easily. Here’s how I did it.

First of all, I used two flashes for lighting. An on camera SB-800 with diffusion dome pointed up and back and an off-camera SB-600 bounced into an umbrella to the right of the camera. You can do this without fancy lighting equipment. The important thing to remember is simply that the lighting must be consistent from shot to shot.

… Continue reading Anatomy of a photo: The silly faces project

How camera lenses are made

By John Watson
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From the markings on the barrels, these appear to be lenses made by JML Optical. It shows how painstaking it is to make high quality lenses. I thought it was interesting to see the strange mix of high-tech (vacuum chambers and electron beams) and low-tech (wooden sticks and plastic cups) manufacturing methods used in the production of one lens.

via kottke.org

… Continue reading How camera lenses are made

Perk up photos of snowy scenes with these simple and practical tips

By Elizabeth West
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farmstand in winterI spend most of the winter shivering in New England despite numerous layers of silk, fleece, and wool. One of the few consolations that the season offers is the opportunity—often numerous opportunities—to photograph snow. Although driving in snow is wretched, seeing it is glorious.

However, for years, my snow shots were disappointing. I would try to capture a brilliant snowy scene and wind up with an image that appeared dingy or slightly blue. Luckily, the cure was simple.

I had forgotten that cameras are designed to expose for a nice, even medium grey. Grey, not white. So snow throws off the camera’s metering system, which tries to make the snow a nice shade of grey.

… Continue reading Perk up photos of snowy scenes with these simple and practical tips

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