Category: Photography Tips & Tricks

10 ways to tell if you’re a photographer

By John Watson
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Does this sound like anyone you know?

  • 1 GB of memory lasts most people a month but barely lasts you the afternoon.
  • You know what aperture-priority means.
  • You delete more photos in a week than most people make all year.
  • You need just one more lens.
  • You’ve crawled on the ground to get a shot of something rusty.
  • Your camera equipment is worth more than your car.
  • No one else brings a camera to an event if they know you’re coming.
  • Your family doesn’t recognize you without a camera covering your face.
  • You have thousands of pictures and you’re not in any of them.
  • You’ve been up before dawn or out in the freezing cold or even done something semi-dangerous… all for a photograph.

… Continue reading 10 ways to tell if you’re a photographer

Learning composition: getting in close and filling the frame

By John Watson
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In the previous two installments of this series, basic concepts and lines and curves, we covered how to control what is in your viewfinder and the use of lines in your compositions. In this third article, I want to talk a little more about framing because it is so important. In particular, a very simple concept that can have a profound impact on your photographs: filling the frame with your subject.

… Continue reading Learning composition: getting in close and filling the frame

Bokeh. What the hell is it?

By John Watson
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Bokeh. Have you heard this term bandied about in conversations while looking at a photo, listened while someone proclaimed that the bokeh in a photo was good or bad, but you’ve been too embarrassed to ask just what it is? It’s something every photographer should understand because it affects your image. And whether you know it or not, you’ve probably evaluated the bokeh in your own photos. Well hide your shame no longer. After reading this article, you will be able to hold your head high and raise your nose as you talk about the bokeh in your next photo.

… Continue reading Bokeh. What the hell is it?

Learning composition: lines and curves

By John Watson
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In my last post on composition I covered the basics: what composition is, how you can control exactly what appears in a photo (and what doesn’t), and some tips to get your started. A photo with impact grabs the viewer’s attention right away and doesn’t let go. Subject matter certainly contributes to this. But composition is one of the most important factors. Two photographs of exactly the same subject can look completely different and evoke different feelings in the viewer simply by changing the composition. In this second article, I’ll talk a little bit about another concept: how lines and curves can make a composition stronger.

… Continue reading Learning composition: lines and curves

A simple technique for creating eye-catching silhouettes

By John Watson
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The silhouette is an old art form, said to have been named after �tienne de Silhouette, Louis XV’s finance minister. Apparently, he was so stingy that anything cheap, including portraits, were labelled “a la Silhouette.” Silhouettes became very popular in the 18th century but went out of fashion after the invention of the daguerreotype, an early form of photography. And now here we are, creating silhouettes with our digital cameras. Ain’t life grand?

… Continue reading A simple technique for creating eye-catching silhouettes

Learning composition: basic concepts and framing

By John Watson
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There are many things that go into the concept of “composition.” Composition is a defining characteristic that separates a forgettable snapshot from a photo that has a strong impact on the viewer. It’s more important than mega-pixels, more important than what equipment you use. This will be the first in an ongoing series to try and demystify this pretentious-sounding subject and show you how thinking about composition, even a little, can help you improve your photos. We’ll start with a few basic concepts and some guidelines you can follow that will help you start creating images with impact and that draw the viewer in.

… Continue reading Learning composition: basic concepts and framing

Backing up your photos: why and how

By John Watson
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I recently finished a task that turned out to be undeserving of my procrastination and left me with a welcome sense of relief. I made a backup of every digital photograph in my collection, over 15,000 images, spanning nearly 6 years from early 2000. It had been far too long since my last backup. It was easy, didn’t take a long time, and now I know that these treasured memories will be safe if something catastrophic ever happens to the hard drive they are stored on. Here’s how I did it.

… Continue reading Backing up your photos: why and how

Understanding exposure: shutter speed, aperture, and ISO

By John Watson
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When your camera is set on automatic, making a photograph is as simple as pressing the shutter release button. Somehow, the camera magically records just the right amount of light to render an image of the scene before it. But what is really going on? How does the camera know how to do that?

Read on to find out how a little knowledge about what goes into making an exposure can open up new worlds of creative possibilities.

… Continue reading Understanding exposure: shutter speed, aperture, and ISO

How to Capture Action Reliably and with Style

By John Watson
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If you’re anything like me, you’ll be spending holidays with family and friends, eating, laughing, and, of course, making lots and lots of photographs. At our annual holiday gatherings there are an abundance of children.

children playing on grass

And children make great subjects for photography except for one problem: they don’t sit still. A moving target is one of the most difficult things to photograph. Read on for some tips that should help make things a little easier.

… Continue reading How to Capture Action Reliably and with Style

Creating trails of light with a long exposure

By John Watson
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Have you ever seen photographs of vehicle lights on the freeway or abstract images of beams of light? They’re both examples of what is called a “long exposure.” That is, a photograph with a slow (long) shutter speed. You just need two things to make these kinds of photographs:

  • a camera that allows you to manually set the shutter speed (called “Shutter Priority” mode, it is sometimes noted on cameras with the symbol “Tv”) and that allows shutter speeds longer than 1 second.
  • a stable platform to hold the camera steady

… Continue reading Creating trails of light with a long exposure

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