Are you ready to use your own strategies for photography? Do you know how to get started in the world of photography?
Have you established your own style? If you answered yes to the first question and no to the rest, the following tips are exactly what you need to get started on developing your own unique approach to photography, and taking professional-quality shots.
Make sure you have the right lighting before taking a photograph. Lighting is perhaps the most important factor in producing a good black and white photograph, because it affects the texture, contrast and shape of the image. Side lighting can produce some dramatic photographs as it creates shadows and highlights the edges of shapes.
Be creative when composing your shots. Photography is all about the visual effect of your shots. If it’s a mundane item in a cluttered background, chances are good that no one will care to look at your photo. Learn how to create a good photo, and then take those skills and apply them to your own creative ideas.
Try to plan out all of your shots. You should plan out everything from the subject, to the angle, to the lighting in the area where you will be shooting. Taking a bit of time to plan all of this out, can lead to much better and more interesting photographs.
If shooting outside or in an area that is bathed with outdoor lighting, confirm whether or not flash on the subject is appropriate. You want to turn it off if it is bathed in bright sunlight or other really bright conditions. Turn the flash back on when in heavy shadow or darker areas.
In this digital age it can still be pleasurable to experiment with old fashioned film photography to achieve some different results. A film that has an ISO number of 200, with your black-and-white capture, will give you a dramatic effect. When getting your film developed, look into having your photographs printed on fiber-based, or other types of photo paper that are available.
In this day and age, you need to know digital photography basics to digitally improve your photos. This means learning the basics of programs like Photoshop. While you should not totally rely on these programs, you can definitely perfect the shots you actually take. After all, you can only control so much when shooting.
Play with the idea of depth of field and aperture. Most photograph place their object in the center of their composition and have their background look blurry. Reverse this convention and blur your object to focus on your background. You can also play with the placement of your object in the picture.
Experiment with different perspectives, scale and photographic expression. You can make any object artistic when you portray it in a creative way, such as making it appear distorted, or in an unusual location. Practice altering your composition in order to see familiar objects in a new way.
Most pictures are taken with the camera at or near the subject’s eye level. Common sense says this is good, but get the “WOW” factor by changing the angle from which you shoot. Try shooting down at the subject from higher up or get close to the ground and shoot up.
Often, the subject is directly staring at the camera. A great and unique picture is to have the person you are photographing look off in the distance at something. It can also work well for them to focus on something that is in the picture.
When you are getting ready to show off all of the shots that you have taken to other people, make sure that you are only showing and sharing your best shots. Not everyone will be so kind if they see a practice shot, no matter if it is surrounded by good ones. Show your best to people.
A good rule of thumb when it comes to choosing settings on your camera is to choose the higher quality settings that take up more space on your memory card. The lower settings will not allow for quality printing, especially if you want to enlarge them. When shooting at a high resolution, you can always lower it later for sending via email or displaying online.
Don’t worry about taking too many pictures. It is helpful in being selective while taking pictures, but by taking too many you can capture surprising and unexpected images. With digital photography you can always delete any of the pictures that you do not like. You can also set the camera on burst mode and delete the pictures you don’t like and keep the ones you do like.
Are you ready to take unique pictures that are interesting to you and others? Can you figure out where to start? Are you sure of what will work in your shots? If you can now provide an answer to these questions, then you have read and understood the previous tips and are ready to take better photos.
