10 Questions to Ask When Taking a Digital Photo. What goes through your mind in the moments as you raise your digital camera up to take a shot and before you press the shutter? If you’re like many digital photographers you’re not thinking about too much – you just want to capture the moment and then move on. However getting in the habit of asking some simple questions can help take your images to the next level. Here’s 10 questions to get in the habit of asking while framing your shots. I’ve included links in each one to further reading on the topics. I hope you find them helpful: 1. This is an important question and one that should help you to make any number of decisions in terms of composition, framing, exposure etc. 2.
What will viewers of this picture naturally have their eye drawn to in this scene? There are a variety of ways that you can enhance a focal point – some of which we explore here. 3. 4. One of most common places for distractions in digital photography is the background of your shots. 5. Read more on filling your frame.
Telling Stories With Photos. A Post By: Darren Rowse A picture is worth a thousand words – or so the saying goes.Please note – at the end of this post there is an assignment that relates to it that we’ll be doing together this week in our Digital Photography Flickr Group. I hope you’ll enjoy it. Get Free Weekly Digital Camera Tips via Email There are many reasons that I love photography, not the least of which is that a photograph (or a series of them) has the ability to convey stories to those that view them. Over the centuries people have gathered around campfires, in town squares, over meals and in other places to tell their stories and these gatherings have become central to the shaping of cultures and communities.
In more recent times some people have lamented that the art of story telling has been lost amidst the rise of different technologies. Perhaps there is some truth in this – but I also wonder if perhaps it’s just the way we tell stories that has changed. The Short Story Multiple Image Stories Structure 1. 2. Using Focal Points in Photography. By Robert Parviainen Next time you take your digital camera out and line it up for a shot pause before you press the shutter button and ask yourself: “What is the Focal Point in this Picture?” Some other ways to ask the same question might include – What is the central point of interest? What will draw the eye of the viewers of this picture? The reason a focal point is important is that when you look at an image your eye will generally need a ‘resting place’ or something of interest to really hold it.
Once you’ve identified a point of interest or focal point you then should ask yourself how you can enhance it. 6 Techniques to Enhance the Focal Point in an Image A focal point can be virtually anything ranging from a person, to a building, to a mountain, to a flower etc. Keep in mind that a combination of above elements can work well together. Lastly – don’t confuse the viewer with too many competing focal points which might overwhelm the main focal point. 9 Tips for Getting Backgrounds Right. A Post By: Darren Rowse Photo by igglybwiggs Backgrounds present both opportunities and challenges to photographers.
On the one hand they can put a subjects in context and make it stand out in a way that highlights it wonderfully – but on the other hand backgrounds can overwhelm subjects and distract from them. Some of the common problems that photographers have with backgrounds include: Distracting Focal Points – we’ve all seen this happen – we line up a shot of a friend to take as a portrait and just as we press the shutter someone else pops their head up over their shoulder with a silly face. The result is that the real focal point of the shot becomes the face pulling person. This is an extreme example of distracting focal points in the background but it’s something that happens quite a lot.Protruding Elements from Subjects Heads – I nearly didn’t include this one but it’s so common that I just had to mention it. 9 Strategies for Dealing with Distracting Backgrounds 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
Digital Photography Tips and Tutorials. Digital Camera Modes. A Post By: Darren Rowse This week I did an informal survey on a few of my digital camera owning friends and asked them to nominate which shooting modes that they most commonly use on their digital cameras (they use a range of point and shoot and DSLR digicams). The results of this little survey didn’t really surprise me – Automatic Mode was the overwhelming response from both beginner and the more advanced users alike (a little surprising to me). In fact three of the people I questioned responded by asking ‘is there any other non Automatic mode?’ As a result I’ve decided to take a run through the basic shooting modes that most digital cameras have (both point and shoot and DSLRs have most of these).
While this is pretty basic information for many readers I hope it will be helpful for those right at the beginning of their digital photography journey who are yet to venture out of Automatic Mode. Automatic Modes Automatic Mode Portrait Mode Macro Mode Landscape Mode Sports Mode Night Mode Movie Mode.