Great Photos are easy and we have made a list of things to do that will improve your photos immediately. 1. Use as plain a background as you can find for your photographs. Clutter ruins pictures. If the subject of your pictures is a light color, then the background should be dark and the reverse is true also. 2. The camera should be eye level with your subject, get down on your knees if necessary. 3. Don't put your subject directly in the center of the picture. If your subject is a little off to one side it will make a big difference. 4. Use a tripod, or set the camera on a flat object. You can use a jacket or a purse to position the camera. 5. Reduce the number of colors in the picture. If you are photographying people, try to have everyone wearing similiar and subdued colors. 6. Wait until an hour before sunset to take your picture, the sun will be very low in the sky, the light will be a warm color, the shadows will be very soft and very interesting. You can have soft light directly on the subject or produce a glow around and behind the subject. Now read this one again, it is extremely important. The lighting will make or break your picture! 7. Many of our photos were taken before or after sunset when the light is particularly warm and soft. These photos are often silhouettes standing against a very colorful sky. Low light conditions often produce some exciting visual photographic effects like artistic blurs illustrating the motion of the subject or a halo. 8. In low light conditions the shadows are longer and softer, and the contrast between light and shadow are reduced. The subjects often reflect very warm sunlight tones - between pink and deep orange giving them a romantic glow. Details are not as obvious because shadows are reduced and color becomes the subject of the photograph. It takes experience at looking at photos to learn the difference, but you will find that any photos you take within a half hour of sunset will almost always be more attractive than photos you took during other times of the day. This is often true of sunrise photos also, but the light is usually not as pink or orange. 9. Learn to see the color of light. It's called "magic light" among other things, and it usually occurs in the evening because of the higher concentration of dust particles in the air, allowing only reddish light to cover the landscape. Even when you are not taking pictures, you should go outside just prior to sunset and observe the sunlight on the trees. You will most often see the trees turn orange or red orange along the tree trunks. It will help you to become aware of the color of light and how it affects your photographs. 10. Filters. All photographers find that just changing the hours of the day they photograph is the single greatest factor in improving their photographs. And you don't stop because the sun went down, keep going for another hour. The sky will often put on a show that can be captured beautifully on film. You will not have details in the landscape unless you use some strong graduated neutral density filters that reduce light in half of the picture (get the square ones, not the rounds ones - the square ones can be adjusted). 11. Define a mood. The pictures taken in low light conditions intentionally appear moody (low key) and darker than daylight pictures (high key). This effect is produced by spot metering the subject (such as the sky) and slightly reducing the amount of exposure to insure the colors are properly reproduced on photographic slide film. 11. Tripods are necessary. Low light conditions require the use of a tripod or other support, such as a stiff camera bag or bulky jacket bunched up. The use of such support will improve most photographs at other times of day. Even when there is plenty of light, a tripod will allow adjusting the camera to increase depth of field which will often improve landscape shots. 12. Use a meter. Low light landscape photography: With the sun behind you, meter the sky on the horizon in front of you and it will almost always produce a beautifully exposed photograph. A little practice may be necessary to allow for the quirks of your meter. 13. Everybody likes to eat. Successful pictures of wildlife will increase in proportion to the amount of food you provide. They will come in for food bait and hang around longer so that photo opportunities increase. The second best option is to find a natural food source and sit in a blind. If the animals are used to seeing cars they will ignore a person sitting in a car, effectively making it into a blind. If the animals are particularly wary, you can cover the windows of the car with camouflage cloth and take pictures with the lens sticking out of the cloth. If you are hidden the animals and birds will approach your location if you just sit still long enough. 14. The eyes are the most important. Getting the camera at the eye level of your subject will increase the apparent attractiveness of the photograph. It increases the intimacy of the moment with your subject and makes the eyes dominate the picture. Looking into their eyes creates a momentary relationship, a sense of "knowing" the subject by reading its expression. However, the safety of both the subject and the photographer are of primary importance. You will never make enough money off of a photograph to begin to justify injury to the subject or yourself. An irresponsible photograph will be rejected by any responsible publication and earn you a bad reputation. Nobody wants to be accused of contributing to the harm of any wildlife subjects, either directly or indirectly. 15. Capturing motion requires more light. To capture sharp pictures of moving animals and flying birds you will have to extend your photography to the hours when the sun is higher in the sky and light increases sufficiently to use a fast shutter speed. At those times it is almost impractical to attempt to use a tripod. If you sit in a car and use a stiff camera bag resting on the window ledge it will give sufficent support to allow you to shoot with a long lens and track moving animals and birds. It will also take some of the stress off of your arms. 16. Autofocus. At these times nothing can beat having autofocus on your camera. This photographer has many pictures of flying birds that would have been impossible without autofocus. It is hard enough just to keep a long lens steady and keep the bird in the viewfinder - without having to focus too. The automatic exposure combined with autofocus will capture a perfect picture even if the photographer knows nothing about photography. Cameras are so sophisticated now that impossible shots are becoming common. 17. Exposure: For animals, use the fastest shutter speed the light will allow. Shallow depth of field will make the subject snap out from its background in a photograph. 18. Warming Filters: A warming filter almost always increases the perceived attractiveness of a photograph. 19. Use a spot-meter if your camera has one. 20. Bracket exposures (vary the amount of light). Some of the most artistic shots and best shots are taken when the exposure is "way off" average. 21. Learn how to clean up distracting elements and correct the exposure in your computer with an inexpensive photo editing software program. |
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