Tag Archive for photography

Every wide aperture blurs out the background

Every wide aperture blurs out the background and keeps the focus on your subject.
Again, if you’re friendly and open, people are usually quite willing to follow your directions.
In many situations, it’s fun to create and print a photo montage. If you photograph a wedding, for example, choose several pictures that you can put together to tell the story of the day. Another good exercise is to see if you can tell story—with a beginning, middle, and end—in a single shot. Learn more at http://spanishinperu.org/nantucket-wedding-photographer-2015/  and https://erinjgz.wordpress.com/2014/05/07/nantucket-massachusetts-wedding-photography/
Many cameras allow you to set a number of autofocus sensor points, anywhere from 1 to 64 and beyond. But for portraits, it’s
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Consider making portrait montages for gifts or display.
We often a good idea to use single-point autofocus to avoid having the camera focus on too many things in a busy field.
Assignment
Use horizontally and vertically. A good trick for making your subject stand out is to use an extremely shallow depth of field. Learn more at http://pommettphotography.com/
Lesson 10
Animal Photography
Anyone who has pets around the house has probably done some animal photography. The keys for getting unique shots of your pets are to have your camera ready at all times and to get down on eye level with the animal. It’s also fun to try getting some studio-type shots of your pets or even other animals, such as insects, you find in the backyard. This lesson describes some relatively simple setups for studio shots of animals. An important benefit of photographing animals is that the images you create may move viewers to a deeper appreciation of our fellow
The creatures on the planet and a greater interest in protecting and conserving wildlife.
Take pictures of your pets from their eye level.
Consider your setting. Make sure your animal doesn’t blend in with the background. With an unusual animal, such as a snake, photograph the fiill body first, then go after the detail shots—the coil of the tail or the patterns of the scales—with a macro.
Studio Portraits of Animals
A shooting tent allows you to photograph small animals in an environment that is safe and comfortable for them and easy for you.
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A higher-end light set really shows its advantages with animal photography, providing a fast flash burst that enables you to stop even the quickest motion and lots of depth of field. For animals or insects that tend to run away, use a cloth shooting tent, which also serves to soften and diffuse the light.
Assignment
The Decisive Moment in Photography
Benri Cartier-Bresson called attention to the “decisive moment” in photography in the 1950s. For Cartier-Bresson, this was a fleeting
image—a scene that took place in a fraction of a second—combined with great composition. Capturing such a moment in a picture is the highest achievement of photography. In this lesson, we’ll look at some attempts to catch decisive moments and learn some tips that might help you reach this pinnacle yourself.

Fundamentals of Photography II …

You might try using the panoramic feature on your smartphone, but typically landscapes are done with a wide-angle or a medium lens.
In addition to light, a basic element for a good landscape picture is composition. Find some object in the foreground that you like, such as flowers, rocks, or just a pattern in the vegetation. Experiment with getting close to this element yet still retaining the larger landscape. Learn more at http://spanishinperu.org/nantucket-wedding-photographer-2015/  and https://erinjgz.wordpress.com/2014/05/07/nantucket-massachusetts-wedding-photography/
What if you need to get light on your subject when nature isn’t cooperating? If you’re fairly sure about the angle, put your camera on a tripod and use a cable release. In fact, you can use a tripod whenever you find a good spot for shooting a landscape. This frees your hands to work with supplemental lighting, such as a wired or wireless flash, if you need it.
If you find that your foreground element is in the shadows, use a handheld flash with a diffuser panel to match the early-morning or early-evening light. The idea is for you to light up the shadow area
Don’t forget to try your smartphone’s panorama feature when working a landscape. Check out http://pommettphotography.com/
Lesson 3—Working with Light in a Landscape 13
While the rest of the world is lit by the sun. If you find a higher foreground element, such as a tall object that’s already lit well, you may not need to balance the lighting.
To keep supplemental light warm, try using a soft box and colored gels, which you can get online from a theater supply house. With this technique, you may find that you need to make your flash a little brighter because the gel reduces the amount of light that gets through to the subject. You can simply attach the gel over the flash head with a rubber band. Explore the results you get by using different color gels, combining them, or doubling them.
Another good way to warm up light is to bounce sunlight off a gold reflector. You’ll notice that the reflector fills in the shadows nicely.
Other tricks for defeating harsh light include underexposing the subject or using a polarizing filter or a diffuser panel to get great light at midday. If the diffuser creates a dark spot—because it’s
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A taller foreground object lets you capture more of the landscape in your frame.
The shading the sun—use the flash through the diffuser to ensure that your subject is as bright as the background or more so.
Sometimes, the easiest way to subdue the ambient light is to increase the shutter speed. A very fast shutter can be a way of defeating bright sun.
Professional landscape photographers often scout locations days in advance. If possible, they also plan to shoot the same scene over the course of several days. An interesting project is to choose a favorite landscape feature near your home, such as a tree, and shoot it at different times of day, with different lights, and through the seasons.
Lesson 3—Working with Light in a Landscape 
Assignment
Set yourself a goal to get the ideal landscape shot. Get up very early one morning, travel to a favorite outdoor spot, and set up a position you’d like to record. Remember to select a specific subject you want to show—something more than “all of nature.” Work the scene until the light starts to become harsh, and then try some techniques for softening it.