10 Ways to Take Stunning Portraits
How do you take Portraits that have the ‘Wow’ factor? Today and tomorrow I want to talk about taking Portraits that are a little out of the box. You see it’s all very well and good to have a portrait that follows all the rules – but it hit me as I was surfing on Flickr today that often the most striking portraits are those that break all the rules. I want to look at some ways to break out of the mold and take striking portraits by breaking (or at least bending) the rules and adding a little randomness into your portrait photography. 1. Most portraits are taken with the camera at (or around) the eye level of the subject. Get up high and shoot down on your subject or get as close to the ground as you can and shoot up. 2. It is amazing how much the direction of your subject’s eyes can impact an image. A. B. 3. There are a lot of ‘rules’ out there when it comes to composition and I’ve always had a love hate relationship with them. 4. 5. The shots were amazing, surprising and quite funny. 6.
Sunny 16 Rule by Bryan Peterson
Spring has always been a wonderful time of year for landscape photographers to find themselves in Holland. Throughout much of the area called West Friesland, the once frozen dark soil is transformed into an explosion of color as thousands of tulips rise from the many farmer's fields. Although late March singles the beginning of spring, the month of April in Holland is also a reminder that a tug of war is going on between ol' man winter and the much younger and youthful spring. During much of April the battle plays out in the skies overhead where the clouds and sun seem to jockey for position, each claiming victory if only for a few seconds thanks to the constant sharp and biting winds. But as the wind pushes the clouds, large swaths of sunlight and shadow roll across the landscape below and not surprising, stunning landscapes await any photographer, from beginner to pro. It's one of those classic lighting situations where NO EXPERIENCE is necessary! Recommended Reading:
Advanced Tips for Tack Sharp Images
A Post By: James Brandon One very common question I get from photographers is why they can never get their images as sharp as the ones they see online. This is a loaded question, and it really made me think about all the things I go through to get tack sharp focus on my images. Sure there are the obvious tips like holding the camera properly, squeezing the shutter instead of stabbing it, tucking your elbows in, and so on. The truth is, that is just the beginning to taking sharper photographs. Let me start off by saying that I still take blurry images from time to time. Back Button Auto-Focus I can honestly say that about 90% of the photographers I talk to don’t use this built in feature on almost all cameras. On most (nearly all) cameras, there is a button on the back of the camera titled “AF On.” Read more about Back Button Focus in James’ post – 3 Reasons Why You Should Switch To Back Button Focus Single Point AF AI Servo Focus Tracking Funny name, serious setting. Enter AI Servo Conclusion
How To Give Your Photos a Dark Processed Lomo Effect
This post was originally published in 2010 The tips and techniques explained may be outdated. Follow this step by step post processing guide to give your photos a dark lomo style effect with high contrast, blue tones and vignette burns. The effect is based on the popular lomographic technique and is similar to the processing effect used in many fashion shots and advertisement designs. Overall this effect does a great job of adding impact to a plain photography with cool colour casts and unusual saturation. View full size photo effect Begin by opening your photograph of choice into Adobe Photoshop. Go to Image > Adjustments > Levels and tweak the tones of the image. At the bottom of the Layers palette, click the Adjustment Layer icon and select Curves. Change the drop down menu to Green and tweak the graph for the green channel to further alter the tones of the image. Finally alter the Blue channel, creating an inverted ‘S’ shape to enhance the blues to give a cool colour cast.
PhotographyTalk
Chapter 1: Find Your Passion An early step in experiencing success as a photographer is to find your passion. What subject matter interests you the most? You may prefer the controlled environment of a studio or a similar setting, where understanding and utilizing highly technical methods drive your passion. You may like to be among people in an active environment, such as city streets or events, where you must develop photojournalistic skills to capture what is happening spontaneously, with little or no control of the situation. Your passion may be the great outdoors, photographing adventure sports, such as climbing, mountain biking, etc., or hiking into rugged, backcountry areas for spectacular landscapes and wildlife. Few, if any, photographers are able to excel at all major types of photography, but you should certainly give most of them a try, since there is no better way to discover which moves you the most and allows you to be most creative. The Casual Approach The Purposeful Approach
Food Photography Made Easy: The Lunch Box
Shooting vittles can be as complex as you want to make it. But it is pretty easy to get elegant, well-lit food photographs with almost no money out of pocket. Hit the jump for a gastronomic update on a Strobist cheapskate classic. Of the 1,000+ posts on Strobist at this writing, one of the most popular is the $10 Macro Studio -- a cardboard box hack that makes it almost impossible to take a bad shot of a small object. With a little alteration, that same concept can be used to create classic food photography lighting with a light source as simple as a desk lamp. Thinking Outside of the Box The classic direction for lighting food is from the top/back. For this walk-through I raided the fridge for some fresh tomatoes. This hard light almost makes the 'maters look as if they are made of wood and painted glossy red. Here is the same shot with a wider lens. You could easily soften that light with an umbrella if you have one. And if you use a razor knife like I did, please be careful. Fast Food
Il Portale Della Fotografia Grande Formato
Da anni sto cercando, dopo la “carneficina” digitale, di ritrovare quel look anni 80-90 che solo la carta ciba-ilfochrome sapeva dare. Parliamoci chiaro, a meno di clamorosi colpi di scena, assai improbabili vista la complicazione nel processso produttivo sia del materiale che dei chimici e i relativi costi, quell’epoca se n’è andata per sempre. Ma non è detto che la ricerca del passato sia sempre la via da seguire, anzi, bisogna abbracciare i nuovi mezzi espressivi e cercare di usarli al meglio. Ebbene, posso dire senza tema di smentita che i progressi al riguardo ci sono stati e che, sebbene “quel” look sia oggettivamente inarrivabile, sono disponibilli delle carte che ci si avvicinano molto e anzi, mettendo sul piatto della bilancia la relativa semplicità della stampa digitale e le infinite possibilità creative e di intervento, alla fine siano pure preferibili. Ma veniamo alla breve rassegna di carte inkjet “simil-cibachrome”. Read the rest of this entry »
TechandFacts
Max Wanger Photography
