Photography Tips (Page 28)

Today I have a photo tip that actually breaks the rules. I'm going to talk about including hats in portrait photography.

Hats can say a lot about a person's personality and are a good prop to use - if they actually DO fit the subject's personality.

miss holmes by Angelo González on flickr (licensed CC-BY)

One of the main benefits of digital cameras is the ability to review your images on the camera. This allows you to easily check whether you got the shot you wanted. If you didn't (and your subject hasn't changed), then you can adjust the settings and try again until you do get the shot you want.

Camera LCD by Hanumann on flickr (licensed CC-BY)

In this article we'll look at the different information we can see using the camera's image playback, and how to use this to get the shot you want.

You may have heard the phrase It's The Photographer, Not the Camera, or maybe the more generic A bad workman always blames his tools. These phrases are often used to indicate that buying a new camera (or other related gear) won't make you any better a photographer.

While this is true in many cases, there are also plenty of cases where buying better gear does result in better photos. In some cases buying new gear may be the only way to get a certain type of photo.

An extreme example of this is where professional photographer Chase Jarvis was asked to photograph a couple of shoots using a lego camera. Even though he cheated somewhat by also using a speedlight and a variable neutral density filter, you can see that the camera was definitely the weak link.

If you share or publish your photos online, it is very likely that at some point they'll be used by someone else without your permission, and without crediting you as the photographer.

You can never really prevent people from stealing your work (unless you never display it on the web or anywhere else). But there are a number of things you can do to to discourage potential image thieves.

Photographing a child's birthday party can be quite difficult, with the subjects being quite noisy and animated. However, it is well worth the effort to record those important memories for you (and your child) to look back on later, as well as great photos you can share today.

In this article I'll cover some tips to help you get some great birthday photos.

When we're going away on vacation, we like to get some great photos to remember the great time we had and interesting things we saw. However, sometimes we can't remember why we took a certain shot. Other times we can remember, but the photo doesn't really show what it was meant to.

Here are ten tips to help you avoid these problems, and get some great vacation photos.

With the explosion of digital photography, it has created a lot of opportunities in photography that once were not available to anyone but professional photographers. This explosion of new photographers has helped to broaden the market for both publications and photographers themselves, creating new sources of images and new places to sell them. But as a new photographer it may seem challenging to get started so let's take a look at the world of magazine photography.

4-19-12: Published by Lost Albatross on flickr (licensed CC-BY-ND)

In photography, it is important that the subject you are photographing is clearly conveyed to the viewer. In a portrait photo, you want the viewer to concentrate on the person, not the background. Going further, you probably want the focus to be on the face, and going further still, probably the eyes, or maybe the lips.

This is true not just for portrait photography, but for most types of photography. With landscape photography, there is normally a main point of focus in the image, for example a tree, the sunset, or maybe a river.

You can help focus your viewer's attention on the important part(s) of the photo by assigning the most important a higher visual weight. There are a number of different factors that are likely to affect how much attention a viewer pays to a particular part of an image.

If you are considering purchasing a camera that accepts interchangeable lenses, you need to be aware of compatibility issues. Buying a camera and lens and then finding they don't work properly together could be quite annoying.

It is also important to remember that when you buy into a camera that offers interchangeable lenses, you are buying into a system. So you need to consider carefully the range of lenses available in that system.

In this article we'll look at the different compatibility issues you might come across, and also how some cameras can be used with a wider range of lenses via adapters.

Taking excellent photographs is far more dependent on the skill of the photographer than on the type of gear used. Just because you have a good camera doesn't mean you'll get good photographs as some professional photographers have been known to shoot with disposable cameras.

One of the best things you can do to become a great photographer is to get a solid understanding of the technical elements and how they interact with each other. Composition, contrast, color balance, depth of field – all of these things combined are what make a photograph unique, and without an understanding of each you may find that your work suffers.

Froozen leaves by mpcevat on flickr (licensed CC-BY)

With that in mind, here is a comprehensive breakdown of one of these elements – Contrast.