Rule of Thirds

Today’s tip comes from www.earthboundlight.com. Whether you are a brand new of seasoned photographer, the Rule of Thirds is a great formula to follow to get a great shot. What is the Rule of Thirds, you ask?

Basically, when composing a photo, look through the lens and imagine a tick-tac-toe board- 2 vertical lines and 2 horizontal lines across whatever it is you’re viewing, making 9 equal sized boxes like so:

As the site says, “aligning your subject along one of these lines can help to create a more pleasing image.” For an even more interesting image, try positioning your subject at one of the intersections of the lines. The line intersections are often called “power points”. The Rule of Thirds can be useful in many situations, but I find it most useful when I am photographing a horizon. Before I learned this rule, I often positioned the horizon directly in the center of the photo. This led to a lack of depth and an unclear subject. Aligning the horizon with one of the horizontal lines can really add to the quality of the shot.

To illustrate just how effective “power points” can be, look at this picture. The animal’s eyes are positioned relatively close to on dot the intersections, as is the animal’s nose.

This shot automatically becomes more interesting, especially when compared to a shot with the animal in the dead center of the picture.

That’s all for today!

-Valerie

Copyright © 2004, 2005 Bob Johnson, Earthbound Light

http://www.earthboundlight.com/phototips/rule-of-thirds.html

National Geographic

For today’s photo tips, I will share with you some wonderful things I picked up from www.nationalgeographic.com. As I’m sure most of you know, National Geographic magazine is known as much for its brilliant photography of all aspects of the world as for the eye-opening articles. The photo tips on this site can be found under the heading “Path to Adventure”. Though some of what they share may be common sense to many photographers, the strength of this site is in the examples they provide to reinforce their points.
One great tip that I think every photographer everywhere should hear is “if you see it, shoot it!” Often, a photographer will focus far too intensely on capturing a single great picture; especially when shooting nature, allotting a lot of time to one photograph could result in you missing so many other opportunities for great photos. Spending your time taking many pictures instead of a single picture lets you experiment and capture more of your surroundings. Also, as said on the site, “You may find that your spontaneous photos are better than the ones you spent a long time composing.”
Of the example photographs that accompany this tip, my favorite is this one taken by Mark Thiessen:













Another simple but worthy tip found on the site is plainly: Get Closer! Don’t be afraid to zoom in or get closer to your subjects. Many times, the intended subject of a shot gets lost in the clutter that surrounds it. This clutter can be eliminated by zooming in on what you really want to focus on. The next 2 photos are also taken by Mark Thiessen. The difference in the style and quality of the picture is very clear, and the great effect that Mark achieved by zooming in is undeniable:


or



Well that's all for today! Have a good one!
-Valerie

Fodor's Part 2

Because the Fodor’s website has so many wonderful tips, I want to share a few more with you on here- tips that I, as an amateur photographer, find interesting and helpful.

1- Under the category “Classic Vacation Shots”, the “Around the Campfire” article is great. Fire can be a really fun thing to photograph because it is beautiful and unpredictable, but also because it allows for a very unique lighting situation. However, getting the right exposure for the picture can be extremely difficult because it often seems like the scene around the fire is underexposed or that the fire itself is washed out. The site provides a great tip for setting your exposure just right:

“Whether or not you want the fire itself in your shots, be careful not to include it when you take your meter reading, because the flames will fool the camera into grossly underexposing your subjects. Instead, use your spot-metering mode to take readings directly from a well-lighted face; alternatively, move in close and fill the frame with just a face. This will provide good exposure setting for skin tones, though it may tend to wash out the colors of the fire. You can take a second reading of just the flames; setting an exposure that's midway between the two readings will keep faces well exposed while retaining the intensity of the flames.”

2- Under the “Lighting” category, click on “Lights in Motion”. This article details how to effectively take a long exposure shot. Ever since I learned how to take a long exposure shot, I have become slightly obsessed with taking them. Every shot you take is unique because the light you are capturing may never move exactly the same way again. My favorite thing to photograph using long exposure is fireworks- not the professional sort, but the kind that anyone can go and buy at the store. When using color film, keeping the shutter open for a long period of time (10 seconds or longer) allows me to capture the awesome patterns of light the fireworks give off. I have always depended simply on trial and error to get my camera settings (mainly the aperture) correct for these shots because getting an accurate exposure reading is terribly difficult, if not impossible. In the article, though, the author suggests that the photographer should set the aperture to f/11 or smaller because you will at least have an adequate depth of field.

Some great ways to play with long exposure: photographing the night sky, at carnivals, cars driving by, fireworks, etc.

That's all for today.

-Valerie

Fodor's

Today’s tip comes courtesy of the website for the Fodor’s company. For those of you who aren’t travel addicts, Fodor’s is a really widely known company that publishes travel guides. I have used Fodor’s travel guides many times in my own travels. The site is wonderful- it offer a complete list of Fodor’s publications, information on travel planning, and a wealth of advice on all things travel.

I visited this site because I figured that any respectable travel website must have something about travel photography. I was right…and I was really surprised at how much information I found. The site has a whole section with nearly 100 tips for travelers wanting to document their trip with photos. The tips are organized into 9 main categories, each category divided into sub-categories.. The articles are concise, easy-to-follow and many of them were really interesting. Today, I’ll share with you one of my favorite tips from the site.

1- Under the category “People”, I clicked on “Stranger’s Faces”. As a photographer who loves to travel, I often experience the urge to take pictures of the local people because they are such an important part in the experience of a place. Nine times out of ten, I refrain from taking pictures of strangers because I don’t want to seem rude, or worse, creepy. This section of the site actually encourages the practice of photographing strangers because, as they say,

“no other subject you will encounter will bring home the wonder and charm of far-flung places like portraits of the people who live there”.

If you as the photographer want to remain inconspicuous, Fodor’s suggests using a long telephoto lens (like an 80mm to 200mm zoom). However, they mention that it’s polite to ask the subject if they will pose for a picture.

“Allow them to be shy or pensive or curious. Portraits look best when the background is either simple or out of focus; one technique is to use a large aperture and selective focus to cast the background into a soft blur. Soft, even lighting is most flattering, so try also to pose your subject in the shade of a building or tree.”

And finally, here is the link: http://www.fodors.com/focus/

That’s all for today!

-Valerie

photosecrets

For today’s blog, I have found a fantastic site to share with you. The site is called PhotoSecrets and it is published by a man named Andrew Hudson. According to the site, he has been a professional photographer since 1996, the year that he founded PhotoSecrets Publishing (now called Photo Tour Books, Inc.) which has since published 14 books. For more information on Hudson and the company, you can check out the “About” section of the site.

The reason I really like this site is because it offers a wealth of information and tips for beginner, intermediate, and advanced photographers. Articles cover everything from what camera to buy, how to take better pictures of people, and how to photograph fireworks to equipment information to aerial photography. The format of the site is simple and clear.

Of all the articles on the site, there are a few really good ones I suggest you check out. First, the article titled “Time of Day”. In it, Hudson breaks down the hours of the day to point out the advantages of each section of time. This type of chart would be great for someone who is having trouble achieving the light affects they want to. Another article that I think anyone can benefit from is the one entitled “Favorite Filters”. Hudson briefly describes 15 different types of filters to put on your lens and also what brands he uses. Using filters is an incredible way to get different and varied affects in your photographs. The last article I found very interesting is actually written by an outside author, Bob Couey. I can’t prove his credibility to myself or to you, but I did really enjoy what he had to say. He recounts the best photo tip he ever heard:

"The subject you wish to photograph is the nucleus of an atom. You, the photographer, are the

electron spinning around the subject until you find just the right angle and distance. Not until then will you have successfully evaluated every aspect of that subject and its possibilities. Just the slightest move to the right or left, up or down has the potential to make or break the photo. Don't be in such a hurry to finish and leave."

So, if I have sparked any interest in this site, here’s the URL:
http://www.photosecrets.com/tips.html

Well, that’s all for now!
-Valerie

my humble introduction

Good morning/afternoon/evening, readers!
This is the first in a series of blogs I will be posting concerning photography.
My name is Valerie O'Shea. I'm a college student from New Jersey, majoring in Writing Arts, Elementary Education, and getting my certificate of Reading. In fact, creating and writing in this blog is actually an assignment for one of my classes- to make a research based blog about a chosen topic. Despite the fact that I am going to school for teaching, I am, at heart, an artist. My passions lie in writing, music, and especially photography. I decided to blog about photography because it is something I am very interested in, very passionate about, and very active with. My experience as an 'amateur photographer' began when I was in third grade and my family went on vacation to Harper's Ferry, West Virginia. I saw such beauty there that I kept begging my father, an amateur photographer himself, to borrow his camera. That year for Christmas he bought me my first SLR camera and, as they say, the rest is history.
I've decided to focus this blog on sharing informative and useful resources for anyone interested in photography, as well as sharing tips that I have picked up over the years. I intend to learn a lot through my research and I hope that you (the reader) enjoy it as I present it to you!

Edit: When thinking more about how to organize my research, I realized that 'photography' was a much broader topic than I wanted to tackle. I felt almost complelled to write about the history of photography, descriptions and explanations of the many aspects of a camera, lenses, filters, etc. These are things that are of interest to photographers, but not things I particularly want to research. Thus, I have slightly narrowed my focus. I am very interested in the actual process of taking pictures and improving my own photography, so I've decided to research different sources to find all kinds of tips for novice and amateur photographers. I know that there is so much for me to learn, and I want to share that all with you.