Landscape and nature photographer Erez Marom has a lot of experience getting images in tough locations all over the world. Getting great shots takes a lot of work, but how many of us spend any time considering how to name our images? In this article, Erez takes us through his thought-process when titling his images, and explains why he thinks it’s so important. Click through to read the full article
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
Sometimes an expression can cut you like a knife.
One of the most fascinating things about street photography is that it can be so hard to pinpoint the reasons why one photograph works and another does not.
A good street photograph can be sharp or it can be blurry; it can be in contrasty light or in soft and even light; it can be an energetic scene with layers of people or it can be a quiet shot with nobody in it. It gets further complicated when you start to think about the ideas, moods, and feelings that your images suggest.
Despite this lack of certainty, I believe there are two things that will always improve a candid photograph, and that is a gesture in a subject’s body or an emotion captured on a subject’s face. Both of these elements have the power to be the defining reason that a photograph is great. They can be the basis for an entire image.
When I refer to emotion, I am talking about the look in a person’s face, in their eyes, in their mouth, in their eyebrows, or even in their nose. When I refer to gesture, I am talking about a movement, a stance, an elegance, or any position of a subject’s body that is suggestive in some way.
This image would not have worked without the elegant and suggestive stance in the legs.
It can be misunderstood that doing street photography well is solely about photographing people that seem to pop out at you in some obvious someway. Maybe this is through a unique fashion or an interesting facial feature. The result is that you see images of people deemed interesting for some reason that don’t seem to be actually doing or thinking anything – they are expressionless and neutral in stride.
Instead of photographing with only the intention of capturing interesting people, try to take this idea further and locate interesting emotions and gestures in all different types of people. I don’t believe that you can differentiate who is more worthy of a photograph based solely on someone’s facial features or clothing. Your most ‘uninteresting’ person aesthetically can give you the best photograph of your life with a single powerful expression. So many compelling moments lie within these expressions and gestures.
So the next time you’re out photographing, pay attention to what you think a person is feeling and work from there out.
New York is made up of nervous people. To me this image tells the story of the city more than any image of a skyscraper can.
For more street photography tips try these articles:
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The post The Importance of Capturing Gesture and Emotion in Street Photography by James Maher appeared first on Digital Photography School.
What Lies Beneath | West Side Road, Death Valley National Park
As I start writing this post, I’m sitting by my gate at Las Vegas McCarran International Airport. I loathe Vegas, but that’s beside the point. I managed to avoid the strip this time and will be home soon. I just wrapped up an incredible week leading a workshop in Death Valley National Park with my good buddy Brian Matiash and nine awesome students. This was my fifth trip to the park, and I’m starting to feel like I know the place like the back of my hand (even though there are still a several places I’d like to visit).
Joshua Trees in Death Valley
Ever since hearing about a lesser known area of the park known as Cottonball Basin (or Cottonball Marsh), I’ve been on the hunt for a certain kind of pattern found there. Cottonball Basin is hiding in plain site of virtually everyone who visits Death Valley. It’s located about five miles north of Furnace Creek off Highway 190, but there are no signs for it, and no areas for parking. You simply have to pull off into the gravel on the side of the road and start hiking out.
The trouble is that Cottonball Basin (and much of Death Valley) is always changing. Badwater Basin (which feeds into Cottonball) is an underground river, so the surface is always morphing and looks different with each visit. If you pick the wrong spot of the highway to pull over and start hiking, you could spend hours hiking around the marsh and find nothing.
During my last visit to the park (before this one), I hiked out to Cottonball twice and while I was able to come out with some decent shots, it wasn’t what I was looking for. I was never able to find the patterns I had seen in a few photos.
Even though I hadn’t found what I was looking for, there is still plenty of beauty to be found all over Cottonball Basin.
This time around, I was bound and determined not to come up empty handed. Right before heading out, I purchased a Garmin Oregon 600 Handheld GPS. I had a cheaper Garmin before, but it was so unintuitive and difficult to use that I wasn’t willing to risk using it again. The Oregon series is a touch screen model that is responsive, quickly acquires satellites, and is very easy to use and understand.
The day before the workshop began, Brian and I hiked out to Cottonball Basin. We found essentially nothing. I felt pretty defeated. We ended up changing the workshop itinerary and nixed Cottonball Basin altogether. It wasn’t until a chance encounter at Racetrack Playa that my luck would change.
As our group began exploring The Racetrack, Brian and I noticed a group of four photographers at one of the best rocks on the playa. They were taking turns standing on the rock, sitting on it, and taking all sorts of photos with them in it (probably for Instagram or something). This made my blood boil, so before too long, we went over and laid into them pretty good. They apologized for what they were doing and promised to stop (I really don’t understand that behaviour).
Mesquite Sand Dune Crust | Death Valley National Park
After going back later that evening (they stayed at that same rock the entire evening) we began chatting with the main guy from the group taking pictures. He mentioned that he found some good patterns at Cottonball and showed us the shots he took with his iPhone. These shots were the closest I’ve seen in a long time to the patterns I was looking for and he was nice enough to let us know where to find them. Unfortunately, we only had one last day of the workshop so we’d have to try our luck alone after the students had already left.
On the last day of our trip, after the workshop had concluded, we headed out again to explore and scout the basin. Using my Oregon 600, I dropped a pin at our parking spot off the highway and began hiking out. Around half a mile in, we saw some good patterns starting to forming (this was after walking over some very unwelcoming terrain that would probably cause most tourists and/or photographers to turn back). Things were starting to look good. As we kept hiking out, the patterns began getting tighter and tighter together. Finally, around 1.5 miles into the basin we hit the mother-load. I dropped around 7 pins at different locations out on the basin because I knew these spots were going to be difficult to find again. It’s hard to describe, but Cottonball Basin is a massive expanse of completely flat terrain for the most part. You can pick the same exact parking spot, but if you hike out 20 degrees to the left of where you found the patterns, you’ll miss your mark by enough to not even see something useful.
The shot I had been waiting thee years to get was finally mine. I wanted to capture as much as possible so I created this panoramic by taking five vertical images and stitching them together in PTGui Pro.
After lunch and a good nap, we headed out again for sunset. The Oregon 600 led us directly to the exact same spots we stood in earlier that da,y with plenty of time to spare for the light to be right. Oh man, did the light get right. Sunset that evening was one of the top three sunsets I’ve ever seen in my life (and I take ranking my sunsets pretty seriously).
If we hadn’t been relentlessly scouting this location, I’m quite confident I would still be in search of those patterns today.
Below is a video I put together from the trip. This is an in-depth video showing the scouting process, the sunset shoot, as well as the post-processing of the image once I got back home. Let me know if you have any questions!
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The post The Importance of Scouting for Landscape Photographers by James Brandon appeared first on Digital Photography School.
Let’s say that perhaps you’ve been taking photos for a while now. You’ve gotten yourself a good DSLR camera and have recognized that the standard 18-55mm kit lens that comes with your camera is nice, but just doesn’t give you the shots that you are looking for.
So you plunk down your money on the ever-popular 50mm f/1.8 prime lens that everybody is talking about, mount in on your camera, change your aperture to its widest (f/1.8) setting and start shooting. You spend all day shooting with this wonderful little lens and then you get home and put them on your computer and realize that 80% of your shots are out of focus.
In the past, when this used to happen to me, I would reason that shooting wide open was just not possible, because I ended up with too many shots that were out of focus. I incorrectly reasoned that I always needed to close down my aperture when shooting portrait subjects, or they would end up out of focus because the shallow depth of field was just too unusable wide open. For a while, I only used my 50mm 1.8 lens at f/4 because it was the widest aperture that I trusted to get the shot in focus. Crazy yes, I know. But then I figured out something that has changed my use of wide-aperture lenses forever.
Before we continue, let’s break down the meaning of “wide open” and “fast prime lenses”. To shoot “wide open” means that you are choosing to photograph at your lens’ widest aperture setting or f-stop. On a lot of lenses, the widest aperture is listed somewhere on the lens itself with Canon usually listing it on the front of the lens, and Nikon listing this information on the body of the lens. Generally the ration looks something like this: 1:2.8 or 1:1.8. (See photos)
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A “fast prime lens” is one that has one focal length (does not zoom) and has “fast” light-gathering ability (due to its wider apertures). Most photographers consider a fast lens to be one with an aperture number of f/2.8 or wider (the smaller the number, the wider the aperture). Two of the most popular features of fast prime lenses are their ability to obtain beautiful out of focus backgrounds and shallow depth of field, as well as their ability to handle low-light conditions because of the aforementioned large apertures.
Let me let you in on a little secret about shooting wide open – it’s about the distance to your subject. Most people learn that wide-aperture lenses blur the background and let in more light, but they never understand that the really neat shallow depth of field created by their lens is also affected by another factor; how close they are to the subject.
You won’t find many manuals on subject to camera distance. It’s kind of an assumed topic that doesn’t get enough attention. Let’s look at it as simply as possible: the closer you are to your subject, the shallower the depth of field is relative to your chosen aperture. In other words, if you are shooting at f/1.8 and you are 20 feet away from your subject, you will have MORE depth of field than you will if you are shooting 2 feet away from your subject.
To get more mathematical, if you’re using a 50mm lens at f/1.8 and photographing something at 4 feet, your depth of field will be around 1.5 inches deep. But if you photograph that same subject from 10 feet, you will have a depth of field of just under 10 inches deep.
Shot at 2ft with a 35mm lens at f/1.4. |
Shot at 9ft with a 35mm lens at f/1.4. |
The right image cropped to similar framing as the left. Notice the increase in depth of field on the hair and ears, and also the reduction in lens distortion.
Shot at 2 ft with a 35mm lens at f/1.4.
Shot at 9ft with a 35mm lens at f/1.4. Cropped to similar framing. Notice how the pencils in the back row come into focus.
With this information, it is also very important that you get to really know your lens and its abilities. For instance, if you happen to know that you shoot a lot of portraiture close to your subjects, be aware of how much depth of field your lens gives you at three feet, four feet, and so on, when shooting wide open. In time, with experience, you will be able to immediately predict the depth of field your lens will give you based on the distance you are away from your subject.
Shot at 5ft with an 85mm lens at f/1.4. |
Shot at 12ft with an 85mm lens at f/1.4. |
The depth of field does increase slightly in the right image, but not as dramatically as the 35mm lens due to the 85mm longer focal length.
In conclusion, you can see that the reason your photos might be coming out blurry would be because of your distance to your subject when shooting wide open. So the next time you find yourself frustrated at your results shooting with that wide-aperture lens at its widest aperture, take a step or two back. You might like the results.
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The post Depth of Field and the Importance Distance to Subject Plays by Al Jurina appeared first on Digital Photography School.
In my last article, I talked about working on one or more personal projects as a great way to help photographers get motivated and get busy in a saturated market space. In this article I want to expand on the topic of personal photography projects: Why do you need one? How do you choose personal projects? What are some of the more popular personal projects around?
Experimenting with film ( 35mm and medium format) as one of my personal projects
What started off as a favor for a friend has turned into a new offering in my business – lifestyle headshots
My first (and last attempt) as photographing the moon on a clear night! – it was much harder than I expected!
I love dabbling in bird photography – a nice change in subject from my normal wedding and family portrait clients
Macro photography is another easy subject to find in nature or with everyday household items
There are several ways to choose personal projects. Here are some personal techniques I use several times during the year.
One of my goals for 2015 is to photograph more elopement and backyard weddings, as well as do some editorial work. To help achieve that, I have reached out to a few magazine editors, as well I plan on networking with other wedding photographers to possibly second shoot with them on smaller weddings as a way to get to my goal.
I love the outdoors with a passion. I love travel and everything associated with it. I carry my camera everywhere I go and try to document stories not just of my travels but also of the people I meet – something I plan to do a lot more of in 2015.
Portfolio reviews are a great exercise to perform several times in the year. Match the images to your goals so you know where you are lacking – where do you stand now, and where do you want to go?
There are easy special assignments to give yourself like photographing with only one lens for a week, photographing one subject with a wide range of lens, or black and white architectural images. Another technique that is fascinating is low light photography – really pushing the limits of your camera to change the look and mood of an image.
I hope this article has motivated you to delve into personal photography projects and assignments. They can be extremely rewarding and satisfying no matter what the outcome. After all, anything that motivates you to pick up your camera and photograph just for the love of the art, not necessarily for money, can only be a good thing, right?
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The post The Importance of Personal Projects for Professional Photographers by Karthika Gupta appeared first on Digital Photography School.
Every art form that we as humans enjoy all have a common thread: They all have differing styles that set each apart and make them unique. Photography is no different. Our art form has countless styles, forms and genres for us to explore. But why is it necessary for us to understand style? The simple answer is having a well–defined style allows Continue Reading
The post The Importance of Having a Photographic Style appeared first on Photodoto.
By Annie Tao
Just like in Real Estate, Photography is about location, location, location. Well, sort of. It’s not as much the beauty of a location, but rather, the quality of the light at a location.
Case in point, my shoot this past weekend was of a lovely family in a seemingly lovely location. It was a small, narrow park that wrapped around a large lake. Sounds pretty, but the light was not desirable for portraits. Imagine clear skies and a sun that was as bright as can be! There weren’t structures or large trees to provide shade.
Why is this bad? Direct sunlight on clear, bright days means high contrast, squinting subjects, and unflattering shadows.
Can you still make this work? Certainly, but the kinds of shots are not as varied because of the location.
[FYI: For outdoor lifestyle sessions, I shoot entirely in natural light. This is my style of shooting. This article does not apply if you use lighting equipment or accessories outside.]
Since my clients chose the location for sentimental reasons, it was worth starting
there. Then we got in our cars to find a different location… one that has objects to diffuse the sunlight as well as add interest to the images.
Even from this one image, you can tell that it is a pretty location, but you can see that the trees are thin and the sunlight is super bright.
These images are examples of what can be achievable with the right light and location.
The key to finding the perfect location for outdoor portraits isn’t to find one that has the prettiest elements, but rather, one that has objects that provide shade when there is bright sun.
That doesn’t mean you have to shoot in the shade the entire time… or even at all!
Having these objects around will give you diversity in backdrops as well as a way to diffuse the harsh light on clear days.
Annie Tao is a Professional Lifestyle Photographer in the San Francisco Bay Area who is best known for capturing genuine smiles, emotions and stories of her subjects. You can visit annietaophotography.com for more tips or inspiration and stay connected with Annie at facebook.com/annietaophotography.
Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.
Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.
The Importance of Location for Outdoor Portraits
So far in this photography SEO series, we have discussed local link building, local relationship building and today we are going to talk local marketing. Photography SEO isn’t only about the algorithms. In fact, relationships and marketing efforts also play a big role. Especially with the ever-changing algorithms and importance of social signals.
Building relationships is also marketing, however there are additional local marketing techniques that can be used.
Provide your relationships with an incentive to send more business your way. For instance, a 5% referral bonus for every new customer you get. Make the bonus exclusive to partners you have exchanged links with.
Utilize local marketing sites and get your business listed on the most important websites, the ones your potential clients would be browsing.
Display your associations and memberships on your website, and make sure you are listed on theirs. For instance, if you are a wedding photographer it could be important to be listed on Best of Wedding Photography in your local area.
If you have a studio, host a meet and greet there. If you do not, partner with one of your relationships to use their venue. Offer a couple of presentations where you can further educate your partners so they can be an indirect and unofficial sales person for your business.
Use Google Webmaster Tools and Bing Webmaster Tools and identify what local keywords are working for you and where you need improvement.
Use social sites like Quora, searching for local questions worth answering.
Your customers hang out on Facebook and Pinterest. You may not realize it, but Pinterest is important for photographers and more so for local marketing.
Google Places is now called Google Plus Local. Even if your customers are not on Google Plus, it is important to have your business set up and merged with your Google Plus Local listing.
Like with anything else, this list can go on for a while. So I want to hear from you. Comment below and share your advice for photographers to utilize local marketing for photography SEO.
Thanks for reading,
Scott
For a couple embarking upon their numerous wedding plans, excitement and curiosity filled with budget considerations will drive question upon question for their potential photographer. Photographers who know the wedding circuit already, will notice that the same questions will be repeated by most clients. There are a number of reasons for this. Not only do wedding magazines point brides in Continue Reading
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