Are you looking for free photography themes? Here you’ll find 15 incredible designs developed especially for the purpose. Who can use them? We guess these WordPress themes will be useful for artists, designers and developers. In a word, for everybody who wants to save some money on his/her future website design. Free themes don’t have 24/7 support like their premium Continue Reading
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Do you love to photograph flowers? Flowers are the most beautiful things to photograph. They have texture, color and come in wonderful shapes.
A wide-angle lens will allow you to add more background and may distort a bit depending on the camera angle. You will have more details in your photograph. A 50mm or a short telephoto will allow you to show the flower with little environmental information. It will not distort the flower.
Use back lighting to enhance the petals. Some petals have a beautiful translucence. You will see the awesome veins and their designs. Shoot your photos of flowers towards the sky. If the sky is blue it will add a nice contrast and if it’s cloudy it will add drama to your photograph. Be aware that the sun needs to be on either side of your flower. The sun should not be pointing towards your camera or you will get a silhouette or lens flare.
Photograph from below the flower and you will see unusual shapes. Many people forget to shoot from this position. It may not be the most comfortable one (you might find yourself flat on a pebbled ground) but it’s worth a try. You will find very original views and shapes from this viewpoint.
Change the camera position often. Photograph with the camera at eye level for a more realistic look and then photograph from above and below.
When you find a flower, move around and look for a good angle. If the background has too many things going on you will need to change the camera height or the position.
Get close to the flower. Make your photograph about texture and color. Have you thought about how to extract and abstract your flower? Photograph parts of the flower with parts of background details. The closer you get the more abstract your image will become. You will eventually start to show lines or just color.
When you dissect an object, it will appear in a very different way than when you originally saw it. You will be showing your point of view. Your unique creativity will be taking over the composition. Study your flower and change its look with your framing.
Have you noticed that when the background looks good, everything will look good? This is why it’s a good idea for you to photograph with a large aperture. You will be able to soften up the background and make the composition exclusively about the flower.
Make sure to declutter your background so that your flower will be the center of attention. You can declutter by using a shallow depth of field and by moving around until you find a suitable background. Use the stems and leaves to frame the flower. They will add an interesting design to your image.
A good way to declutter the background is to shoot with a large aperture. This means that you can use f/1.4, f/2.0, f/2.8, etc. Bokeh is also a great way to declutter the background. It will add a surreal look and make the flower stand out.
If you who have a zoom lens with the largest aperture of f/4.0 or f/5.6: Set your lens to 50mm or 70mm. To blur the background nicely, the flower needs to be far away from the background. Make sure that you are close to the flower and the flower is at least three to five feet away from the background.
If you are photographing with backlight it’s not crucial to have a blurry background because the sky will provide for the background.
Photograph when the sun is at a low angle to enhance texture. Late afternoon or early morning will provide for a good sun angle. You will obtain great texture when you photograph under diffused light. This can be in the shade, or on bright, but cloudy days. The diffused light will provide for even lighting and the textures and details of the flower will be enhanced.
If you want to show the leaves and parts of the flower an f-stop of f/8 will be good.
The color of your flower will be subject to the quality of the light you are shooting under. You will like the effect that you get when you work under a nice soft and diffused light. The nuances of the colors will show up more. You will see more tone variations. Depth will be more visible. When you add that to the shallow depth of field technique, your flower will have an artistic and special look.
Photograph during the golden hour (early morning and sunset) to achieve a lovely warm tone on your flower. This light is a soft light. It will show depth and dimension and give it a realistic look. It is best to have the sun coming from either side. It’s very flattering to the flower.
The worst type of light is midday sunlight, and when the sun is hitting the subject directly (from the camera angle not the side). These two lights will make the flower look flat and the whole photograph will lack depth. Avoid midday sunlight and direct light.
Do you have any additional tips for doing more unique flower photos? Please share in the comments below.
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The post How to do More Unique Flower Photography by Marguerite Beaty appeared first on Digital Photography School.
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[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]
Supermarkets? More like Stupor Markets, amiright? That’s the case with these 11 abandoned supermarkets where “checkout” is more than a state of mind.
Cleanup in aisle… well, all of ‘em actually, and you’d better bring a hazmat suit along with a bucket & mop. Almost 30 years after the Chernobyl nuclear accident turned Pripyat into a creepy radioactive ghost town, the city’s snazzy supermarket recalls the good old days – Soviet style – when the shelves were stocked and the shopping carts had wheels.
Urbex ubergeek Florian from Abandoned Kansai visited the abandoned supermarket just off Lenin Square back in January of 2011 and lived to tell the tale – and post the images above. According to Florian’s native guide Maxim, Pripyat was a privileged place before the 1986 disaster and the central supermarket “was one of the few places in the Soviet Union that actually sold Chanel Nº 5.” Now it just stinks.
The soaring “V for Victory” signpost standing resolutely Ozymandias-like in the Iowa summer sun indicates the above abandoned supermarket above was once a HyVee. Flickr user Andrew T…has left the building captured the forlorn state of the place in June of 2012, sometime after HyVee consolidated their two existing Newton, IA stores into a newer, larger complex.
Abandoned in 1999, the old Howard Park Super Pride supermarket on Liberty Heights Avenue finally succumbed to the wrecking ball after ShopRite selected the site for their new store.
Though it’s good to see any neighborhood revitalized, the oddly gentle demolition of the Super Pride’s landmark sign had to bring a tear to more than a few local eyes.
Aisle be back… NOT! These closed and abandoned supermarkets give us a preview of the coming apocalypse – zombie or otherwise – when shopping simply stops.
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I’m leavin’ it! You can bet your sesame seed buns these 10 closed and abandoned McDonald’s have swirled their last McFlurry and will bag burgers no more.
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Abandoned car washes are oddly abundant – you’d think they invented the self-cleaning car! Here are 12 more car-less washes left high, dry and brushed-off.
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[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]
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Tiffen has announced an updated version of its Dfx photo and video editing software that adds new filters, historic process simulations and extra tools, as well as wider compatibility with movie editing programs. Tiffen Dfx produces effects like those created by the company’s optical glass filters, with the latest version 4 adding 12 extra ‘filters’ to the menu system, including the company’s new Pearlescent and Satin diffusers. Read more
[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]
A Dutch firm on the cutting edge of indoor agriculture estimates that producing food for the entire world could take place in a space far smaller than the area occupied by Holland, using just 10% of the water needed by traditional farms. The proposal is not without precedent – Japan already has one prototype urban farm that is 100 times more productive than farmers’ fields.
Noting that the vast majority of people will live in cities in the coming decades, PlantLab suggests a solution that involves using existing basements and purpose-built structures for our future food production. This means less energy, space, time and water than conventional methods.
Urban farming in controlled environments lets growers take full advantage of variables like custom lighting, using far-red LED lamps that reduce moisture requirements for plants. Naturally, interior spaces are also free from the uncontrolled variables of weather and pests as well, increasingly reliability.
Automatic systems can optimize yields based on crop types, making indoor farms more effective than greenhouses and far more productive than fields. The ever-increasing efficiency and lowering costs of LEDs mean this method will only become more viable over time.
The statistics for this incredibly successful indoor farming endeavor in Japan are staggering: 25,000 square feet producing 10,000 heads of lettuce per day …
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Here are five of these remarkable architectural designs for sustainable (and stylish) urban farm towers that may revolutionize agriculture as we know it.
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A solution for all seasons and regions, the premise is simple: every would-be urban farmer has space, weather and other growing constraints, and yet draws from …
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[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]
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A new version of the Lee Filters SW150 system holder has been introduced that allows compatibility with a broader range of extreme wide angle lenses, and which has been designed to reduce the impact of reflections from the rear surface of fitted filters. The Lee Filter SW150 Mark ll now allows the existing 150mm-wide filters that were developed for the original SW150 to be fitted to four lenses using model-specific adapter rings – with more on the way. Read more
A natural smile – the holy grail of child photography.
A genuine, heartfelt smile is more than just turning up the corners of the mouth. A real smile radiates from your whole face, and particularly for children, is often felt with the whole body. Not only is a forced and fake smile easy to spot in photographs – we know that wearing a fake smile and having it photographed doesn’t feel too good at the time, and it doesn’t feel great for children either.
So while we want to photograph a child’s beautiful smile, we also want them to enjoy the process of being photographed. And as the photographers, we want to have a good time photographing them too.
There is so much to discover with children – all their favourites, their take on issues big and small, how they feel about themselves, their family and this funny old world. Children are cheeky, fun, creative, enthusiastic and curious – they are also clever and can tell when someone is not genuinely interested. So make sure your heart and intention is in the right place.
If your small subject is feeling uncomfortable it will be impossible to garner a sincere smile. Placing emphasis on creating an honest connection with children so they feel at ease will lead to them sharing their best selves – most of the time.
Following are four conversations that I love to have with kids that always result in joyous laughter and real smiles.
Favourite toys and security items are often important for small children. If your subject has a special toy (i.e. “Bunny”), I will use that as part of our conversation.
or alternatively, Buzz Lightyear may be their favourite character.
Closed-ended questions are great for this age group so they don’t have to think too hard and can just nod or shake their head, and smile and giggle along.
Animals are something kids can easily relate to. I like to make the questions silly and fun.
I play around with lots of animals for that last question – if you had a pet giraffe, or caterpillar, or hippopotamus. Choosing animals that are not usual pets.
Conversations about jobs, growing up, and the work their parents do always get good reactions. Your questions can be light-hearted or more serious, depending on the child’s age and personality.
For the more carefree child, I might start with:
For an older, more serious child you can ask things like:
It can be easier for kids if you give them an either/or question rather than just saying, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Asking kids to think of a detailed answer on the spot can be a bit difficult for them.
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This is also a really fun conversation topic – particularly for the parents who are listening in.
When photographing children, take your time and enjoy being with them. The time spent before you even pick up your camera is invaluable to gauge their personality – are they outgoing, reserved, tired, hyperactive, shy, giggly? Make intuitive decisions as to which conversation style will work best for each child. This gets easier with experience, so spend as much time with children as you can ,and fun conversations with them will soon become effortless.
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The post How to Get More Natural Smiles in Child Photography by Angie Baxter appeared first on Digital Photography School.
Every year the CP+ show in Yokohama Japan is a hive of activity and innovation, as hoards of Japanese and western camera enthusiasts flood the Pacifico Yokohama conference center to get their hands on the latest camera gear. But that’s not the only fun to be had – alongside the ranks of shiny new cameras and lenses, displays and presentation stages can be found a lot of things which have been cut in half. Seriously – loads. Click through to see for yourself
[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Offices & Commercial. ]
The statistics for this incredibly successful indoor farming endeavor in Japan are staggering: 25,000 square feet producing 10,000 heads of lettuce per day (100 times more per square foot than traditional methods) with 40% less power, 80% less food waste and 99% less water usage than outdoor fields.
Customized LED lighting developed with GE helps plants grow up to two and half times faster, one of the many innovations employed in this enterprise by Shigeharu Shimamura, the man who helped turn a former semiconductor factory into the planet’s biggest interior factory farm.
Shimamura has shortened the cycle of days and nights in this artificial environment, growing food faster, while optimizing temperature, lighting and humidity and maximizing vertical square footage in this vast interior space (about half the size of a football field).
With a long-standing passion for produce production, he “got the idea for his indoor farm as a teenager, when he visited a ‘vegetable factory’ at the Expo ’85 world’s fair in Tsukuba, Japan. He went on to study plant physiology at the Tokyo University of Agriculture, and in 2004 started an indoor farming company called Mirai, which in Japanese means ‘future.’”
The beauty of this development lies partly in its versatility – since it deals in climate-controlled spaces and replicable conditions, a solution of this sort can be deployed anywhere in the world to address food shortages of the present and future. Saving space, indoor vertical farms are also good candidates for local food production in crowded and high-cost urban areas around the globe. Aforementioned strides in waste and power reduction also make these techniques and approaches far more sustainable and cost-efficient.
Well known for grand gestures and huge installations, Christo has outdone himself once again in this latest work made of air, light and wonder.
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Why should kids have all the fun? These 13 indoor swing designs range from traditional to modern, to bring swings from the backyard into any interior.
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A solution for all seasons and regions, the premise is simple: every would-be urban farmer has space, weather and other growing constraints, and yet draws from …
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[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Offices & Commercial. ]
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