Get Creative

5 simple ways to get creative

1. Get low, try crouching down to get a different perspective, Hell why not get on the ground.

2. Portrait or Landscape? Experiment, why not try a 45 degree camera position

3. Get fuzzy, try a slow shutter speed and see how moving obejects appear

4. Black and White it, add sepia, add any color tone

5. Patterns, look for recurring patterns and isolate

Flash

Its sunny outside, no need for flash right?. Wrong, sunshine is often harsh and casts strong shadows. If you are snapping a pic of the family on the beach, pop up the flash to fill in the shadows.

Critical Aspects of any Image

The following short article aims to point out a few aspects of an image that will help you create better quality photos, be they family snapshots or fine art. I'll touch on three aspects:

• Sharpness
• Composition
• Colour

Sharpness

Not necessarily the most important aspect, but critical for many. The sharpness of an image is one factor that many can easily see and easily control.

What causes an image to be blurry or less crisp than one expects? Several reasons:

• The camera was shaking when the shutter was pressed
• The subject was moving when the shutter was pressed
• Incorrect selection of shutter speed.

Camera shake is the most frequent reason for a blurry image. Its easy to 'jab' at the shutter when taking a shot causing the camera to move. Our hands shake, contributing to the problem. The solutions are easy. Practice pressing the shutter with a smooth action. Control your breathing and take the shot when exhaled. Good camera holding technique is also important. Google "Holding a camera' and you will find many articles on how to effectively hold a camera. The final easy way to stop camera shake is the use of a tripod and the self timer on your camera.

Subject movement is an obvious reason why an image is blurry. Tell tale signs are when the background is ok but the subject; a car, pet or flower, is blurry. The reason why this occurs is because while the shutter was open the subject moved enough to create the blur. How do we fix this? Two ways; stop the subject from moving or select a shutter speed high enough to 'freeze' the movement. Even fast moving animals or water can be frozen in time with the use of a fast enough shutter speed.

Final thought, many camera's/lenses now offer a feature that claims to compensate for vibration that causes image blur. Nikon calls it VR (Vibration Reduction) Canon IS (Image stabilization). VR or IS works! It allows you to use a slower shutter speed and still get sharp images.

Composition

Just a few tips in bullet form

• Watch for missing body parts
• Rule of thirds (google it)
• Horizon, keep it straight
• Leave room for cropping
• Right lens for the job, avoid wide angle lens for portraits
• Fill the frame
• Break the rule of thirds..... sometimes
• Find unusual angles

Color and Color Management

Color, sounds simple but color is one of the most critical aspects of an image. With a vast array of colour spaces available; aRGB, sRGB etc its easy to make critical mistakes and for example have skin tones look green.

My advise.. stick to the industry standard, sRGB. Shoot in sRGB, set up your workspace in sRGB and print in sRGB. Other workspaces have a wider gamut, but sRGB just works for web presentation and prints.

One step I always recommend, calibrate your monitor. Not all monitors display correctly. I hated it when I edited a photo on screen, and then printed it out and it looked like crap.
Highly recommend the SpyderExpress. For about $60 and 15 minutes you will have a calibrated monitor.

Megapixels = Mega Photos?

Forget it... unless you plan to print huge posters. 6 is enough for great 8x10's.
Pick your camera based on other factors; ...

• Ease of use
• Lens quality
• Functions