How to Improve Your Photos With One Simple Change |  |
- How to Improve Your Photos With One Simple Change
- New: Kids Posing Guide, How to Photograph Kids
- Natural Light vs. Artificial Light: Can You Really Tell the Difference? (Video)
- Interesting Photo of the Day: A Lonesome Tree Among Fairy Circles
- The Best Way to Enlarge Low Resolution Images in Photoshop (Video)
| How to Improve Your Photos With One Simple Change Posted: 28 May 2014 11:44 PM PDT You take hundreds and thousands of photos of this, that, and everything around you. Your main objective? To capture beauty. But, when you come home and take a look at your photos, why is there so often a feeling of dissatisfaction? Why do the photos you take not come out how you imagined they would? While there are many reasons for this, let me share with you one common mistake that you may suffer from. It all starts with your eyes…and how you use them.  “Benahavis Girl” captured by Gary Vernon (Click image to see more from Vernon.) Helen Keller was once asked how she could accomplish so much without her vision. Her response? She completely disagreed and said she did have vision. In fact, her vision is what she attributed to every one of her accomplishments. Without it, she would not have accomplished anything. Vision, you see, is more than just opening your eyes and looking around for things to see. It's the very essence of what it means to be an artist. As a photographer, vision is everything. So what exactly is vision and how do you develop it? To start, there are two critical parts to your artistic "vision": 1. What are you trying to capture?So many camera owners see something interesting and then shoot away. When you work this way, you may know what you are trying to photograph, but do you really? Did you really carefully study the way it looks from your viewfinder? Did you really take time to find the best way to capture it? Or, did you just see it, point your camera at it, and SHOOT SHOOT SHOOT? The fact is, once you've found what you want to capture, the photography process barely even BEGINS! Instead of rushing away to press down on your shutter, take time to observe. Carefully look at the scene in front of you. The colors. The shapes. The contrasts.  “Security” captured by Mohamed Rafi (Click image to see more from Rafi.) Now's your chance to frame your composition and inject YOUR viewpoint and YOUR vision. Which leads to point number two…. 2. EmotionTo describe this, let me first ask you to do something. Please, at night, walk around a neighborhood with a lot of apartments. This will allow you to easily see the windows of several apartments at the same time. Now, why is this happening? It's not because people like to sit on a couch and do nothing for several hours. It's not because people enjoy staring at a frame. Quite frankly, it's because within every single TV frame is the most addicting substance on the face of the earth: EMOTION. Drama. Excitement. Happiness. It's all packed into that frame for easy and quick absorption from viewers. THIS is what people enjoy. THIS is what people thrive on. If they stumble onto a channel without emotion, they will quickly move on without a second thought. A photo works no differently. It's simply a frame jam-packed with emotion. Unlike movies, however, a photo has only one shot to grab its viewers. Because of this, you must smack the viewer over the head with a powerful emotional experience the very moment they lay their eyes on your image.  “ROI Walk : We the People” captured by Mohamed Rafi (Click image to see more from Rafi.) If you don't, you've lost your viewer. Your vision must always be emotion-based. We all know the basic emotions. Happy, sad, mad, angry, frustration, peace, relaxation, etc. When you have found the subject you want to photograph, try thinking of these emotions. What emotion do you want your subject to feel? Your answer to this question will help you determine what angle you choose. It will help you determine whether to put a lot of space (or a little) around the subject. It will help you determine whether to use a vertical or horizontal orientation. It will, in essence, help you determine every aspect of your photo. The more you engineer your photo to present that emotion, the more power it will have. So there you have it! Two critical parts to your "vision" as a photographer. Try thinking of both of these elements every time you take a photo and I guarantee you'll see a change. And remember, when you've found a breathtaking subject to capture, your job as a photographer has just begun. Hold off the urge to instantly shoot away and instead, observe first! About the Author: Go to full article: How to Improve Your Photos With One Simple Change |
| New: Kids Posing Guide, How to Photograph Kids Posted: 28 May 2014 05:16 PM PDT Created by Rachel Devine, these 5 kids posing guides include a tutorial, printable and digital guides ready for when kids next find their way into your lens. Now available here: Kids Posing Guide  Kids Posing Guides (Click to Learn More) Inspired by their eBook Click: How to Take Gorgeous Photos of Your Kids all modules are clear and simple, professionally designed and illustrated to ensure they are easy to use. Posing Modules Included:
Each of these module combine teaching as well as practical application through three key elements:
Right now there is a special 25% early-bird discount for anyone who orders in the next few weeks here: Kids Posing Guide Launch Sale Go to full article: New: Kids Posing Guide, How to Photograph Kids |
| Natural Light vs. Artificial Light: Can You Really Tell the Difference? (Video) Posted: 28 May 2014 02:18 PM PDT A perpetual question in photography: is it better to use natural or artificial light? Each has its respective pros and cons, but many photographers might feel uneasy when trying to replace natural lighting with a strobe. Felix Kunze and Sue Bryce show us how–when used carefully–strobes can convincingly mimic the look and feel of natural light: In the video, all the images shown on the left are shot with natural light, while the images on the right are shot with the strobe. The results are quite surprising–so much so that Kunze mistook a strobe image for one with natural lighting.  Natural Light (left) vs. Strobe (right) The Benefits of Using Strobe LightingThe beauty in being able to create natural looking images with a strobe is that it allows maneuverability when photographing. A strobe is a ceaseless light source that will shine at any time of the day; with it, you can add night shoots to your repertoire. The strobe also comes in first when dealing with slower shutter speeds. Bryce was shooting at shutter speeds from 1/125 (as low as 1/30) and at a higher ISO of 640 and yielded sharper, more detailed images with the strobe. She states,
 Natural Light (left) vs. Strobe (right) The Benefits of Using Natural LightThe catchlights and fall of shadows appear almost identical in the images, and as Bryce explains, it was sometimes only through the numbering system of the photographs that the images could be distinguished as natural versus artificial. But of course, strobe lighting cannot always compete with the beauty of natural light. In some cases, the striking fall of light on a subject and the mood of the image can be lost.  Natural Light (left) vs. Strobe (right) Strobe vs. SpeedlightBryce also compares natural lighting to that of strobe and Speedlight. The natural and strobe images can compete with each other, but outclass the Speedlight results.  Natural Light vs. Strobe vs. Speedlight However Bryce explains that using a Speedlight is still a very good first step:
It’s evident that with a bit of troubleshooting it is possible to create natural looking results while using an artificial light source. Which effect do you prefer? Go to full article: Natural Light vs. Artificial Light: Can You Really Tell the Difference? (Video) |
| Interesting Photo of the Day: A Lonesome Tree Among Fairy Circles Posted: 28 May 2014 12:33 PM PDT The image below was shot while flying over Namibia. It shows a single tree thriving among a field of rather enigmatic “fairy circles”. The fairy circles have been a mystery among the scientific realms for quite some time, and recent studies have hinted at a certain type of termite causing the rings of prairie grass to sporadically pop up over the desert like you see here:  Image Source: AAAS/Science (Via Imgur. Click image to see full size.) Scientists have learned about fairy circles by utilizing old photographs and images from services like Google Earth. By comparing older images to newer images, they have determined that the circles change in size before eventually fading away. Go to full article: Interesting Photo of the Day: A Lonesome Tree Among Fairy Circles |
| The Best Way to Enlarge Low Resolution Images in Photoshop (Video) Posted: 28 May 2014 10:35 AM PDT Making images larger often leads to pixelization and noise, especially if the image is low resolution to start with. That being said, it isn’t impossible to upsize an image using Adobe Photoshop and still be left with a usable photo–you just need to know the best way to do it! The folks over at Photoshop have made a helpful video outlining the correct way to do this: So, not only is it possible to scale images to larger sizes, it’s actually kinda simple to do.:
 Notice the difference in image quality after the noise reduction has taken place. To finish the enlargement, move the Reduce Noise slider to the right, increasing its percentage until you have the results you are looking for. Once you have settled on the right amount of Noise Reduction, click OK. That’s all there is to it; just save your image, and you are good to go! Go to full article: The Best Way to Enlarge Low Resolution Images in Photoshop (Video) |
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