Published March 20, 2013 by with 0 comment

Types of Natural Lights

How light is important in photography? Well, photography is all about light, If there is no light, there is no photography.  I have read Anne Mckinnell e-book and according to her there are 8 types of natural lights that can add drama to your photographs. It could be natural or artificial lights.  Discover how light works if you use it as a backlight of your subject, sidelight, frontlight, reflected, diffused, dramatic, twilight, lights for capturing city lights at night. 

Backlights - can create dramatic silhouettes and beautiful rays of light.

sidelights -  contrast is high between light and dark, best to capture during sunrise or sunset.

frontlights - can lessen texture and depth, best for sunset in landscape photography.

reflected lights - reflects the color of the surface, bounced light best for water reflections.

diffused lights - best for close up and portrait photography. Harsh shadow is minimize.

dramatic lights - best example for this is lightning.

twilight - pink and orange hues dominate the sky.

night - best for light painting.

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Published March 07, 2013 by with 0 comment

Composition Of A Good Photograph

15 Tips on Composition

1. Tell A Story - A picture is worth a thousand words.

2. Observe Law Of Thirds - Divide the frame into thirds horizontally or vertically. Position your subject on the lower or upper third or along intersections.

3. Keep The Subject Off Center - give a breathing space to the subject. Placing the subject off-center can make the composition more dynamic and pleasing to the eye.

4. Accent Composition - Accent is a little element found attach to the subject of the photo.

5. Draw composition - Adding, altering and removing of elements in the composition is actually drawing a composition.

6. Vary perspective - change your perspective using bird's eye view, worm or normal view.

7. Use Deep Depth Of Field - use small aperture (f8, f11, f16, f22) when shooting landscape, crowd, rows and group of people. Everything is sharp from foreground to background.

8. Blur Backgrounds And Other Supporting Elements - Use big aperture (f5.6 and below) to emphasize or to make the subject really stand out.

9. Give Lines Spiritual Meaning - Examples: Vertical lines(power, ambitions), Horizontal lines (peace, serenity) and so on. Everywhere you turn, lines are on display in all forms and sizes. Sample of a strong leading lines could be the arc of a rainbow, graceful meander of a streams or the angle of a picket fence. Lines act as visual connectors between one part of a composition and another.

10. Frame Your Subject - Compress a subject using an arch , window, door , wall anything that can frame a subject . Framing provides context to a photograph , it is a useful visual technique that focuses attention directly on the most important part of the composition , leading the viewer 's eye toward the main focal point .

11. Bracket Composition - shoot subject in different exposure and distance. Bracketing exposure can help you capture better photographs.

12. K.I.S.S (Keep It Simple Sweetheart) - exclude everything that is unrelated to the subject.

13. Avoid False Attachments -Watch for elements that may look funny in your composition.


14. Use Contrast in tones, sizes, shapes, textures and colors.

15. Shoot Interesting Skies - Lessen the area when clouds are not interesting.


                  Footstep became a leading line to a woman
Source: Foot steps of Jose Rizal

                            Ruined door is framed by an arc
Source: Fort Santiago

Breaking the Rules

Situations for Ignoring the Rules:
-Setting appropriate mood and energy level
-Adding humor
-Photographing people and animals
-Photographing scenes with dominant symmetry
Ignoring the Rule Of Thirds often involve simple compositions with a singular subject, symmetrical arrangement of elements or a plain background.
Ignoring the Rule Of Space creates spatial allowances behind the subject. Placement of elements allowing a small amount of "active" space in the subject's leading direction emphasize where the subject has been rather that where it's going.

Breaking the standard portrait rules can produce a more insightful and interesting portrait that creates a mood and reveals more about the subject's character.
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Published March 04, 2013 by with 0 comment

Focal Point: Focus On The Eyes


It’s all about the eyes.

In photographing people, animals, and every creatures that has eyes should always pay attention to get the eyes in focus. To get both eyes sharp, position it on the same plane, the same distance to the camera. The windows of our soul are the eyes which truly connects our emotions to the subject. This is where we want our subjects to glance. What if the person is positioned at an angle, it is best to focus on the eye that is nearest to the camera.


     
 Focus on the eyes
 
 
 
If you are going to use a shallow depth of field (large number of aperture F1.2 to F2.8) for people and animals, focusing on the eyes is incredibly important it depicts the personality, the mood and the behavior of the subject. I find best results in focusing at about f3 or f4 since the eyes and nose is not in the same plane the tendency of blurry nose is high if taken at the widest aperture.
 
There are times the eyes are not sharp. We can do a little cheat by sharpening in Photoshop by using filters like unsharp mask, smart sharpen or High pass. The three filters are very powerful to sharpen every pixel the photograph has.
You can ALWAYS use the single focal point just focus on the eyes and then recompose. Do not lean forward or backward you are changing the distance and can affect the focal point.

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