Over the last week I have collected several photography tips that I found useful, and I believe they will be useful to many of you as well. I’ll be posting a collection of articles and tips every Wednesday from now on, so be sure to check back every week for the latest.
To lead things off, we have 5 articles from Digital Photography School (DPS).
First, we have this article by Kav Dadfar on 7 Tips to Improve Your Skyline Photos.
Is there a more iconic photograph to depict a big city, than a beautiful photograph of its skyline? Skylines can provide stunning photographs that have a big sale potential, but to capture those wow shots, you have to be prepared to plan for them in advance, and to allow time and patience, as well as determination, to capture them. Here are some tips to help you capture striking skyline photos.
Then we have 10 Tips for Better Landscape Photography by Leanne Cole.
Landscape photography is a very popular genre and many amateur photographers start their hobbies doing it. There is, however, a lot more to it than just going out somewhere beautiful, putting your camera up to your face, and clicking the shutter button.
Next, by Gina Milicia, is 5 Tips to Help You Take More Natural Looking Portraits.
So why is it when I try and capture those perfect candid moments someone always has their eyes closed, hair is covering half of their face, or the lighting is wrong, or worse still an unsuspecting passerby in bright pink sweat pants walks through the background of the shot.
Then Jim Hamel shares One Compositional Technique to Transform Your Landscape Photos.
Turning the corner from taking snapshots into taking actual compositions is a hard thing to do. It doesn’t come naturally, and it takes experience. Another reason it is difficult to learn composition is that there is no one, hard and fast rule. You can get caught up in looking for various shapes, patterns, leading lines, and other compositional elements until your head is spinning.
And the last one I saved from DPS is Using Framing for More Effective Compositions by Jeremie Schatz.
From my experience, it’s true – photographers tend to see the world in a different way. If not from the beginning, eventually, and maybe subconsciously, your eye is trained to notice details differently. Perhaps it’s the way light falls off of, or wraps around an object, or when pleasing geometrical compositions fall into place. In extreme cases, you may even start to catch glimpses of your camera’s viewfinder layout when you blink (you might want to seek help for this). Often, an important step in the “Seeing like a Photographer” evolution is to begin recognizing, and implementing, framing elements into your images.
And finally this week, I liked this post on Lightroom Killer Tips entitled Lines and Composition written by Steve Gustafson and posted by Pete Collins.
We have talked at length about photography being a form of visual communication. In the same way we learn parts of speech for verbal communication, it is also helpful to understand parts of “visual speech”. Lines are a very powerful means of communication and aid in controlling the viewer’s perception. Understanding what the human eye does when presented with a line will help us use lines in a way that helps tell the story in our photographs.