Rule of Thirds

Photo composition rule of thirds

I recently explainded Long Exposure photography and What is Depth of Field which will help provide artistic effect to your images, however, capturing a photograph is more than knowing the settings, pointing and shooting. You need to consider the the scene and how to best portray that by framing the subject correctly. This tip will help you learn how to compose a digital photograph.

For some reason, as a rule of thumb things look better in odd numbers. A photograph of three apples will generally look more balanced than just two. A photograph of five people works better than 4, for some reason it just works - speeches have gained impact by using a term three times, mathematics, writing and nature often use the rule of three.

So, how do we use this knowledge in our photography? The image above The rule of thirds from theirls flickr stream shows perfectly the rule of thirds. It is a well capture photograph, the horizontal lines create perfect thirds. The vertical line is again set on a third. If you mirrored that horizontal to the other side you would dissect the image into nine, equal boxes. Where those lines cross are you biggest impact points and where you want the focal points of your image to lie.

Rule of thirds marked

In this photograph I have highlighted those lines, clearly showing you the nine segments and you can see where they cross, showing you your impact points. So in practice, if you are taking a portrait photography, try and frame you image so the subjects eye falls on one of these crosses. For landscape photography, try and place horizions onto one of the lines. Vanishing points should fall under one of the intersections.

If you don’t manage to capture the photograph in camera perfectly, you can use the crop function in your editing suite to cut the image down and achieve sound placement. Many editing suites will also offer an overlay that can be used to marry up your photograph onto one of these lines or intersections.

Just remember, this is not a hard and fast rule, but it works and it is a great starting point to improve your photographic composition.

Camera in Motion

Improve your photography – Take Photographs

Photography is a huge learning curve. In the past I have explained a bit about depth of field in photography. In Cornwall we are spoilt for choice with landscape, seascape and town vistas. But don’t stop here. To improve your photography you need to TAKE PHOTOGRAPHS!

So my third photography tip is just take that camera where ever you go today and take photos. The image shown here is a bit of fun. I was returning home from a shoot (as a passenger I add!!) and for some unknown reason I decided to shoot everything I could see, testing and trialing to see what happened. I was shooting through a dirty car window in horrid light. There were colour cast in all different hues around me from the differing light sources, but I made no excuses and just carried on shooting – lets see what happens! was my mantra.

Take this shot. Its not the best, by far. It’s fun and has potential though. Its given me ideas for lots more images and I know how to improve on it.

Cleaning the car window will be the first step. Waiting for an evening with more interesting light, exposure times,  relax further when holding the camera, which focus setting gave the best results and which setting to use the camera in!! The next image similar to this I think I will follow a friends car and use an off camera strobe and pop it in the car in front to see what effect that will give – I could just add that important dimension into the shot, drawing the eye deeper into the image…

So, you have your camera, you have no cost for processing, lets burst off a memory card full of photographs. Shoot around the home, take snaps of yourself making coffee, adjust the camera out of your comfort zone, put it in manuel and eak out the exposure, use your flash in rear curtain sync, Move the camera around, change focus during and exposure, adjust the white balance to get different colours in your photographs. You can edit your images with this photography tip if you need to.

I think the answer is to PLAY and learn, soon you will improve your photography technique!!

Long exposure of the London Eye

Long exposure photographs

“So what is long exposure photography, and how should I use it  is a question I am being asked a lot at the moment. I thought the easiest way to explain it would be to write a brief post on the subject rather than answering each individual request.

A basic explanation of exposure is it’s the result of the 3 variables, aperture, ISO and shutter speed, used to get enough light to capture a well lit image. Generally over exposed photographs will have blown out white areas and an underexposed image will be to dark. However, both options can be used to artistic effect…

A fast exposure will almost stop time. i.e. 1/1000 s will freeze time. including very fast moving objects like racing cars. In fact a shutter speed in that region will make the tyres look like they are still and you will loose the effect of the car racing.

So already we need to balance shutter speed to capture more of the emotion of the image, rather than just a snap shot of time. The above refers to fast moving objects. but it can be applied to anything, people, water, seascapes, trees and clouds for example. So by increasing the exposure time we can add a new element into our photography, capturing time it’s self!

Here are a few ideas:

1. Long exposure of large bodies of still water will remove wavelets and make it look mirror smooth.
2. Cloud will track in the sky.
3. The sea will look soft and more like mist.
4. Trees will show the effects of the wind.
5. People will move around town scapes, showing action.
6. Car headlights will turn into traces.
7. Stream and water falls will look soft and inviting.
8. Special effects with light sources can produce interesting abstract photography.

Considerations of long exposure photography

The primary problem will be camera shake. So you need to purchase a stable tripod to get crystal clear images. This is because the amount of time your shutter is open will be increased and any slight movement will be captured. Some long exposures can last 10′s of minutes.

Increasing exposure time in bright light can be a problem. Your camera ISO is as low as it will go, your aperture is stopped down as far as you want it, yet because of the amount of natural light the exposure time is still only a few seconds. The way around this is with the use of filters over your lens. You can buy a number of filters which will reduce the amount of light entering your camera. For long exposures in strong light you might consider a 10 stop filter. These filters were design for taking images of strong light sources, like furnaces, but work very well for creating long exposure photographs in bright daylight!

image from: wilfried.b’s photostream

The Depth of FIELD

So…. What is Depth of Field (DoF)

You may well have read on the Internet, or in book, about the term, Depth of Field – shortened to DoF. But do you know what the term really means?  I will try to explain what depth of field is and how to use it to best effect.

Explaining DoF

The image to the left really says it all. The portion in sharp clear focus is the actual depth of field. In this example we would say a “shallow Dof” i.e. the foreground and background are not sharp and clear, but still visible. Put simply they are out of focus.

A large Dof would be used to capture detail and sharpness throughout the entire image – such as landscapes or larger detailed scenes.

To get technical Depth of Field is a product determined by the subject distance, the focal length of the lens, and the lens f-number (aperture – the hole letting light in). But that is boring.

In practicle terms getting close to the subject with a small f-number (large hole letting in the light) with the background as far away as possible will give you a shallow depth of field allowing you to make a particular part of the image stand out in sharp focus, with the fore and background fading away, framing the subject. For those lovely sharp deep focus images, like landscapes you want a larger f-number (small hole letting in light) a steady hand (tripod) and a beautiful scene to capture with you camera.

A word of warning here….. do not go mad and use the largest number you can dial in, coz you can get other factors effecting the sharpness, so chose a middle of the road number and learn where your camera and lens produce the sharpest images. Shooting lots of images and find the optimum settings for your camera is something you will have to trial……………………….

Porthleven in Almost colour

Using colour in photography

The beauty with photography and other media art work, is you can change reality to suite mood and enhance emotions or aspects to portray your vision on the world….

It is your photograph, you might have set the cameras apature setting for depth of field or exposure and how you want to express that is up to you – know one else. It is nice when others praise your work, but also it is as nice when others argue and tell you what you did wrong, what was wrong for them. If you get an emotion from them you have effected them in some way, showing a message is getting across.

Colour in Photographs

This picture of Porthleven in West Cornwall has had most of the coloured area washed out, but detail is still there in huge amounts. The photograph was taken on a bright sunny day and color was oozing from the foreground, mid-ground and sky. But for the way I felt when I processed this image I did not want that typical postcard shot, I wanted to tweak and adjust it to suit my requirements.

The colour attracts the eye along the main subject of the shot, into the photograph. This same method can work very well  for portrait photography.

Young boy in Colour

Bringing out the subject against a desaturated back ground allows the subject to stand out from the back ground and almost pop out of the page.

The beauty with this kind of work is the scene is still set. The image has a purpose and tells a story, yet the eye first sees the main subject, then darts and finds other areas of interest in the photograph…. It becomes a study.

digital photo editing

Photoshop Express

If you are interested in editing your own photographs there are lots of options out there for you online like Picnik and Picasa. However, Adobe has been the market leader in professional editing suites and they put together well thought out products.

With adobes photoshop express you will be able to do some great editing, for example change colors, exposure, smudge, tweak, sharpen, soft focus, crop and the list goes on. You also get to store 2GB of images online, which is a lot more than many of the competition in the online editing stakes.

Online editing software

This is what Adobe Labs say about their new online editing software.

• Upload and store up to 2GB of photos.
• Fix photos with options including Crop & Rotate, Auto Correct, Exposure, Sharpen, Touchup, and Red-Eye Removal.
• Make your photos stand out with effects and enhancements including Pop Color, Hue, Black & White, Tint, Sketch, Distort, and Soft Focus.
• Show off your photos in My Gallery, where you can create customized displays and let visitors play and interact with them.
• Upload your photos on Photoshop Express to your blog or Facebook page.

Have a look at Adobe photoshop express, take some photographs and enjoy editing them to your hearts desire.

Wooded motion

I want to tell you about my recent experience with an online photograph printing company called Photobox.com

high street printing

Initially I had my images printed by a local print firm. It was easy. Walk into town load my images onto their system, use their color profile in my monitor set up return a day later and collect the required photographs. There was somebody there to talk to if there were problems, it could not have been much more easy. There was one thing hanging over me and that was the price I was paying. They high street company were not prepared to change price unless I made bulk orders all at one time and this I found annoying and very inflexible. Okay, I was not getting 100 images printed at once, but over a week I was having more than that number printed.

It wasn’t until a week ago, when I went to the local shop wanting a panoramic image producing. “that will take 3 days for a 20″ x 8″ and will cost £18 they told me. I decided to have a look online.

Online photograph printing

On getting home I started to have a look at other most cost effective options. I found a few companies but decided to go with Photobox this time. Their prices were very keen, even with P&P on top. The range they offered was fantastic, a whole world of sizes, formats and design ideas. With all this in mind I decided to try them out.

I needed to create an account, which was easy enough. Then use their up-loader. I need to install jave run time, which did not work very well in Firefox browser. Changing my browser to IE7 made all the difference and I was ready to upload my first image in no time. I decided on the size and a Matt finish then went to the cart and paid. It was about 5 in the evening at this time.

Next day I had an email telling that my photograph had been printed. The following day at first post it arrived through the letter box. It was well protected and wrapped. The paper quality was high and the colors were fantastic across the range.

For the price and to be sent in good time is in my opinion, fantastic. I would strongly recommend using Photobox for your photographic printing.

Let us know who you use for your printing and why by commenting on this post.

Reef break at Porthleven

This image was taken a few days after the March 10th storms that battered Cornwall. You can get an idea as to the size of the wave by the two surfers on the left side.