photography examples and learning

I've been playing about with mine tonight too.

Didn't stay out long as its -3 out there at the moment and a broken hand is making it really hard to cope with the cold

Thought I'd share these too.

Originally Posted by kwak zzr

a few i took on monday using the sony a230 dslr, i dont think they are great but tips and advice on how to make them better would be good

The first shot here, would have benefit from the girl being included. Maybe quite some distance down the path. The 'leading lines' don;t draw your eyes to a focal object of interest, which she would add to the photo. Nice photo though.

The second picture above - decide what you want to capture, the canal or the girl. It's clear this is a protrait shot, and you used the portrait setting on the camera, which has given a wide aperture to throw the background out. So, as you're not looking to get the background in, maybe take the shot from further away and use your zoom - this will increase the blurriness of the background. Edit your shots and crop them for balance.



I would re-think monopod for now, if you can carry a tripod, just use that with one leg down. For journeys out where a tripod is not feasible, an empty bean bag filled with dirt on location will often do, or bracing against a tree, post, whatever.

Don't rush, between the two pictures above you were averaging 1 shot every 30 seconds. Think about the shot, what you want it to 'say' to those that view it, what you want to capture etc.

[embee]

This has little technical merit, but it was a fun pic to get. Canon Ixus 400, fixed the focus at infinity and held it primed and simply shot when I glimpsed a bat go past (and hoped). A literal shot in the dark.

If you have photo editing software you can fiddle about with your pictures.

This attached photo by Lotzig (deviantart.com) of two SV1000s, i think. But in his picture (left) he had the right mirror and handlebar intruding in to the picture, so i edited it out for fun (right).

I think it improves the photo by focusing on one subject - the SV. The background is pleasant without drawing the (eye) attention away from the subject. A planned out photo is possibly more worthwhile than a point-and-click photo.

Just a question, is a photograph a piece of art or is the art the object in the photograph? Photography is definitely a skilled art, as is painting and drawing...

Originally Posted by kwak zzr

if this one had a small insect say an ant climbing the tree i would love it, now go back and take it again

Originally Posted by lynw

But the one thing I seem to still struggle with is sunsets. The pics of Domboshava certainly highlight the multitude of colours that were going on but not the strength or clarity of them. For example in the pics below, you can see the darker purple of the sun behind the cloud, the tinge of red, the blue of sky not yet touched by the sunset and the rays of light, but the reality was the colours were more vivid against each other than is in these pics. Not sure what settings I can use on my camera to improve that - its a Fuji Finepix btw. How can you get the beautiful colours without having to use photoshop balancing?

I like the bottom photo as the horizon is horizontal, but the land lacks colour and would be more suitable even darker to have entire focus on the sun set colours in the sky.
GIMP is a free photo manipulating software although unfriendly to use (but it might be different now, it has been a few years since i yelled at it and deleted it) which should be able to freely edit your colours as desired.

I would just crop the picture to remove a lot or all of the land, leaving a beautiful sky -attached is an example of using windows photo gallery very quickly to increase the contrast, it's not brilliant but it sort of works. On second thoughts, it's a bit too much -would've come out better in photoshop. meh

[Richie]

I've tried to take nice photos, but someone allways comes along with better ones...
Cheers RodChester!!!

'lens' not 'lense'

Some good snaps, wish I had some snow to play around with!!

Thought I'd add some pics too

My Dad, in Brecon last year.


College project image.