Using Symmetry

 

Another trick to introduce novelty in your photos is to use symmetry. If you look at professional photos, they usually apply this trick here and there. If you’re taking a picture of a mountain, try taking in the reflection of the mountain in water as well. Alternatively, you can just shoot the reflection of the mountain in the water itself – which produces another good perspective.

A mountain photo with good symmetry

Other Ideas

Here are other ideas for taking unique shots of your subjects. Think about applying them the next time you’re out taking photos:

• Shoot your subject up close. This is one of my favorites techniques, especially when shooting flowers, insects or products. Make use of the macro mode on your camera to achieve the best results.

• Shoot a series of pictures and create a panorama. Many digital cameras allow you to stitch photos together in a panorama. What you do is snap many pictures of a wide scene and stitch them together in software – the result is a vast expanse of scenery that’s simply breathtaking to behold.

• Shoot your subject via a mirror reflection. This is similar to using a subject’s reflection in water as a means to jazz up the photo. Instead of directly shooting a subject, shoot the subject via a mirror. It can create an interesting and more professional effect.

thanks http://www.basic-digital-photography.com

Trailing Lights

A cool and basic effect that you often see in night photos is the effect of the trailing lights. This is a simple trick that has everything to do with shutter speed and long exposure. You basically need to set your camera on a firm surface (or ideally use a tripod). If you don't have a firm surface, you better have rock steady hands otherwise expect to get some extra unwanted blur a.k.a. lack of focus. Make sure that the flash is not on. Put your camera in TV (Shutter) mode. Set your shutter speed to a longer setting. And take a photo of a busy street in a city or a ferris wheel. The longer you leave the shutter open, the longer the sensor is exposed to the movement of the lights. Open it for too long though and you will get a pretty messy picture.

You can get some pretty spectacular photos with long exposures at night, so experiment with moving lights in different settings and see what you come up with. This is in Vienna when watching a flame throwing street performer at Stephens Square and got this result:

Thanks to http://eosrebels.com

Create your own Bokeh

Bokeh is an adaptation from a  Japanese word meaning blur. In photography this term is used to describe the quality of the areas in the picture which are not in focus.

When referring to Bokeh, we can distinguish some of it characteristics:

- Is the light/dark gradient smooth or sharp?

- What shape will a small dot of light take what it is in the Bokeh area? (mirror lenses for example, create a bagel like Bokeh)

We can play with those two variants to create a special Bokeh.

You will need :

• One large aperture lens (a Canon 50mm F1.8 is used here, but Nikon 50mm 1.8 will also do, and the superb Nikon 50mm 1.4 will work even better)
• One sheet of black paperboard

1. Cut and shape the sheet to make a fake lens hood. The Diameter is made so that it snugly fits on the lens.

2. In the middle of the filter the wanted bokeh shape is cut out - in out example a heart is used. I’m not sure how big a hole the shape can be. But you can check it right away by just looking through the viewfinder. On the 50mm lens @ F1.8 a 15mm heart gives a metering value equal to F3.2, so it can probably be a little bigger (you can use a puncher or cut it by hand).

3. Set your camera to its lowest aperture value (completely open).

Here are two shots to demonstrate this technique  - one with a bare lens and the other with the hearted hood. see more shots here and here (I leave it as an exercise to tell which is which :)

Here are the parameters for the example shown above:

• Lens - Canon 50mm F1.8
• "Lens hood" Diameter: 70mm (2.75 inch)
• Hole diameter: 15mm (0.6inch)

Here are two more great examples for this technique from RottieLover (note - there only one "real" heart in each picture):

Do you have a cool bokeh? show off on the comments or on the flickr group.

This article was contributed by Karsten Stroemvig.

Shooting Products

The first thing is to find a nice shaded place on a good sunny day. your porch is fine for that, and so is your back yard. Next, you need a wall, or a chair or anything you can lean your professional backdrop (A.K.A piece of paper) against.

now tape the paper to the wall/chair and tape it to the floor. TADA!! your seamless backdrop is installed. I used my porch as a shady place and a green table I have as a backdrop mount.

Taping the top of the polypropylene seamless backdrop to the table

A side view of the setup

The next thing you will need is a model. This set up is really good for still life photography or for taking product shots (for eBay.com, or for stock agencies like Fotolia). For this tutorial, I used my daughter's caterpillar toy.

Shutter speed and aperture- If you have a good sunny day, you can go up and nice with the shutter speed. All the caterpillar pictures here were taken with F/8 and shutter speed of 1/200-1/400.

Here is one picture taken at this "homemade studio"

Multi-color seamless backdrops - To add some interest to the pictures, I use several sheets of paper and polypropylene, each with different color. This way, I have instant multi-color backdrops.

My roll of papers - each color a different backdrop

Here are two more pictures taken with the homemade studio setup:
(a RED backdrop and a BLUE backdrop - both polypropylene)

And here is another picture taken some time ago utilizing the home studio setup
(white polypropylene as my seamless backdrop)

Good luck with your still life studio,

Thanks to www.diyphotography.net

Visit to a Commercial Photography Studio

This commercial studio was amazing with a lot of equipment and the surprising thing was that it didn’t have many employees. There was one person pretty much that knew everything about managing this business. She knew from a the least important to the most important. Beside this person there were a other people working there that had to know everything too. Because photography is really hard to support itself, having less employees make this business easier to support.

The equipment was really expensive from lighting equipment to computer equipment. Computers have to be connected to a server where everything is stored and handled.

As a photographer you don’t have to forget that you have to build your portfolio to show your costumers your work. This is really important to have if you want to success in this business.

This studio charges costumer $1800 per day. You don’t have to forget that you have to pay the people that work for you like a Photoshop Editor  who chargers $80 per hour or a photographer that charges $75 to 100 per hour. The total money at month that this studio needs to survive is $9000 that means that you cant stop working.

This visit was really interesting because I was able to see how is to have and maintain your own business. Thanks to this I realize about all the thing that I have to consider if I want to have my own photography business.

Homemade Studio

So, you want to start your own homemade photography studio but you are totally broke and you want it to be cheap. Actually, being cheap is your prime demand from this studio. You don’t need no external fancy lighting or strobes, you don't want them expensive soft boxes. You just want to try out some still life photography, or you need take some shots for eBay. This article is just for you.

Here is what I have to offer for about 1–3 USD. This still life photography studio utilizes a huge soft box and a seamless backdrop. But before we start lets see some of the prime requirements from a still life photo studio. We want to get even light, with good shadow management and a smooth background that will not distract from our main subject.

If you are serious about your homemade studio and your lighting, you should check out the guides for homemade reflector stand, homemade backdrop stand, homemade hot lighting panel, and the rest of the homemade studio articles.

Here are the materials you will need for your still life studio:

• A few inches of Duct tape (or just any tape)
• A thick, A0 sized, sheet of paper. (I use polypropylene sheets because they are more durable and can be cleaned - this is the backdrop I used for the Wolverine shot in the soft box guide).
• A sunny day and a shady location.
• A wall/table/chair/fence

Now, this will not take care of your all your studio needs, but it will provide you with a cheap way to start exploring studio like pictures. Namely, you will get good background for your pictures, pictures with little shadows and good even light. If you only want to take "eBay pictures" this is enough.

Thanks to www.diyphotography.net

Janelle Brooke Presentation

Janelle Brooke is a Wedding Photographer who has a college  degree in photography.

When she went to school she realized that a photographer has to find his/her passion. She found that she love to photograph weddings because she enjoys to interact with people.

She started with an internship  in a modeling agency. She learned how to deal with setting up the equipment to get the best of it in a picture. 

Starting in the wedding photography was hard for her. It was a big investment in advertizing and equipment. That is why she advice the new photographers to use free tools like facebook, myspace, blogs, etc. That is why new photographer should have a little knowledge of everything.

She loves the details before she starts shooting. this process if you get it right it will simplify the editing process in photoshop. Editing is complex and it can make the picture look too fake. Also editing needs of a lot of inspiration to take one image and then transform it.

She thinks that the best to improve your business is giving the customer what they want. You as a photographer have to listen to the costumer to get the idea of what they are looking for and use your experience to make things happen.

This presentation was really good because I was able to hear from somebody who is working in the field all the important the keys that took Janelle to success in the real world. Thanks Janelle for telling us how it looks out there and what we can do to keep in business.