Tuesday, May 1, 2012
A Simple Check List to Jump-Start Your Photography
This is the first tutorial post for my blog. It's a general guide that touches on a lot of important elements that all lead to creating better photographs. If you are interested in knowing more about a particular step or have any questions then feel free to comment and let me know. These posts are here to hopefully help anyone that is interested in photography, so let me know what you want to know more about.
1 Plan Your Shot
This seems obvious, but it's important to think about what you're photographing before you even pick up the camera. Consider every detail and think about the best way to capture it. If you're shooting a portrait, find an appropriate location and try to make sure the background isn't cluttered or full of distractions. For a landscape, where is the best angle or spot to shoot it from? You may need to be creative, especially when shooting something that everyone takes photos of, like say a monument or landmark.
2 Think About the Light
Light is everything in photography. Wether digital or film, all you are doing is recording light. That makes it the absolute most crucial aspect of your shot. Consider the time of day and position of the sun, where the lights are indoors if you're shooting at night, etc. If you are more advanced and using a strobe or flash, think about the best way to utilize the ambient light to compliment the flash, or alternatively how to ignore the ambient and create all of the lighting you need. For example, if you were shooting an outdoors portrait on a bright summer day, would you place your model facing directly towards the sun? In most cases you would want to avoid that, unless you want them squinting and blinded by the light. In that situation it would be much better to take them somewhere with shade, so you still have plenty of light without the harshness, which makes it easier to get a great portrait and easier for your camera to handle the contrast in the scene.
Choosing to shoot wide angle, normal, telephoto, or something like fish-eye has more effect on your composition than anything besides your positioning. A close up portrait with a wide angle is going to greatly distort your subject (as seen above), and a telephoto landscape will probably not show enough of what you are trying to capture, so it's important to understand the effects of zooming in or out. Longer lenses also tend to be slower, so in situations with poor lighting you may need to move closer and use a fast prime to be able to photograph what you wanted to in the first place.
4 Nail the Exposure
The biggest technical challenge of any photograph is the exposure. These numbers might seem like a foreign language to you, but they provide direct control of every aspect of your photo, from the lighting to the depth of field. If you're shooting a large family portrait of 10 people, you probably will have to shoot at a large aperture like f/11 or higher. It's important to know how to compensate with your iso and shutter speed in that situation to keep your photo from being underexposed.
5 Shoot From Multiple POVs
Just because you planned your shot doesn't mean you can't do something different after you get it. Some of the best shots come from trying something different while shooting. Try crazy angles and compositions, if it doesn't work you have nothing to lose, and if it does you just got another great photo. For example, if you're shooting animals or children don't stand above and shoot down towards them, get down on their level and shoot straight on. It might not be comfortable but it will lead to better photos!
6 Shoot in RAW
If you're not shooting in RAW format already, start right now! RAW files allow you to adjust exposure, white balance, and much more once you import them to your computer. Most camera manufacturers provide their own RAW conversion software, and there are many others that are free or included in popular software. Photoshop, Lightroom, iPhoto, and Aperture are the most popular RAW conversion software. It's important to note that if you've been shooting JPEG your RAW files will look dull and less sharp when you first import them. This is intentional! RAW files are just like film, you have to process them to get them to print quality, and the increased information they provide lets your editing software do a lot more with the photo and create a better finished product.
7 Get the Color Right (even in B&W)
White balance is such a simple thing that most people get wrong, but luckily it's an easy fix because you're shooting in RAW. The very first slider you will see when you open a raw file is the color temp adjustment, this changes what your camera sees as white (and therefore effects every color in the photograph). This is especially important for getting skin color right (as seen above). Nothing ruins an otherwise great photo than making your subject look too much like a Jersey Shore cast member or a corpse. For black and white photos, you can't just drop the saturation to 0 and mess with the contrast, you need to adjust the color channels to get your skin tones (or clouds, or whatever) right. You'll be amazed at the effect this will have on your B&W photos, and it will make them that much better.
8 Crop
After you have your photo processed consider if you should crop it. Are there any distracting elements in the corners of the frame that you can get rid of? Be careful though, you don't want to cut off parts of your subject with the crop. A good rule of thumb for portraits is to not crop at any joints (elbows, ankles, knees, wrists, etc) because it will look like you cut it off. It's generally ok to crop the top of a subjects head in a close portrait, as long as you leave the hairline clearly visible.
9 Sharpen
The last step in finishing your photo is to sharpen it. As shown above, a good sharpening technique can really make a photo "pop". It's important to learn the differences in sharpening methods for print and web, because a print needs to be sharpened much more to match your computer screen.
10 Share
So you put all that hard work in and you have a great photo, go share it with the world. The internet has made the world a much smaller place, and services like Facebook, Flickr, and Instagram have made photo sharing an integral part of our daily lives. I share my work across all social media platforms to reach the largest audience possible, but if you just want to share with family and friends something like Flickr is great. You can create galleries (called sets) just like Facebook albums and send them to everyone. You can also share with other Flickr members in groups. There are groups for everything imaginable, from similar subjects like horse photos, locations like the city the photo was taken in, or a million other traits that your photos may have in common with others.
I hope at least one of those steps give you something to think about and put into practice the next time you shoot. I would love to hear any comments or suggestions for the next tutorial post, especially about particular topics you would like help in. Next week I am planning to have a video sharing my digital workflow for an image from start to finish, so be sure to check back.
