Take
Better Photos
Here’s
a brief guide to achieving better results from your photography, I
hope you find it useful:
1. Take a camera everywhere you go; in the car, walking the dog,
family days out. If you see a picture, snap it. Here’s a shot of my
son out walking the dog in the woods and playing on a farm gate. I
got a great set of fun pictures because I had a little snappy
camera in my pocket. Now it’s on a website - who’d have thought!
The more photography you do, the better you get at it,
Simple.
2. Look at your results. No, really look at them. Are they any
good? If not, try and figure out why not. Is it your technical
ability - in other words are they sharp, are they well exposed, did
you focus the lens well? Is it your composition? Are they messy,
boring, confused? Is it the lighting or the colour - are they dull?
When you learn to recognise what’s wrong in your photos only then
can you start to put them right. This is called “strengths &
weaknesses analysis”. What’s good about your photos, what’s bad and
what would you change if you did them again? You have to be honest
if you’re going to get better.
3. Learn your camera inside out. Read the instruction book. Play
with the controls, read internet forums about your kit. The camera
must become second nature to you or you’ll spend all your time
fiddling with controls instead of creating great images. Automation
on modern digital SLR’s makes this easy. Shutter priority makes
capturing fast action simple. Aperture priority is great for
landscapes, program modes allow you to point and shoot all the time
and auto focus is faster and more accurate than you are most of the
time. Don’t be afraid of these tools - learn how to use them in the
right place.
4. Look at other photographers work and use them as inspiration.
That’s not the same as copying them. All photographers take
inspiration from the work of others. Look at the way other
photographers use composition, lighting, camera angles, lenses and
all the rest. Try to get similar results. Then do step 2 -
analysis! Some photographers say “I don’t want to be influenced, I
want to be original!” Well, that’s like saying I want to be a great
musician but I won’t listen to music!
5. Lighting is everything in photography.Once you’ve learned how to
use your camera and you’ve started getting good at analysing your
results you can begin to really learn to look at light. Light comes
in many forms. Hard and contrasty, soft and flat, colourful sunsets
and monotone cloudy days. All light is good for photography - the
trick, which professionals have all learned, is matching the right
subject to the right kind of light. Harsh, midday light is not good
for much and most pros avoid it. I’ll tell you why. Imagine you get
home from a hard day at the office. You walk into your lounge,
putting on the main light as you go. Then you go round and switch
on all the table lamps. Now you turn off the main light, sit down
and relax, with nice, comfortable, mood lighting. Well photography
is just like that. The midday sun is like your main, overhead light
- harsh and glaring. The early morning sun and late afternoon sun
is like your table lamps -soft, warm and comfortable. That’s when
you get your best shots - particularly landscapes. Cloudy days are
great for still life studies of flowers or waterfalls because
there’s no dark shadows to block out the detail.
6. Now you need a great subject - a focal point. It’s great to have
stunning light but to really use it you have to find an interesting
subject. And you have to make sure the subject remains the focus of
all the attention in your shot. It has to be the focal point. Most
dull, uninteresting pictures are that way because they have no
recognisable focal point and the lighting is dull. So find a great
subject and wait for really interesting light to get the best out
of it, or if you find great lighting, hunt out a subject good
enough to make the most of it.
7. Composition. OK. So you’ve mastered your camera. You’ve
practised and practised and spent time analysing your results.
You’ve studied your favourite photographers work and tried to
figure how to get similar shots yourself and you’ve begun to
understand lighting so what’s next? Well, composition is important
- but not necessarily the basic composition that is always talked
about . Yes, the Rule of Thirds and Golden Section are important
(you ought to read up on them if you’re not sure) but fundamentally
we all use basic composition without really thinking about it. What
we need as photographers is some guidelines that help us to compose
really striking, dynamic pictures that stand out from the crowd.
Here’s some ideas that professional photographers use all the time;
Strong diagonals, leading lines, layers, strong colour contrast,
bold foregrounds with wide angle lenses and compressed perspective
with telephoto lenses, stepping stones to lead the eye,
differential focusing, symmetry, repeating patterns, reflections
and strong geometric shapes like stripes, triangles or interlocking
diagonals...that’s just a short list of things that come to mind.
Spend some time familiarising yourself with these ideas - there’s
plenty of info on-line about all these concepts.
8. And here at number 8 on the list is fundamentally the most
important lesson I have for you - KISS - Keep It Simple, Stupid! If
you do just one thing to improve your photography, make it this
one. Simple pictures always work better than complicated ones.
Pictures with lots of stuff in them are often confused, lack any
sense of focus or idea of subject and appear dull as we struggle to
interpret them. Great photography is always direct - and simple. I
aim, whenever possible, to have no more than three elements in my
photos; maybe a sky, a non-distracting foreground and a simple
subject. Have another look at the photo at the top this page. Just
three things: green bars of the gate (forming a convenient frame),
subject (my son Toby) and non-distracting background of woodland,
(rendered out of focus with a wide aperture/short depth of field).
The colours are all sympathetic - Green and red/orange go really
well together. The focal point is very clearly defined as Toby’s
face - just what it should be. Remember this lessen - keep it
simple and your photography will take off.
9. If you’ve got this far, well done, you’re obviously keen. Now go
and be adventurous with your photography and experiment. Find out
what happens if...What happens if I use a slow shutter speed, or
low camera angle? What happens if I use some flash in daylight,
what happens if I shoot into the sun... You’ll only find out if you
try. Professional photographers are always looking for new ways to
shoot subjects, to try and get an edge. You should do the
same.
10. Finally then, we arrive at at my final pearl of wisdom. And
it’s this. Use a tripod. I lifted this direct from the late, great
Galen Rowell, (www.mountainlight.com) in his brilliant book
“Mountain Light” which is still in print. He said that by using a
tripod, he was forced to slow down, think about what he was doing
and consider all the options. It gave him time to study the
lighting, the shapes, textures and lines of the composition and
made him work the same way as a photographer using large format
cameras, even though he was shooting 35mm film. He also said that
he’d seen very few pictures taken hand held that couldn’t have been
improved if shot on a tripod. I think he was right. Using a tripod
disciplines you and forces you to consider what you’re doing and
why. I always use a tripod for landscapes just to make me slow down
and wait for the light but I use one for other subjects too, just
keep things disciplined. Try it.
Further reading:
I recommend the following books - they helped me
Mountain Light - In Search of the Dynamic Landscape by Galen Rowell
available on Amazon at
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mountain-Light-Search-Dynamic-Landscape/dp/0871563673
The Making of Landscape Photographs by Charlie
Waite
http://www.amazon.co.uk
The Art of Nature Photography: Perfect Your Pictures In-camera and
In-computer by Niall Benvie
http://www.amazon.co.uk
You may also want to look at a book that features my own
work:
World’s Top Photographers’ Workshops: Sport & Action
by Andy Steele published by Rotovision available from my books page
above
I hope you have found this page helpful and/or entertaining! Any
comments on the content are welcomed
