Learn One Thing at a Time and learn it well.

About 15 years ago I took a night photography course in Toronto. I wanted to learn something about studio lighting. First thing I did was look for a course that was being taught by someone who actually did photography for a living, someone who would be able to impart practical knowledge learned from experience not just opinion.

I found a course at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute in Toronto. Two evenings a week for 6 weeks. It was a great course.

At the end of the course, on the last day, the person running the course had us all display some of the work that we had produced. She went through each photographer pointing out our good points by and large as opposed to our weaknesses. When she came to mine she made the statement that I had come the furthest of anyone in the class. I was quite pleased with myself, obviously but had to look at why this was so.

Reviewing the work of the other photographers that were on the course and their products was the first thing I did to see what I was doing or had done that was different. What I noticed were a couple of things. One, many students were trying to do things beyond their level of expertise. The other thing, and I thought this even more pertinent, was that most students tried something quite different every week. They seemed to be trying to learn “everything” on the course.

What I did was different. My goal had been to learn a basic two light system that I could use in pretty much any situation. So, I just did that through the weeks until I had a good balance of light and just the look that I wanted. I used pretty much the same set up each evening. I didn’t get it the first time. I was a bit better the second session. By the end of the course – I think we did 4-5 actual shoots – the pictures were what I wanted. Later, with the basics that I learned well here, I was able to easily build, with variations and more lights.

Trying to learn everything at once can be pretty overwhelming as there is a lot that can be learned in photography to improve your picture taking. Whatever your level of expertise as a photographer, take one function or technique and become competent with that before going on to the next. For example learn about a particular setting on your camera (other than P – Program) and work with that until you are good and comfortable with it. As I said before in this day and age of digital cameras – well, it’s a real boon to learning, as you can take as many pictures as you want and all it takes is space on your hard drive.

So, as in educational undertaking, start with one basic function or lesson and learn it very well – make sure you are certain of it before moving on.

Good luck!
Martin

I’ve taken lots of pictures of people. I love photographing people almost as much as I love people. The challenge though was always getting away from the “standing up straight – stiff as a board” syndrome. We’ve all taken pictures of our family and others at the zoo or the park where everyone is standing beside each other very soberly trying to smile. Pretty boring. Often we take these more to show the location “Here we are in front of the Eiffel Tower!”

I have found it most workable to get the attention of the people that you are trying to photograph from how they are standing and posing onto something else.

I had a family of four some years ago wanting a picture when we were out on a sleigh ride in Ontario. Mom and Dad and two boys. They were all standing side by side and there really was not going to be any energy in the picture. I told them to all crouch down and kind of lean into one another. They had most of their attention on keeping their balance in an unusual position. And they were all giggling and smiling. I also crouched down so that I was at a level with them. Twenty years later the picture is still one of their favourites, still hanging on the wall. Another thing that this crouching down does is to even out any height differences.

You can do this with an individual as well – have them crouch, lean or sit on the edge of that water fountain -maybe the water will distract them. If you can get them to interact with the environment in some way, even better. Experiment.

If you are trying to show more of the surroundings when taking the picture but want to show your subjects in the picture, I suggest that you take more than one type of picture. Take some close up of the people and some back showing more of the location.

If you look at the picture and aren’t happy with it, then try something different.

Enjoy – take lots of pictures.

I went to the Botanical Gardens in Niagara Falls yesterday to take some photos.  By myself.   Do not be worried about going out by yourself to take pictures.  You will likely find out more quickly what you like and dislike and you can take the time to get the shot that you want.   You can go out with others and that is sometimes good for ideas but make a  point of spending time with just you and the camera and whatever subject you choose.

Botanical Gardens Niagara Falls

I don’t know that there is an “off season” here at the Botanical Gardens in Niagara but there were many areas where the flowering was past ‘prime’.  Particularly with many of the roses.  BUT this made me work a little harder for the shots and look at some other attractive plants for some nice shots.

Take your time and look around.  No one is hurrying you…

If you’ve read any amount of material in magazines or online you may have heard of something called the “rule of thirds”. The concept here is to take the frame of the photo or the area of the photo to be more specific and divide it into thirds vertically and horizontally. Place your points of interest on the lines or at the intersecting points.

This idea is close but is somewhat simplified. If you are going to use a technique go to the source of this concept which is called the “Golden Rectangle” or the “Golden Mean”. It’s a little different but enough that the Masters used it consistently. Leonardo da Vinci used it throughout his art and science. It is believed to have been used to design classic architecture like the Parthenon in Greece.

The Golden Rectangle is a rectangle with a ratio of 1 to 1.618. If you take the length of the rectangle and measure a square from one end, you will be left with another rectangle of the same proportion. You can see some samples of the Golden Mean or Golden Ratio here.

You can also take that ratio above (the ratio of 1 to 1.618) and use the number .618 to get your square.

There is a lot of information on Golden Ratio on the internet and how you will find it abounds in nature. Some of it is very technical but take some time and do a little homework.

Most cameras, whether it be conventional film or digital do not use this ratio. So, what you are viewing when you take a picture or view the negative or look at it on your computer is not the ratio of the Golden Rectangle. But you have cropping tools or scissors. Try moving the horizon in your photo to this line. If you have someone standing dead center in the photo, crop it so they are standing at a point .618 of the distance from one side. It may look better. Also, depending on the photo, it may not.

The next time you are out with your camera, try framing the picture differently. If you are taking a picture of a flower, shoot one with the flower dead center and then do a couple more with it moved to the side or top or bottom as close to this ratio as you can. If you leave a little room, you can do the finishing touches on the computer or with a pair of scissors.

You will not have to follow this rule every time you take a photograph – it just gives you another tool to use to improve the quality of your photos.

Here’s another site that keeps this relatively simple:The Golden Mean

Here is a quick tip:  If you are taking some pictures of family or friends and it is a particularly bright day try and find some shade.  There are a couple of reasons for this.  One is that if you shoot with the sun behind the photographer you will have your subjects all squinty-eyed.  If you put the sun behind them and you are not using a ‘fill flash’ the faces will be in shadow.  If the sun is directly overhead then you will have odd shadows on the face resulting in a baggy-eye look.  It is very simple to move your subject into shadow or if there is a passing cloud wait a minute.  Try and soften the light somehow.

If you want to get a little more into it – if there is no shadow available you can get someone to stand to the side with something to shadow the faces – a large piece of cardboard will even do the trick placed correctly.  There are professional tools but it is amazing what you can make do with if you use a tiny bit of ingenuity.  For example if there is a short wall that you want to have the person near then have them hunker down to catch the shade of the wall.

Once you start to think with this you will see many ways to soften the light even on bright days.

Sometimes the Niagara Region is somewhat like Western Oregon: if you wait for the rain to stop to go outside to do

Photo of wet leaves

something, then you may be waiting a while.  Son #3 and I decided to go out in the misty rain last week and we got some amazing shots.  Most of our pictures were later in the day and we hiked down into the Niagara Glen.  It is a great walk and if you are visiting Niagara Falls be sure to take the hike down to the river.  It is a bit of work getting back up but it is free and is worth the effort.

A little up the road from there is the Niagara Parks Botanical Gardens.  We wanted to take some shots but there was still a fine mist coming down but we thought that anyone could take pictures in the sunshine and we would “take the path less traveled” and we did get some very nice pictures as a result.  The photo I have posted is obviously not even of flowers but to show that there can be wonderful images almost anywhere in any climate.

Son #3 took the photo of the leaves.

Light.  And Dark.  And all the shades in between.  What happens is that your pictures are too ‘dull’ or too contrasty?  Take some photos of light colored flowers against a light background and depending on the colours they don’t stand out.  When the sun is bright and shining on your subjects parts

flower black and white

of the photo may be too light and parts to dark to make out any detail.

A trick that I tried to help me observe the variations of light was to shoot in black and white.  When one shoots film, loading a black and whilte film in your camera forces one to shoot that way.  You can still do this with a digital camera as most have a setting to make only black and white.  Set your camera this way and spend a few days or a week or two shooting the types of pictures that you do but only in black and white.

Shoot a lot of pictures this way.  Take pictures of flowers, people, scenery and even very colorful objects but concentrate on the shades not the colours.  You will gradually see the best times of day to shoot different subjects.  Some subjects you will want more extreme contrast than others and even the same subject material will give different excellent results with different lighting as long as you understand it and are in control.

And that’s what photography is all about – controlling the light.

Black and White 40's style glamor

One of the things that I do regularly now that I’m in the digital age is to increase the brightness and contrast on almost all of my photos.  I will open the file, do any touch ups and then increase the brightness and contrast.  This basic function will be in any photo editing software be it PhotoShop, Paint Shop Pro or inexpensive or even free software.  If I have planned to convert the picture to black and white, I will do these steps first.   You will have to play around with the adjustments but once you get a setting you like and you have taken a series of pictures you will probably find that you can use the same settings for that whole series.

I love to photography children.  They are so alive and interested in their environment.  That also sometimes makes it more difficult to get a good picture as well.  Particularly in the studio.

As a solution, I often take families out for walks in a park or some such which is great for the kids. This way I get a lot of good candid shots.  They will be xploring, I set up the shot, call for their attention and ‘click’ – there’s the shot.  Do this with a family for an hour or so and you will have many memorable pictures.  Make sure that you chat with different members of the family as you are on the walk.  This way they will be more comfortable with you and the pictures will be more natural.

My mother was one of those people who took lots of pictures and cared about what she was shooting. She actually would submit her pictures to contests and win prizes. The first thing she said to me about taking pictures was “watch your background”. Told more than once, I daresay – like many other thing that were hounded into my thick skull. You might say, “Watch your background – Well of course!! Who wouldn’t?” Yeah, I know, but one needs to look further – see what resulted from that simple command.

When you are watching the background, hopefully you are really looking at the whole picture. That’s what this imperative got me to doing: looking. Instead of just pointing away willy nilly with the camera, even as a youngster I tended to slow down and look. This fared me well later in life when I was in India visiting my father. You can see photos of that India trip here. I’ll tell you more about how and why later.

Even as a child the photos that had fewer and fewer clothlines and spires sticking out the tops of people heads. Not only that with the simple drill of looking the composition naturally became more attractive.

Nor did it hurt that my siblings and I had use of a camera that used 2 ¼ film. We really had no idea of how fortunate we were. I never really notice what others were using so didn’t know what was being generally used back then.

So the next time you pick up a camera and rush out to take pictures of the cousins from Nebraska , slow down a bit and look – tell me if you can see what the camera sees.