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Quick Tips
Quick Tip – Cityscape Exposure Compensation
When photographing a cityscape your largest challenge is going to be achieving the proper exposure. If you follow the exposure meter in your camera you'll be left with the lighting on top of buildings so bright you will hardly be able to read the signs. The best way to combat this is to adju[...]
Quick Tip – Light Trails
ISO 200, 23mm, f/9, 26 sec. Light trails not difficult to capture if you've a camera with manual settings. You don't need a fancy DSLR, some point and shoot cameras are perfectly capable of capturing light trails. The key is your ability to slow the shutter speed sufficiently on your camera.Â[...]
Quick Tip – Mind Your Shadows
The Shadow Knows... I inadvertently photo bombed my own photograph this weekend (Photo bombing is the act of jumping into an unsuspecting photographers photograph at the last second much to his or her chagrin). I suppose this is what it would have been like if Peter Pan was a photographer and[...]
Quick Tip – Revisit Scenes
How often do you revisit a scene that you want to photograph? Is once enough? Do you set up your camera, snap a photograph, and walk away feeling as though you've captured the masterpiece you saw in your mind's eye? Revisiting a scene allows you to view the same scene from a different pers[...]
Quick Tip 119 – Self Evaluation
What do you do with your bad shots? Delete them right away? Leave them in your photo folder to jam up your workflow, never to look at them again? I'm a photo hoarder myself, rarely deleting a photograph in hopes that it will magically not suck next time I look at it. I'm kidding, they ne[...]
Extreme Cropping
When I can add a second life to photographs I've already taken I get excited. From time to time I'll go back through hundreds of photographs, photographs I may have taken years ago, and apply a processing technique to them via my mind's eye (I don't literally alter every image but I envision wha[...]
Quick Tip 118 – Wide Angle Lens and Converging Lines
If you are a fan of prime lenses and you've used wide-angle lenses before then you're no stranger to converging lines. Look at the photograph above, notice how the left wall looks as though it's leaning away from you and the entire building looks as though it's bending backwards. This is not[...]
Quick Tip 117 – Perspective Makes all the Difference
Get hooked on a new perspective. Most photographs you see on Flickr or Facebook were taken looking directly at the subject or slightly below or above the subject, not many photographs are taken underneath subjects because of the difficulty involved. Changing the perspective of your photograph t[...]
Quick Tip 116 – More Histogram Basics
When reviewing your histogram there is a simple trick to knowing if you've captured a lot of contrast or if the picture will have low contrast. Basically, if all the tones are bunched up in one place in the photo, the photo will have a low amount of contrast. If the tones are more evenly spr[...]
Quick Tip 114 – Photographing Hardware
35mm, f/2.8, 1/400sec, ISO 200 I have an affinity for rusty, old, broken down things... when it comes to photography (I had my fair share of rusty, broken down cars when I was younger). I like the texture, the colors, and the stories they tell. Old metal brackets, bolts, hinges, nails, and an[...]
Quick Tip 113 – Dramatic City Photography
City or town photography can be a tricky thing, there are people, cars, and trash (in some cities) everywhere. Isolating what you'd like to photograph can prove to be more of a challenge than dialing in the correct exposure. I'm generally not a fan of post processing but I also don't like to w[...]
Quick Tip 112 – Breaking the Rules
Focus Most of us have heard of the rule of thirds and you've probably read article upon article about how to take sharper photographs. Well toss all that to the side for a moment and get a little creative. The beautiful thing about photography is it's an art of expression, you're able to pu[...]
Quick Tip 111 – Get the Most Out of Your Photographs
The weather is cold and wet over here on the East Coast. When I'm confining myself to the great indoors I don't stop thinking about photography, it's a passion and it's on my mind 24/7. I am always hunting for photography related things I can do when I decide not to venture out, things that [...]
Quick Tip 110 – Choosing the Correct Aperture
Your aperture is one of the three most important settings on your camera. It's a lot like adjusting the lights in a room to set the mood. Photographers adjust their aperture to achieve a nice Bokeh. Bokeh is the blur, or the aesthetic quality of the blur, in out-of-focus areas of an image. [...]
Quick Tip 109 – Multitasking
Recently I was asked to photograph a company party and very reluctantly agreed. The deciding factor for me was the chance to practice my party photography skills as well as photography of Christmas lights. Party photography is a real test of your skills, the lighting is horrible and people d[...]
