Archive | September 2009
Getting Up Early, Staying up Late and Being a Bad Weather Friend!
Here is the question: when is the best time to shoot? This is easy for me: morning, evening or when there is a rainstorm or blizzard. Seriously, I love bad weather. These photos below were taken in bad weather (snowstorms, thunderstorms, or soon after). I think the biggest reason that so many photos look boring or bland is because of the time of day that they were taken. Here is a challenge for you. Take a photo at noon, and then go back to the same spot about 30 minutes before the sun goes down and take some more photos. Look at what you have taken and decide for yourself. Good luck and have fun:)
How to Photograph a Real Estate Agent and Get Paid for it!!!!
How many times do we see an ad in a real estate magazine that looks like this:
Probably a lot! Well, here is an idea on how to make a few extra bucks. Go through the Real Estate guides in your town and mark the agents who need a better shot. Call them and sell the idea that their photo is kind of like a first impression. Let them know that for so and so $ you can produce a better image for them. This might help them get more business. This is what you want their new photograph to look like:
Much better!
Now, for those of you who are thinking that you can’t do this, I have news for you. It’s easy!
Here is a basic diagram on how do to this.
What you want to do is:
1. Find a location where the background is shady but you have a little light to bounce off the reflector.
2. Have an assistant hold the reflector.
3. Have the subject turn his body slightly toward the reflector, tilt his head a little toward the reflector, and smile.
4. snap away! I always take about 5 shots of each pose. This makes sure you don’t have blinking eyes and also helps the subject relax.
Here is the cool thing. This doesn’t have to be a realtor. this could be a senior or your child, or other family member. I really could be anyone who wants a portrait. I suggest that you go and practice a few times before you go out and get paid for it, but seriously, this is easy! So, grab a guy (or girl) and get out and at least try it!
Remember, have fun and if you have a question, let me know.
P.S. If you don’t have a reflector, get a piece of cardboard and tape some aluminum foil on it or use a white sheet or T-shirt.
Family Photos Without Freakin’ out the Kids (Tips on Photographing Children)
This was taken off my old blog. Hope you enjoy!
Almost everyone wants better photos of their families. So here are a few tips on how to get those shots that only professionals get (not really, anyone can get them!).
1. When you want someone on the other side of the camera to smile, smile!!!!!! Right now your thinking I am crazy right? Well, I might be a little but it takes a lot of practice to get to serious crazy. What I mean is the photographer (you) need to smile at your subject if you want them to smile.
2. The best thing you can do when trying to get you kids to pose for you is to not pose them. Let them do what they usually do. And don’t get impatient and yell or threaten them. Think about it. Would you be happy if your mom said, “Stop crying or I’m gonna give you something to cry about!” With kids you have to be really patient. I know. It’s hard not to yell at your kids when it’s so much fun. (kidding again 
)
)3. This is a great way to get kids’ attention. Do you have a cell phone? When you want a kid to look at the camera, make your cell phone ring! They always look at it. Make sure it is by the camera when it rings.
4. With digital you can take multiple shots without charging up a huge bill for film and printing. So shoot away. Take a lot of shots. This way when you get a blink or bad expression, you will at least get a lot of them. Ha Ha. What I meant to say was that you have a better chance of getting a good shot when you take a whole bunch of shots. You might hit the lottery and get an awsome one.
Now that I have given you some advice, here are a few shots of my fam.
This is the most important thing to remember when shooting family and kids. Have fun. Because if you are not having fun, no one is!
Let me know if you need any clarification on this and thanks for visiting my blog. Hey, if you like the blog, please bookmark it so you can return often 🙂
What’s Depth of Field? Let’s Not Be Shallow.
In photography, depth of field is the portion of a photo that appears sharp. Lenses can only focus on one object at a time, but you can control what is in focus in your photograph by using your aperture (see lesson on aperture if you don’t know what I am talking about).
When photographing a landscape you would usually want a lot of the picture in focus. You would use f/16 or f/22 for a landscape. If you use f/22 you are going to have a lot of the photo that will be sharp. In photo terms, you will have a deep DOF.
If you are photographing a person (portrait) you are usually going to want a shallow DOF so the background will be out of focus. Most portraits are taken at F/8. The reason for using F/8 is that at this fstop (aperture) an average person’s head will be in focus and the background will not be in focus. Not having the background in focus will draw attention to the subject. Now if your subject has a huge head (we used to call my little brother pumpkin head cause his noggin was big; we don’t call him that anymore cause he is about 6 inches taller than me and he would kick my @#%$), use a smaller f/stop like f/11 or f/16. Really, I’m just kidding, f/8 should be a standard for most portraits.
There are three things that determine DOF.
1.Subject distance (how far away the subject is from the camera). The closer a subject is to the camera the shallower the DOF is.
2.The lens focal length. If you are using a 500 mm lens there will be less DOF.
3.The lens f/stop(aperture). You should know what this is from the lesson on f/stops. Basically, the wider your f/stop is, f/4 or f/5.6, the shallower the DOF will be. That is why if you are shooting a landscape you want to use f/22 or f/16, because you will have a lot of DOF.
Shallow depth of field -taken at f2/8
Medium DOF. Taken at f/8
Deep Depth of Field f/22
You can see the diffences in how much of the photograph is in focus. With the headshot of the little girl, only her eye and a few strands of hair are in focus. The middle photo of the hitchhiker was taken at f/8. This makes the subject in focus and while the background is out of focus. In the lake above the whole thing is in focus. This photo was taken at f/22. Imagine if I had really shallow DOF on the lake. The trees in back would be out of focus or maybe the front of the photo would not be in focus. That would not make for an interesting picture.
I hope I have been clear. If you need help or do not understand, post a comment and I can help you more. Anyway, thanks for visiting my blog. Bookmark me and visit often, and if you need anything -specific lessons or tips- let me know.
Oh, and if my pumpkin head brother reads this I want him to know that I hold him in the highest regards. You are a wonderful person, Chris.
First Lesson on How to use Depth of Field
This post is for Frank.
Here is what he wrote:
“Mr Johnson, good stuff here. I found myself taking some notes to take with me the next time I go out to shoot. You make some excellent points and you made me realize some things that I was doing wrong. Filling the frame lesson was actually an “a ha” moment for me.
I learned about your site from “notshootingonauto”. I have just moved from auto mode to aperture priority. Still trying to figure out what fstops to use for what situation but I see you
have outlined some good guidelines.
Pls don’t stop your training, it is helping me bigtime.”
Well, here is the answer to help you out. I will be breaking it into a few posts so that it is easier to follow.
I will first tackle the fstop you would use to photograph landscapes. So, you ask, which fstop should I use when photographing a landscape?
I would use f/22 or f/16 in a landscape. In a landscape I usually want everything in the photograph in focus. Using a small aperture will help to acomplish this. If you have questions on depth of field or what depth of field is, please read the post above. I have included a photo (below) that I took for an example of when you should use f/22 or f/16. Also keep in mind that with a small aperture, you will have to use a longer shutter speed. You might need to put your camera on a tripod if your shutter speed is too low. Thanks for visiting my blog and if you have any questions let me know. thanks:)
Fill’er Up Man!!!!
My goal here is to help others become better photographers. What I do is offer free lessons (and you can request a topic) on photography. For the first lesson on this blog I have chosen to talk about filling the frame. I have another blog, http://buffaloz.wordpress.com/ that I do the same thing on. Sometimes the lessons will overlap and I will post the lesson on both blogs. Her is my first lesson on Blogger. I took this photo about 2 years ago and it fits for the lesson so here it goes, my first photo lesson on Blogger. It is really not the best example but I know that you guys who read this stuff are smart and will understand what I am pointing out.
Filling the frame is the name of the game (LOL). Lets first discuss the photo below.
As you can see, I did not fill the frame in this photo. A lot of photographers will take a photo of a person and will leave a lot of room at the top and will put the head of the person in the middle of the photo. That is bad. Next time, for a more pleasing result put the head of the person near the top of the frame. Don’t believe me? I dare you. Just try it. Anyway, as you can see there is a lot of dead space at the top of the photo above. Now look at the photograph below.
In this photograph I have filled the frame. This is more pleasing to the eye and also draws the eye to the subject. Also, notice how the background is very bright in the first photo? Not good. Usually in a photograph the eye will go to the brightest spot in a photo. I don’t want the eye to look at the background, I want the viewer to look at the mushrooms. So, if you want a good assignment for the next week or so, work on filling the frame. It is best to do it while you are taking the picture. You might need to move in closer to the subject or zoom in, but do it and you will see the difference. I promise. If you do forget to do it while you are taking the shot, then fix it afterwards by cropping the photo. Let me know if you have any questions and good luck 🙂
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