Resting Nite - Raptures Alight!

I have been following Brian on Epic Edits and Trevor on TrevorCarpenter.com as they have pursued the December Challenge of taking a portrait photograph a day. There have been some great results.

I have been inspired to challenge my own photography, so for January I am going to take a photo a day of Urban Landscapes.

For information on what defines an urban landscape, I think that the urban landscape photography site has it pretty well summed up, and as seems to be appropriate, some bookmarks on taking better urban landscape photos include:

• Urban Landscape Photography Tips
• Flickr Group - Urban Vistas

Just some other options that I think I can explore as part of this project:

• Taking photos in black and white or sepia
• Looking for abstract architecture
• Looking to tell a story behind the landscape

If anyone knows some good links, or wish to provide their own suggestions about how best to explore this through photography, then please post in the comments.

I have been starting to research a little more about my camera’s capabilities - I have a Panasonic DMS-FZ5. I normally fiddle with the Shutter and Aperture settings to get fairly decent results (considering the limitations of the camera), however since I have decided to get a little more technical and have started doing some reading, I am discovering ISO speeds and the impact of adjusting these to affect the results with regards to sensitivity to light.

One of the more enlightening and easy-to-understand articles that I have read can be found at Megapixel.net - The importance of ISO capability of a camera. Time to fiddle with all three settings - aperture, shutter speed and ISO sensitivity!

I’m not a SLR girl - I find them cumbersome to drag around and I’m not that good a photographer. I’m more into Prosumer models - they meet my needs in terms of size (portability) and features (optical zoom, resolution and shutter/aperture tweaking).

So currently my eye is on the Canon Powershot S5 IS.

*insert Homer Simpson drool here*

The following are some articles that I have found regarding photography basics - techniques as well as technical. Hope you find them useful.

• Exposure, shutter speed and aperture made simple
• Composition - Looking Into The Frame
• What is the Rule of Thirds?
• Curtin’s Guide to Digital Cameras - a really comprehensive resource that you can view page-by-page (free) or buy as a compiled PDF

More photo blogs that are just pure inspiration. My top three this week.

• Photorama
  Photos that are intimate (up close without the naked) as well as interesting. Click on the photo itself to view the next one. The portraits are fantastic!
• Daily Dose of Imagery
  These are great photos that are vivid and striking. I think there has been processing, but the images are all the more extraordinary for it. Just awesome to behold. (The photo included in this post is from this site)
• :photoschau
  Really great colour and texture in these photos. I haven’t linked to the home page on this one, but chosen one the photos that caught my eye. You’ll be in for a surprise!

Hope you enjoy these as much as I do.

Most of us are able to look at a photograph and say ‘I like that picture’ or ‘I don’t like that picture.’ We can tell when something appeals to us or offends us. The photographer must then look at these elements when decomposing a photo and try and work out why do you like what you like (if you are looking to appeal to others - as may be the case with stock photography), or how to communicate your intention in the photograph when you take it?

In order to describe this, I am going to take a photograph from one of the photographic blogs that I read - Photos From Northern Norway. I like the way that Thomas Laupstad takes photographs with very clear communication of the environment around him. I have received permission to dissect one of his photos (in my very cumbersome way) to show you what I mean.

Below is the original photo.

It is a beautiful, clear scenery shot, very crisp and full of the winter day, that draws the viewer’s eye to the wave on the left hand side of the photo. Please click here to view it in all its glory on Thomas’ blog.

Below is my interpretation of how it does this.

Using the visual lines of the breaking waves in the foreground (going diagonally up and to the left) and the clouds on the horizon, the eye is naturally drawn across to the breaking wave on the left.

If I am understanding this concept correctly, this is almost textbook composition of a shot, that has resulted in a stunning photograph.

Thomas has a wonderful photographic blog of his surrounds, and I encourage you to explore, and I hope that you get something out of this post.

I was having a chat with YesBut on my personal blog and the question came up, can you teach cropping? I believe so, and as I am better these days at finding content, than creating it myself, I went on a search (also there are people that are so much better at it than I am).

• Cropping for Impact - has a number of before and after shots along with strategies for improving your photo through cropping.
  A note on this - I was often advised that if I had a choice, then take a photo of the object close up, then take one slightly more distant, so that you can crop for impact later.
• Every picture tells a story has the following points on cropping:
  • Do: take your time
  • Do: zoom in/out to help frame the picture
  • Do: look for distractions and remove them (either physically or through camera position, orientation and zoom)
  • Don’t: put the subject dead center in every photo (see rule of thirds discussed later)
  • Don’t: get stuck in horizontal hold, rotate the camera vertically to see how things look
  • Don’t: get stuck shooting at eye level, change height to help crop out distractions or improve composition

  Note on this one: it has a good section on the rule of thirds - an important consideration when taking interesting photos.

I was invited to crop a photo as an example, however as I said - this is more an appreciation site as I am not very good at taking and manipulating photos myself, and it is a skill that I admire in others, so I didn’t feel up to the challenge.

I will, however, show one that I did do, and explain the reasoning behind it, and suggest you join a Flickr group such as Cropaholics, who allow you to post photos into the discussion and people will then suggest how they would crop it.

I saw the pic below, and found it a very good reference for some work that I did, exploring depth of field (DOF). The beauty of experimenting with DOF and using toys to do this is that they stay still for you, and let you arrange them in various poses, positions and levels to allow you to experiment wholeheartedly!

I like this one as it has three levels: the background figures are out of focus, as too is the foreground part of the figure that captures the weapon. The spikes on the figure’s back (as well as the icons at its feet) appears to be what has caught the photographer’s attention and the primary focus for the shot.

This is just my take on it.

I did a similar thing with my step-son’s Star Wars figures.

Here is my setup:

And here is me having some fun:

The following are links that I like this week:

• 23 Tips to make your photos better…
  It reminded me of the rule of thirds, and gave me some ideas for under and over exposing… a good list that’s not too complicated and I find if I can take one or two things away from posts like this, then it’s all good!
• 36 Reasons Flickr is a Photographer’s Ultimate Tool…
  An interesting view and perspective.
• 6 Tips for controlling depth of field…
  This is an area that I am experimenting with at the moment, so this is a good overview of some of the basic principles. I have a pretty flexible prosumer model Panasonic, I am loving it, but this reminds me that I need to take my tripod with me more!
• Zooomr…
  I confess, I’m normally a one-eyed Flickr fan, but Zooomr looks interesting so I’m going to give it a try to see how they go.

Mashable does some great round-ups of resources, and it has hit the jackpot again with this list of 90+ online photographic resources.

My favourite highlights from this list include:

• Picnik - for simple image fixes and manipulation
• Flickr - I use it and love it, need I say more!
• Stuck In Customs - a great inspiration site

There’s a whole slew of links on photo book creation, photo search, mobile photo blogging, and stock photo links. I have covered a number of stock photo references in two posts on my personal web site: Stocktake… Images for your blogging pleasure, and Click-Pics-Quick-Fix. Explore and Enjoy!