You can’t pose undomesticated animals per say, but you can capture the moment―even if it looks like you posed them.
Much of the same principles apply towards photographing animals as it does towards humans. Keep these basic principles in mind as you photograph animals:
1) Eye contact is important, but not always necessary. In some instances, a pose with eye contact from an animal works. In my opinion, this type of pose is equivalent to a traditional, formal portraiture. When the pose works, the body position is natural and shows the full-body.
2) The surrounding setting is important too. If there are a couple of background textures and tones which complement the animal and setting, this would be perfect! In this way, the animal and setting (the background) contain visual unity.
3) The camera’s flash fills in shadows and enhances the appearance of humans, as well as animals. Take a fill flash photograph and look for the shadows on and around the animal’s body. Now, take another photograph without the flash. Without the flash, part of the animal’s face is darkened and the shadows are not as pleasing to the eye. The shadows tell us about the form and shape of an object. Normally though, shadows can add beauty to forms.
4) Viewpoint perspectives can make or break a photograph. Sometimes, shooting down on an animal works and other times not. Photographers have to make needed adjustments for each situation. While maintaining eye contact with an animal, just as with people, the animal should not be straining his or her neck to look at you (or the camera). Make sure the pose of the animal is not disturbing to look at. The animal should look true to form and natural.
Basically, make sure the animal looks content and relaxed. Watch your background too. Sometimes, all you have to do is move to the side a few steps to get that memorable shot! (revised 2/15/2006)
Debbie Jensen, Graphic Designer and Photographer
http://www.debjensendesigns.com
Portrait is defined as, “A likeness of a person, especially one showing the face, that is created by a painter or photographer, for example.” In the area of portrait photography there are some guidelines that you should consider when you go to take photos of people.
The different types of portraits are: close-ups, facial shots, upper body shots or environmental portraits. Environmental portraits are where you focus on the subject and on their surroundings that provide more character to the subject.
When people have a camera in their face it usually makes them nervous and they will try to put on a face that does not portray who they really are. The real skill to portrait photography is trying to capture photos when the subjects are comfortable and not worried about a camera.
Many professional photographers try to capture their subject’s true essence by using tricks. One example of this is counting to three so the subject prepares and then while they are relaxing after taking a planned photo the photographer will snap a few more unplanned photos. In most cases the subject won’t even know that more than one photo was taken but it’s usually the photos that the subject wasn’t expecting that capture their true essence.
Another more common strategy professionals use is to tell funny jokes that make their subjects genuinely laugh or smile. I’m sure that you have probably experienced something like this yourself.
CLOSE-UP PORTRAITS
These usually have the subject’s shoulders and head or less. They are framed around the face. These are the most common and best at capturing expressions and glamour shots. For these it is very important to have the light coming from a good angle. To accent wrinkles or small details you should have the light coming from the side or from the top. To create flattering pictures you should choose a cloudy day or try to create diffused light so there are hardly any shadows. Also make sure the subject is brighter than the background to reduce distraction.
For close-up portraits you should use a wide aperture (low f/stop) to make the background out of focus and therefore less of a distraction. Professionals commonly use a fixed telephoto lens that’s 90 mm or higher for portraits in order to de-emphasize the subject’s nose or any other unflattering feature. It works because at that distance the nose or any other feature does not seem closer to the camera than the rest of the face.
UPPER BODY OR MIDRANGE PORTRAITS
These are easier to capture because the subject is probably more relaxed because it’s less personal. These include a little more of the background than close-ups. These are commonly used for both single subjects and multiple subjects. This is the kind of portrait used to mark occasions such as graduation, yearbook, birthdays and other parties. The ideal lens would be about a 90 mm fixed telephoto or more wide angle depending on how many subjects there are.
ENVIRONMENTAL PORTRAITS
These are the portraits that let you into the life of a subject. They might include the whole subject in a scenario or the subject participating in some hobby that they enjoy. These are best for telling a story to the viewer about the subject. They are almost always used by photojournalists to look into the lives of interesting people. They also make great Black and White pictures.
Use this information to develop what kind of portrait style you would like to take, and then practice it before dealing with any serious clients.
Richard Schneider is a digital photography enthusiast and founder of http://www.picturecorrect.com/ which offers tips and news about digital photography, digital camera reviews, photoshop tutorials and computer wallpaper.
Almost any shot will look better if you take two or three steps closer to your subject. Filling the frame entirely with your subject will make a terrific difference to your photos.
Alternatively, instead of moving closer, use the Optical Zoom of your camera to get a close up shot. Don’t use your Digital Zoom as it will degrade your image quality.
When taking shots of family and friends, most people place the subject’s full body in the frame, or place head and arms in the shot. Instead, fill the frame with your subject’s FACE only - particularly if they are smiling or are in a moment of reflection.
Why does this work? With less clutter in the image, there’s less to draw the eye away from the main subject of your photo. Also, human faces (particularly children’s faces) are something we all feel pleasure looking at.
If you can’t get close enough when you’re taking the shot, you can zoom in later using photo editing software - crop out everything except the subject’s face and see what a difference it makes.
When using the viewfinder for close shots, be careful of Parallax. Because the viewfinder is not at the same position as the camera’s lens, centering the subject in the viewfinder may mean it is not centered for the lens resulting in an off-center final picture. Most digital cameras now come with an inbuilt LCD screen. You can eliminate this problem by using the LCD - which shows you what the lens sees - rather than the viewfinder.
David Peterson has a great love of photography and has created a series of free tips at http://www.digital-photo-secrets.com/ to help digital photography users everywhere take better photos.
Wouldn’t it be nice to see your black and white photos in full color? Learning to create and edit old photos is fairly easy and very worthwhile. Digitally restored photos can be used to make digital scrapbooks, posted to Web sites, shared through email, and printed for gift-giving or display.
To achieve this effect, we will need to colorize using Paint Shop Pro. According to Bill Brewer, “colorizing is a feature built into PSP that keeps the luminance values (the bright and dark parts that make up the recognizable image) and colors the image with one color. The image to be colorized needs to have a color depth of 16.7 million colors, and it can be in full color to start with (reduction to grayscale is not required before colorizing). Using that command brings up a dialog box where you have control over the hue and saturation, with a preview. I suggest you DON’T use that menu item to colorize images. Instead use the more powerful HSL adjustments accessed with the Colors>Adjust>Hue/Saturation/Lightness… command. That way, you have complete control over the hue/saturation/lightness, and the color preview is much better than what you get with Colorize.”
To start off, get your photo ready. Begin by scanning your black and white photo into your PC. Make sure that your picture is straight and if not, use Paint Shop Pro’s Straighten tool to “uncrook” the image. Next then would be running the One Step Photo Fix by clicking the Enhance Photo button in the Photo toolbar atop the screen and choose One Step Photo Fix. Try to clean up whatever dirt or scratch that you may see in the picture.
Now, moving on to the next part. Working in layers. Choose the Layers, Duplicate tab to make a duplicate of the image you want to colorize. We can now make color changes to the top layer without affecting the original image underneath, letting us adjust the intensity of the colorization by playing with the layer’s opacity.
Now for the final part, you may choose to use either the Freehand Selection toll in Smart Edge mode or you may opt to use the Magic Wand. Set Feather to about 1 pixel, and select one of the faces. Once done, click on the Flood Fill tool and set the Blend Mode to Color in the toolbar at the top of the screen. For a typical Caucasian skin tone, set the Red, Green, and Blue levels to about 215, 190, and 150, respectively, then click OK. Now click Flood Fill to colorize the selected face. You can repeat this process for all of the skin in the image.
Then select the clothing and background and add color to as much or as little as you wish. When you’re done with the image, you might want to adjust the overall intensity of the colorization. To do that, make sure the Layer Palette is open (if it isn’t, choose View, Palettes, Layers) and then double-click on the Copy of Background layer–this is the one on top that we’ve been painting. Then you can use the Opacity slider in the layer’s dialog box to change the color effect. When you’re satisfied, click OK to keep your changes.
Above simple instructions from Dave Johnson is very easy to follow and is very helpful for the particular purpose.
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About The Author |
Customers Worldwide are looking for photos to sell their goods/services right NOW. You can sell photos from your digital camera.
There are several ways to do this but the most common is through a photolibrary. You need at least a 6 Megabyte camera or people won’t look at your pictures.
DIGITAL CAMERAS
The biggest thing to hit Stock Photography since the start of Photography. Publishers are now able to bypass the whole scanning process and make major savings. Fuji Canon and Nikon are the most commonly used pro Digital cameras.
Presuming that you are taking SHARP, COLOURFUL, INTERESTING photos, there is no reason why YOU can’t make money from Stock (bigger is better and most Stock Photo Agencies insist on a 50 Megabyte picture size).
BEWARE of claimed picture sizes - some 12Mb cameras are actually 6Mb cameras with fancy software to make the picture expand in the camera! (You can increase the picture size to 50 Mb in Genuine Fractals or Adobe Photoshop programs but you should start with at least a 6Mb file).
This seems a lot but it’s only just enough to print a HIGH QUALITY 2 page magazine spread. Customers want to illustrate THEIR product,article,service or news item. You have to put yourself in the customers place before you even take the picture
Consider WHERE the picture will sell before you take it.
Resource Section :
Keith Jones has been a Stock and Travel Photographer for over 40 years
His Website is at http://www.fotos4web.com
Where you’ll find lots of his photos and articles.
This article may be freely reproduced in print or on the world wide web providing :
This resource section is also published intact and the article is not altered in any way.
No one wants to go broke trying to convert all of the digital photos that are stored on their computer into picture form. The price of a good digital camera is enough already for the average person and expensive prints are just not an option for the vast majority. What about simply printing all of those digital images out on the desk printer? Well if you’re trying to get quality prints and save on money, this definitely isn’t the answer. So where can cheap printing be found if making digital photos on the desk printer is not a valid option? Actually, cheap photo printing can be found just about anywhere if a person is really interested in finding it.
Probably the best place to begin searching for cheap photo printing is online. There are lots of websites that are constantly in competition with each other in terms of price. This is an excellent thing for consumers as the competition really drives photo printing prices down to a level that is pretty much affordable for all. Some sites even offer prices as low as 9¢ a print! As if prices aren’t already low enough, many companies also offer bulk order discount rates and lower prices for photo club members. It seems these days that it would be harder to find a site that is overpriced on prints.
If you’re not one to shop online frequently and enjoy doing your purchasing outside the home, most national chain stores offer the same competitive prices at their mini-photo labs. They usually offer printing kiosks which allow a user to select what digital photos that they wish to print and may even allow the person to do a little editing. Some of these machines will give the prints out immediately while others may take an hour or so, which requires the photos to be picked up at the store mini-lab.
One thing to consider though when buying low priced prints is to make sure you check out reviews on the company’s quality before committing to buying any prints from them because a low price doesn’t make up for a bad picture.
To view our list of recommended sources for digital photo printing online,
visit Recommended Sources For
Digital Photo Printing Online.
What makes a great picture of people? Ninety percent of its quality lies in the
facial expression, the rest is composition, lighting, and the natural presentation of body language. A tripod is a plus for sharp pictures and the camera should be set at the lowest ISO speed.
I want you to picture yourself and your family outside on a nice afternoon. It’s Thanksgiving, a great day for a family portrait. Unless it is a cloudy day, some nice shade will produce a flattering lighting ratio for your portrait. This means that the brightest part of the picture and the darkest part are not too far apart in value for the film or hard drive card to capture. Then choose a uniform background for you portrait. A stand of dark evergreens, a barn wall, a distant lawn, or a high hedge are all excellent backgrounds. The back of the house and patio, the driveway with the parked cars, or partially sunlit woods are too busy a background for your picture.
Next find something for people to sit on: a log, a small table from the patio, a picnic bench or a patio chair. The object is to have everyone’s head at a different level. Small children are, of course already low to the ground. Seat some people at chair height, others on the ground. Sitting like an Indian is not a viable pose. Try sitting the person down on the ground with their knees together, ankles crossed and to the side. Standing and leaning against something also provides a different height for your composition. Try to place the heads so that they do not line up either vertically or horizontally. Rather than presenting a square shoulder to the camera, a slight turn to the body is preferable. Eye glasses can be held in the hands or tilted down. Be creative in you grouping – two, threes and fours in a close grouping look better than one group of seventeen evenly spaced. Remember to overlap shoulders so that heads are closer together. One shoulder is all that is necessary to see.
Arms should never hang straight down. Instead, place some hands in pockets, around shoulders or holding hands. Diagonals in the composition increase the dynamic qualities of your portrait. Pay attention to the legs and feet. Natural looking positions include crossed ankles, placing the feet forty-five degrees apart (standing), and crossed knees. After the positioning everyone, stand back and squint at the effect with blurred eyes. Turn any straight on bodies and relocate any misplaced color or glaring whites for a more pleasing effect.
A broad, low light source is ideal for a flattering look to your portrait. An open sky overhead will result in dark eye shadowing. Reflecting light into the shadow areas or using fill flash will correct this situation. Take advantage of the light from a white building or a setting sun. A natural solution is to place your group under some overhanging branches.
Center your grouping in the view finder, paying close attention to the edges of the finder. Leave a little space on the ends for cropping since the format of an eight by ten or sixteen by twenty photograph will crop ten percent off the ends. At the moment of exposure, do or say something to capture the attention of the whole group in order to coordinate the eyes in one direction. You can save a big paper smiley face until the last minute. The alternative is an interactive pose where everyone looks at each other, instead of the camera. This type of composition is more difficult, since facial profiles are less desirable. In order to insure open eyes, talk through the moment of exposure and for a good selection, take lots of pictures. Above all have fun and everyone will enjoy the experience. Happy shooting!
I did this for 30 years.
Looking for a photography tax professional knowledgeable in the area of intellectual properties? Some people mistakenly think they can turn to a neighbor, or Uncle Jim, or that retired bookkeeper down the block, who is “good at taxes.” The price might be right, but for photographers who go this route, it costs them in the long run. Moreover, they’re opening their checkbook to educate this tax-help person, since the average tax accountant or CPA seldom deals with intellectual properties, if at all.
The aim is to save on your taxes, not to just pay them. (“To evade taxes is illegal, to avoid is your constitutional right!”)
You want a photography tax adviser experienced in intellectual properties, who will show you how to apply for and get the write-offs (deductions) that are due you as a working photographer. A tax accountant experienced in intellectual properties may not be easy to locate in your local neighborhood. But here is a simple method to find one. Check around your community and find several successful creative persons who are doing well in their business: musicians, filmmakers, software developers, artists, songwriters, photographers, etc.
Call each one and ask who they use for their accounting and tax work. After awhile, the same name will keep cropping up. He is your man (or woman).
Rohn Engh is director of PhotoSource International and publisher of PhotoStockNotes. Pine Lake Farm, 1910 35th Road, Osceola, WI 54020 USA. 1 800 624 0266; E-mail: info@photosource.com . Fax: 1 715 248 7394. Web site: http://www.photosource.com
Though most quality prints are printed on Archival papers, such as Fuji Crystal Archive Papers or Kodak Endura Professional Papers, it is essential to consider a few important aspects to maximize the life of any print you are planning to display.
Things to Avoid
* Avoid placing your Fine Art Prints in direct exposure to sunlight.
* Avoid places with high levels of moisture or humidity.
* Close to a source of direct heat, like near a wall heater, or a furnace.
Consider the Sun
If you are going to frame the print, and are planning on hanging it on the wall, you should consider the placement first of all. We recommend placing your print on a wall which does not receive direct sunlight. What’s wrong with sunlight? Well, sunlight is a full spectrum light, which means it packs many different frequencies of light, including UV (ultra-violet). The problem with UV is its effect on photographic papers. UV causes fading, simply put, regardless of the quality of paper used to produce the print. This does not mean that all prints, regardless of the paper, or method used to produce them, fade at the same rate.
Archival papers are meant to last. Special chemicals are used to protect these papers from long-term effects of UV, moisture and other factors. However, even archival prints are not immortal. While Archival papers are meant to last, over time they will also show signs of age. The good news? They will likely outlive you.
Print Comparison
If you were to compare a print produced on a high-end inkjet printer using standard inks to a Fine Art Print produced in a Lab on Archival paper, initially they may appear of equal quality. But many inks are water based, and are not rated for archival usage. Such a print, if displayed properly, will perhaps last 3 to 5 years before any fading becomes visible. On the other hand, an archival print, also displayed properly, will last 50 or more years. Back to Top.
To Summarize
Place your prints into a quality frame, and hang it somewhere out of sun’s direct rays. There’s nothing wrong with light falling on the prints. After all, full spectrum light means your photos are going to shine. Indirect light is best, because it will not accelerate natural aging of your prints, and will provide soft even illumination. In today’s hi-tech world you may be able to purchase a frame with UV shielded glass, which is ideal, if your prints are going to receive quite a bit of direct sun light.
Try to hang you photos away from sources of heat and moisture, because both cause materials such as paper, and glues or tapes used to mount photos into mats to warp. The last thing you want to see is your print rippling in its frame.
Owner of a small photography marketing company. If interested in learning more about me, visit http://www.worldonpaper.com.
Photographers have been trying to utilize the light of the moon in their landscape photography ever since the photographic process was invented. It was not until World War II, however, that technology had improved enough to make night photography possible.
Today, despite technological advances, knowing the phase of the moon during a nighttime photography shoot is important as it will affect everything from the type of equipment that you’ll need to the actual composition of your photos.
When embarking on a night photography trip, there are standard types of equipment that you will need to take with you.
- A 35mm camera that will allow you to manually set very long exposure times is a must
- A good, sturdy tripod is mandatory
- A cable release
- A good carrying case or a vest with a lot of pockets for your equipment
- Extra batteries for your camera
- Many rolls of slow or medium film (60 or 100 ISA—NEVER use 400 ISA even if it’s what happens to be in your camera. Your photos will turn out much too grainy to be useful).
- Lenses with which you are already comfortable
- A stopwatch rather than a wristwatch to record exposure lengths is preferable. Stopwatches are more accurate and will give you more reliable information for future moon photography shoots.
- A notebook and several pens for recording exposure times and other important information
- A flashlight so that you can easily record your information
Remember that if this is your first attempt at night photography by moonlight, you will largely spend your time experimenting. The resulting photographs and your records will help you plan your next venture more effectively.
The best times for landscape photography without additional light sources, or looking at it in a different manner, away from city lights, is either when the moon is full, the two days before the full moon and the two days after the full moon. Any clouds in the sky will also affect the amount of light available for your night photography, just as they would if you were shooting during the day.
You will have to experiment with your exposure times as so many elements will affect the outcome. The degree of available moonlight; any other light sources; clouds; rain; light reflective surfaces; each of them can make a huge difference to the amount of exposure time needed.
In general, during night photography, one can say that on a night of full moon, with optimum conditions, 8 seconds at f/8 using ISO 100 film will be about right. If there’s a crescent moon and conditions are also optimal, you’ll need as much as 10 hours on one shot! So you see, experimentation while photographing the moon is really the only way to go.
Repeat your shots with different exposure lengths so that you can get a feel for what your camera will do for you.
A very nice composition for a moonscape might include the moon with beams bouncing off of a river, stream or creek.
As the moon moves through its different phases, you can still enjoy landscape photography at night although you may have to bring some “extras” and move locations.
Different moonscape compositions to experiment with during your moonlight photography shoot include:
- A waxing crescent, or a small portion of the moon, hanging in the sky over sparkling city lights.
- Bring a flash or a flash unit to your moon photography shoot in order to illuminate an abandoned house, use colored gels to get different color effects and have a muted last quarter moon lurking in the background.
- As the moon goes from full to new, you can play with light effects from the stars or allow car lights to streak through your composition.
When photographing the moon, be sure to record not only the length of time that you exposed your film, but also general weather conditions and what phase the moon was in. This will help you to produce better photos in the future.
Night photography becomes easier when you’re able to plan properly so knowing how much natural light is likely to be available will help you pick the right time to go out and what kind of equipment to take.
Nighttime landscape photography is a creative, rewarding challenge that every keen photographer should try.
David Rose is a nature photographer and the creator of QuickPhase Pro, a popular moon phase software program. Visit http://www.calculatorcat.com/moon_phases to discover the fun and easy way to view the phases of the moon.
