Browsing all posts in composition.

Plan Your Shots Ahead of Time

Often times we find ourselves just being wherever we are, taking advantage of what light is available, taking pictures of what sights are available. We use a combination of timing, luck, and skill to capture the depths of what we’re feeling, or the awe of our surroundings. We may think to ourselves, “I’m so glad [...]

Ask Yourself Before You Click

Consider asking yourself any or all of these questions, before you click the shutter, and see how much your photography improves! What is my subject? This may seem like a rather obvious concept, to some. After all, we’re taking a picture of something, and that something should be the subject, right? However, we may find [...]

Five Tips for Great City Shots

This month’s photo challenge subject is “city”. With that in mind, I thought it would be helpful to post a handful of tips on how to get some great city shots. One – The rules of natural light still apply. Though tall buildings may cast shadows and provide shade during midday, the light still ends [...]

Defining Simplicity With Composition Techniques

You’ll often hear people using the term simplicity or simple or even clean when they talk about composition, but what does that mean exactly? The best way to explain it is to refer to it as uncluttered. If you take a portrait of someone they may look beautiful and your focus on them might be [...]

SOOC Challenge

This weekend I challenge you to share your “straight out of camera”, or “SOOC” shots. Sometimes we all need a little motivation to get back down to basics. We sometimes tend to allow our post-processing skills make up for less than perfect shots. We think, “Well, the exposure isn’t quite right, but I’ll fix that [...]

The Rule of Thirds Explained

When I first started getting serious about my photography, I operated under the conclusion that a perfectly centered subject was the goal in composing an appealing picture. It seemed obvious to me that an off-center subject would make the photo look odd, so I needed to concentrate on framing it so that an equal amount [...]

Composition Tip – Avoid Mergers

Okay, this just looks weird. This is an EPIC example of a classic composition no-no – a “merger”. This poor giraffe looks like it has two heads, when really his buddy was standing behind him and looking off at an angle. But because of the way the shot was composed, what you see is just [...]

Creative Cropping

There are occasions when the judicious use of cropping techniques can mean the difference between keeping and discarding a photograph. For the most part, unless you’re including the entire scene as the subject of the photograph, it is best to fill the frame with the subject as much as possible. Doing so will take a [...]

Still Life Photography

Still life photography involves taking photographs of an inanimate object or small grouping of objects. When capturing still life images, it is important to pay close attention to the photograph’s composition and the arrangement of the objects themselves. The type and quality of lighting is also important in order to illuminate the details, cast appealing [...]

The First Photo I Was Ever Proud Of

This is the first picture that I took that I was ever really proud of. This is the Portland Head Light in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. I had just gotten my very first digital SLR, specifically for the trip to Maine that we took that year. I remember clearly that on that day I was determined [...]