Photography Tips

Have you ever looked at fabulous still life photos thinking “How did the photographer manage it?”. Still life photography is an art and like any art, it can be mastered. Here are some useful tips to help you get started photographing still life.

Construct the Image

Unlike other photography genres where you are capturing a moment rather than an image, still like photography gives you the luxury of spending as much time as you need to construct your photograph. When shooting still life, you can compose everything – the background, the lighting, the subject or subjects, and arrange things the way you want. So take your time and construct the perfect image before you start shooting. Read more →

So you’ve decided that photography is “the thing” for you, your point-and-shoot camera has too many limits, and you bought yourself a shiny new dSLR. Congratulations! But if you’ve never used a dSLR camera before, it’s easy to get confused and discouraged. These three tips will help you get started with dSLR photography.

Read Your Camera’s Manual

User manuals are not exactly a great read, but you really should read your camera’s manual. Otherwise you risk missing a lot of your camera’s features and functions (you don’t want to keep using the auto mode, right?). If you find the user manual too boring and you own a popular camera, you can find a book with usage tips and techniques on Amazon. But, I really recommend reading the manual because it’s the best there is and it’s free. Try reading it in chunks and if you’re reading about specific camera features, try to practice them right away to see how things work. Read more →

 

Would you like to turn your snapshots into beautiful landscape photos? The difference between snapshots and photography lies in composition (most of the time, snapshots lack it). Although proper composition is not that easy to master and takes lots of practice, there’s a simple trick that will help you transform your photos and make them look a lot better. This trick works for practically any and really helps you compose your shot quickly and easily. It also works as an exercise for mastering composition.

And now the promised trick:

When you are taking landscape photos, get as close to the ground as possible and use the nearest object as a foreground. 

It’s as simple as that. It doesn’t matter if the foreground object is a stalk of dry grass, a mushroom, just sand or anything else. Just make sure you’re right behind the object and you are still picking up the background (dSLR users should use a wide angle lens). Shooting landscapes this way will create a sense of proportion, draw the viewer’s eye to your line of view and give the viewer a sense that he is entering the picture.

This trick works for all landscape subjects, so it won’t be a problem for you to find the scenes to shoot. And don’t forget to share your photos on DropShots!

 

I’m sure you’ve often admired minimalist photos and wondered how the photographer made them look so cool. Most of the time the secret is proper use of negative space. Read more →

Autumn is landscape photographer’s dream because that’s the season when nature gives so many opportunities for absolutely stunning shots. There are amazing colours all around us and the textures are very interesting too. But don’t be tempted to take hundreds of photos and hope that they will turn out great. You need to do some work too. Here are four tips that will help you take beautiful landscape photos.

1. Catch the Light

One of the issues you will face when taking photos in autumn is that it’s not all that easy to catch the right light. Autumn days can be really dull and even when it is sunny, the light is often not right for good photos. The best way to shoot autumn landscapes is to prepare the composition, be patient and wait for interesting and dramatic light. When the light is just right, all you need to do is take your shot. Read more →

No doubt, you’ve heard of color theory and the color wheel. But did you ever think about it when taking photos? Probably not. In this post we’ll tell you how you can use the color wheel and basic color theory to improve your photos.

The Color Wheel Theory

First of all, let’s recap the color wheel theory. The first known color wheel was created by Sir Isaac Newton in 1666. It was a pretty cool one too because it correlated colors with musical notes and planetary symbols. But, from the color spectrum point of view, it wasn’t as advanced as the modern one with all the different shades of color.

The color wheel is a handy tool for every artist and photographer because it shows the relationships between primary, secondary and tertiary colors. There are analogous colors, for example, green, light green and yellow. And there are complementary colors, for example, yellow and purple. Read more →