Learning how to manage light is an important part of getting the images that you want, and improving those subtle little nuances that can affect your images negatively. Yes, you can spend beaucoup bucks on lighting units and modifiers and reflectors and diffusers, and these will certainly make your life easier if you’re doing portraiture in a studio – but not so much
Category: Reference
Tip Jar 20: Disconnect
From the title, some people may think I mean going ‘off-grid,’ disconnecting from social media and internet and so on, or even disconnecting from a regular job or routine pursuits. But I mean something much subtler instead, and that is, thinking in terms of the strictly visual and not the ‘object’ and ‘location’ aspects in our heads.
To illustrate
Where will it end?
I’ve had a topic sitting in my ‘Other Ideas’ file for a while now, waiting for me to tackle it, and in the meantime, an article popped up that, well, tackled it. Again, actually, because within my file were two links to different articles. They’re all related to a standpoint I fostered in a much earlier post, to wit: ‘Infinity’ is a pointless concept.
Now, the
Tip Jar 18: Back up!
If you’re pursuing anything even remotely ‘serious,’ much less as a profession or sideline income, some (a lot) of what you do won’t be the actual pursuit, but all of the supporting tasks that are required, and for photographers, one of those is ensuring that you always have backups of your work. Hard drives fail, sometimes without warning, and of course
Tip Jar 17: Stalking
If you’re like me, even as often as I do it I still picture something like Elmer Fudd when I hear this word, or someone creeping up with a detached bush as camouflage while pizzicato strings play with their footsteps (I think that’s the term, but I’m not a music person.) This is misleading, even in the circumstances when it’s not entirely inaccurate, and
Tip Jar 16: Moving water
While some consider it trite, there’s still a fascination and popularity with the effect of moving water in images, and so, here are some pointers for tackling this on your own.
The primary bit, of course, is a slow enough shutter speed to have noticeable water motion to blur it out, but of course, everything else being sharp. This generally means shooting from a firm tripod, though I have
Tip Jar 13: Moon photography
Originally, I was going to do this about night photography in general, with a subset of photographing the moon itself, then realized that the moon alone had enough for a full post. So other kinds of night photography will be along in a later post, perhaps next week. No promises though.
As a bare minimum for chasing moon photos, I have to recommend a firm tripod and a remote shutter release, because
Tip Jar 12: Greyscale
Greyscale, grayscale, monochrome, black & white, whatever you want to call it. Too often viewed as the realm of the darkroom photographer, greyscale images can add a lot to your galleries and really grab the eye when done well. This is a demonstration of several different digital editing techniques to give your color-free images a bit of an edge.
As before, it’s best if your monitor is
Tip Jar 11: Shooting modes
Program Auto? Sport Mode? Shutter-Priority? Manual? What mode should I be using on my camera?
Well, no one mode will do it all for you, but it’s true enough that you can accomplish damn near everything with only two or three – I generally switch back and forth between Aperture-Priority and Manual, but that has quite a bit to do with my subject matter and shooting methods. So let’s
Tip Jar 10: Shutter speed
So, shutter speed. What is it? Should we fear it? Was it bestowed upon us by aliens? The answer to two of these is, “No,” so let’s look at the remaining one, and add in how to avoid the stumbling blocks.
Basic answer: shutter speed is how long the camera is admitting light to the sensor or film. Except not really – it’s how long it can