Applying Shutter Speed Techniques to Photography

Photography- Landscape Photography

Landscape Photography is a type of photography that uses the different aspects of the earth to capture wonderful photographs. The book, The Kodak Library of Creative Photography: Extend your Range, says, Landscape photography shows spaces within the world, sometimes vast and unending, but other times it can be very small. Landscape photographs typically capture the presence of nature but can also focus on man-made features of landscapes. 

There are many different ways to take Landscape Photographs. The way I took mine was that I was outside before school and I positioned my camera in a way that you could see the clouds and the sunset in the photograph. I really liked how it turned out and someday I want to start a collection of these types of photographs because they are my favorite type of photograph so far.

How do you think I did? Leave it in the comments.

Tresidder, Jack, et al. The Kodak library of creative photography: extend your range. Kodak, 1985.

Photography- Shutter Speed

Shutter Speed is ‘the amount of time that the shutter is open'. I know that might not make any sense but let me break it down. 

Shutter speed is measured in seconds – or in most cases fractions of seconds. The bigger the denominator the faster the speed (for example, 1/1000 is much faster than 1/30). In most cases you’ll probably be using shutter speeds of 1/60th of a second or faster. This is because anything slower than this is very difficult to use without getting camera shake. Camera shake is when your camera is moving while the shutter is open and results in blur in your photos. If you’re using a slow shutter speed (anything slower than 1/60) you will need to either use a tripod or some some type of image stabilization. The book The Kodak Library of Creative Photography: Extend your Range, it says, " In photography, shutter speed or exposure time, is the length of time when the film or digital sensor inside the camera is exposed to light, also when a camera's shutter is open when taking a photograph"(Tresidder 62).


For my  photograph, I went for a slow shutter speed, which was why the hanging snowflake lights were blurry. In the background of the photograph, you can also notice how the rest of the background also has a faded effect sort of like the colors in the photograph are mixed. I thought that this was a cool effect that the shutter speed had.

What do you guys think? Let me know in the comments.

Tresidder, Jack, et al. The Kodak library of creative photography: extend your range. Kodak, 1985.

Photo Composition, and use of angles - Ian Niblack

In my book, Photography: The guide to taking beautiful digital pictures, photographs and compositions, I have learned so much. So, I decided to share with you about what I have learned regarding angles and photo composition.

In Photo composition, you are supposed to imagine (Or Utilize) a 6 section grid overlaying your photo as you're taking and editing photographs. The grid is used to guide where your place your subject within the frame. If you about how to line up the subjects features to where they should be on the grid, then you can keep your photos from looking tacky and unprofessional. But as soon as you properly line up the subject, you photo can look 10x better. Certain parts of the subject should not be cut off by the frame, like the top of their head, or any of their joints. (You can see how i used to this to help make my photo look more professional below)

I also used a low angle. When using angles, you have to consider what parts of the subject you are trying to capture, as well as how you want them to look within the image. In my photo below, I used a low angle to help capture the size of the mountain compared to the small subjects. With the way my subjects are approaching the mountain and looking onward, it really makes this candid shot feel hopeful and brave, as if the subjects are going to "conquer the mountain"

Photography- Candid Photographs

Candid photography is any type of photography that is real and in the moment. There is no posing, no fake smiles, just true and genuine feelings. It is so easy to spot a fake smile or fake look, and that is the quickest way to a regular looking photograph. A candid photo, on the other hand, lets a person's genuine emotion shine through. 

Tips for taking a good Candid Photograph are telling your subject to pretend as if you are not there, tricking your subject into thinking you are not taking a picture of them ex. Pretending like you are taking a 'selfie' but, in reality, you are taking a picture of them. Another tip for taking a good Candid Photograph is to use your zoom. The reason why we use your zoom is because the further you are away from your subject the less likely they will be to know that you’re photographing them and the more natural and relaxed they’ll act. The book has many great tips on taking a great Candid Photograph. The author shows this by saying, "A candid photograph is a photograph captured without creating a posed appearance. Thus, the candid character of a photo is unrelated to the subject's knowledge about or consent to the fact that photos are being taken, and unrelated to the subject's permission for further usage and distribution"(Tresidder 49).

For my photograph, this was of my mom, my brother and my niece. This photograph is a Candid because I see their genuine smiles. I liked the way this picture turned out because of how they were looking into a different camera, and I quickly took a photo that turned out beautifully.

Once again, taking photos of people when they have no idea that you’re doing it is called candid photography. One of the beauties of photography is being able to catch someone in the act. It adds life to your pictures.

What are your thoughts on Candid Photography?

Tresidder, Jack, The Kodak library of creative photography: extend your range. Kodak, 1985.

Photography- Portraits

In my free time, I love to take pictures especially Portraits. Portrait Photography is one the most common forms of photography. What portrait photographers do is to focus on the person’s face. They try to give the most focus on the face of the person because this will also be the focus of the photograph.

When I took a portrait photograph, on the left, it was of my sister. I used our backyard to take it on a sunny day. There were lots of flowers in the background, and my sister wasn't in the direct center of the photo, but it did not take away any attention from my sister because of the filters i used to enhance the photo. My second photograph, on the left, had may trees and bushes in the background but I kept my sister centered and the photo turned out beautiful.

The book, had some tips of taking a great picture. They also had some tips on how to control the color contrast.  In the book, The Kodak Library of Creative Photography: Extend your Range it says,"A graphic simplification of an outdoor half-length portrait was achieved, by using the different color contrasts to create a better resolution with the photograph" (Tresidder 69) . This has really helped me get a different and better view on portrait taking.  I used to think it was supposed to be a boring picture with an awkward stiff smile, but I was pleasantly surprised.

Overall, this book has helped me use whatever camera I have and make the most of it. What I loved the most about taking these pictures is that I could do anything I wanted with the picture. I loved that there were no rules!

Have you ever taken a portrait photo? Describe it.

Tresidder, Jack, The Kodak library of creative photography: extend your range. Kodak, 1985.

Applying Portrait Photography Techniques - Ian Niblack

              My name is Ian Niblack, and I have always been intrigued by photography, but more specifically portrait photography. I find it fun to take candid pictures of people, or even planned photos, as well as being in them. I love the way a moment in time can be captured and remembered forever. But I've never really gone in depth with the intricacy surrounding photography until now. Using the book, "Photography: Guide to Taking Beautiful Digital Pictures, Photographs and compositions" by Nicole Woods, I was able to discover new techniques and apply them to taking portrait photos.



        Before, when I took Portrait shots, I would honestly just go for the shot without really paying much attention to detail, but after discovering new techniques from my book, I will now have good skills and habits to apply to my portrait shots forever. from the book I learned that I need a low aperture to give the image a shallow depth of field, which helps blur the background of a shot and focus in on the details of the subject's features. On Page 28 of my book, it says "It's better for portraits to have a shallow depth of field -- that way, your subject will be in crisp focus, while the background will be gently blurred." Taking this advice, I set the aperture on my camera to 4.5, so that the picture wasn't too dark in the lowly lit room, and so that I could apply a shallow depth of field to the portrait image.


I also decided to go with black and white for this photo, because it gives a more somber and smooth tone to the photo, and Black and White really helped me to express that into this image. In my book, on page 19, it says "Black and white and Sepia are very special ways of presenting images of a certain type and can really give you good results."

Thank you for Reading!

Photography - Panoramic Shots

"Panoramic photographs have an irresistible spaciousness that, for many photographers, amply justifies the cost of buying or renting a panoramic camera for landscapes, city scenes and even interior views..."

Panoramic Photography is capturing images on a wider format,so that it includes much more than what the eyes can see. The technique of Panoramic photographs is that it stitches multiple images from the same camera together to form a single, wide photograph (vertical or horizontal).To me, I think a panoramic photograph captures everything that you want around you in a photograph, all at once.

When I took my photograph, I used a wide angle type. A wide angle Panoramic photo is anything that looks like a wide angle photo, which shows anything less than 180 degrees. Wide angle panoramas can even look like regular images, except they are stitched from many pictures so they would have more clarity or resolution.

Q: What is you favorite camera? Why?

Tresidder, Jack, et al. The Kodak library of creative photography: extend your range. Kodak, 1985.

Photography - Shutter Speed

Shutter Speed - Gatcum, Chris. The Beginner's Photography Guide, 2nd Edition. New York: DK, 2016. Print.

"The shutter speed you can use have a profound effect on the resulting image."

I tend to play around with shutter speed a lot. It gives you the ability to change how you want your picture to be portrayed, whether or not it is clear or slightly blurry or completely blurry.
"Action may be captured in very sharp detail, blurred to convey a sense of motion, or even reduced to an abstract smear of colors."
Anyone is able to change whether or not they want to portray movement in their picture.

"The precise effect you use is going to be a technical and/or creative decision, but the mode of choice is Shutter priority: you select the shutter speed and the camera will set a suitable aperture."

In this first picture, I had a slower shutter speed than I needed to have. It created a blur among the car lights. This was a creative decision from myself.

In a different photo, I chose the "correct" shutter speed, which ensures a clear photo, with the right shutter speed and aperture.

This picture was taken in the same car, within a couple of minutes of the picture above that was taken. I had simply chosen a different shutter speed, along with aperture, to make my picture clear as well has to bring a different mood to this picture.

Thank you for viewing my blogpost! If you had to choose between taking only motion photos or clear photos, which would it be?

Wildlife Photography

Hi everyone! In my previous post, I broke down aperture, shutter and ISO settings so that proper exposure can be easier to attain. In this blog post, I will be talking about some steps that are necessary for amazing wildlife photographs.

In The Magic of Digital Nature Photography by Rob Sheppard, there are some ideas for where you will most likely encounter some sort of wildlife. Sheppard states that Parks and Zoos are helpful for beginners for getting good shots, because "many wild birds coexist with people at a certain locations and become acclimated to that contact" (Sheppard, 137). National Parks also have wildlife which are accustomed to crowds, because "these animals know they are safe, graze, go through mating calls, and other behavior not far from the main roads" (Sheppard, 137). Here, it's especially important to treat the animals with respect and know where it is safe to take photographs. If you don't want to go outside for very long, "set up a bird feeder outside of your home to meet and photograph the resident and small mammals of your area. You can place feeders near windows so you can photograph from inside" (Sheppard, 137). Nature centers are also good places to go because they have blinds, boardwalks, trails, and more for taking photographs.

Within the places listed in the previous paragraph, you can look for food, water, edges, regular paths and perches. Where there is food, you may be able to find some animals feeding, or if you wait a little, then you may find an animal approaching the food to eat. "In areas where water is scarce, a water hole is an animal magnet" (Sheppard, 138). Even in water abundant places, animals most likely be by the water source. Scientists have seen that most wildlife is found along the edges of habitats, because they use edges for movement, safety and feeding, Animals are also habitual, so they take the same paths over and over again. If you follow animals on a certain path at a certain time of day, then you can most likely encounter them in the same place at the same time the next day. The same concept applies to birds and perches. Birds visit and use the same perches over and over again, similarly to animals using the same paths.

It's important to know the behavior of your subject when you are taking photographs of wildlife, because within context of certain factors, each animal behaves a certain way. Animals have an "invisible circle of attention around them. If you are outside of that circle, they are relaxed and go about their normal business. If you get near that circle ... they become more alert and stop doing whatever they were doing" (Sheppard, 140). Animals also use their best senses differently to stay alert for danger. A mammal has poor eyesight, but have amazing hearing and smell, so they pay attention to different sounds and smells. Birds have amazing eyesight, so they are more visually aware of their surroundings.

When taking the photograph, it's important to know how to approach the animal, so it's best to know some stalking techniques. Make sure to be prepared by having the appropriate lens, proper focal length, etc. so that you can instantly take the photograph when you are in position to take a photograph. It's best to move slowly without sudden movements. "Your movement needs to be like that of a non-predatory animal, like a deer or a cow" (Sheppard, 142). Also, predators move in a straight line, so when you are approaching the animal, don't move in a straight line. Don't stare at your subject or point your lens directly toward the animal, because only a predator will do so. Observe the animal's attention as you are moving towards it, because if it looks down or away, you can move closer and quickly. Watching your silhouette is also important because the human silhouette is easily recognizable. Blending into the surroundings will help. Since all animals are sensitive to sound, it's best to keep noise to a minimum.

These pictures were taken at Coulon, a lake near The Landing. Here, the most prevalent animals are birds. Knowing that birds are more visually aware, it was important that I didn't point my lense to the bird, or that I stared at it. In the first photograph, the bird was aware that I had already been taking photos of it, so I had to lower my lens to not seem like a predator. In the second photograph, the bird looked forward, so it was easier to get closer to it and take photographs of it. The part that made taking these photographs easier was that this bird, and many others living at Coulon, are already accustomed to human activity in their habitat.

Overall, what wildlife subject has been easiest for you to take? What has made it the easiest?

Bibliography: Sheppard, Rob. The Magic of Digital Nature Photography. New York: Lark, 2007. Print.

Photography- Lead in Lines

Back again with another photo, but with the lead in lines! This photo shows branches going a different way with ice on the top of it. The main focal point should be on the lower branches where it's more focused creating V, followed up with another focus in the back with a Y and V shape. There's not much to say because this photo explains itself with all the symmetrical lines.

Photography- Self Portrait

This picture shows a self portrait of someone very special to me, taken by yours truly! It's more focused on him, with the sunshine shining on the back of him, making him "glow". It kind of does show him filling the frame, because it more of a close up but not too close. I've also learned about lighting for self portraits, it shouldn't be too dark and most importantly, not over exposed this picture shows a little balance of both. This photo captures him from the waist up and there isn't so much distracting going on. Overall, self portraits should be about you, or another person you absolutely adore!

Photography- Know Your Focus

As you can see by the title "Know Your Focus", this picture represent a focus on the yellow rose. This shows focus because the center of attention is placed on the rose while the outer parts are blurred. There isn't much going on in the background so it's easier to put your view on the flower, and you wouldn't want a lot of attention because it'll make your eyes wander. During pictures like this, you can have other view points, but you wouldn't want them to take away the real center of attention.

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Technical Details of Photography Part 2

Hi everyone! Previously, I talked about how to use the histogram, which is an aspect of the technical details of photography. In this blog post, I will wrap up the technical talk by explaining suitable aperture, shutter speed and ISO settings for nature photography, which can be difficult to grasp with all the numbers.

I can speak for myself when I say that fractions and decimals make everything difficult when they come into play in and outside of math, but sadly, they appear in photography for aperture. Rob Sheppard's definition of aperture in The Magic of Digital Nature Photography is "a variable opening inside the lens that controls the amount of light coming through" (Sheppard, 52). Aperture is measured in f/stops, in which the numbers are fractions. If you understand the concept that larger denominators make the fractions smaller and small denominators make the fractions bigger, then aperture and shutter speed will be easier to grasp. In aperture, large numbers like f/16, are small apertures while small numbers like f/5.6 or f/2.8 are large apertures. Small apertures have a smaller amount of light coming in the lens, while large apertures have more light entering the lens. Aperture also affects the depth of field. According to Sheppard, "depth of field increases as you choose f/stops toward the f/22 end, and it decreases as you move toward f/2" (Sheppard, 52).

Fractions also have to make shutter speed more difficult to understand at first as well. Shutter speed influences the light coming into the lens, like aperture does, but in a different way. According to Sheppard, "shutter speed affects how long the light is allowed to come through the camera and strike the sensor" (Sheppard, 53). Shutter speed is measured in seconds and is also a fraction but can be seen as a single number, like 125. 1/125 second is twice as much as 1/250 second, so 1/125 second lets in light twice as much. Faster shutter speeds, like 1/250, will stop action in a scene but slower shutter speeds will blur a moving subject. When taking photographs without a tripod and/or having fast moving subjects, it's best to have a faster shutter speed so that the movement of your arms isn't seen as blurs in the photograph. Depending on the program/mode your camera is on, your shutter speeds may need to differ. In addition, there are different minimum shutter speeds depending on what kind of lens you are using on your camera. In the case of my camera, in which the lens is under the four thirds category and is a wide-angle lens and is 18mm and wider, my minimum would be 1/30 second. If you would like to set your own shutter speed and aperture, it's best to use the Manual Exposure setting on your camera to take better pictures in accordance to the setting.

Rob Sheppard's definition of ISO is "an international standard for film from the International Organization of Standards (ISO was chosen as a simple letter designation for certain standards, like the speed of film, it is technically not an acronym)" (Sheppard, 56). Different ISO settings have their own sensitivity to light. For example, a low ISO setting, like 100, is less sensitive to light than 400. ISO values of 100 or less give the best results with better sharpness, color, tonality, and low grain/noise, but it also means a slower shutter speed. Nature photographers with APS-C or Four Thirds cameras will use ISO 100 or less for better results, while DSLR's will use ISO settings up to 400.

In the first photograph, I my camera set to the ISO setting of 400, a shutter speed of 1/320 (because I was carrying my camera), and an aperture of f/5.6. Because of the higher ISO setting, my camera was more sensitive to the light coming into the lens, which made the photograph over exposed and the colors are really washed out. In the second photograph, I changed the ISO setting to 100, which made a big difference in how the light affected the exposure and color in the photograph. We can see that the light entry is more controlled, which helped see the colors better in the photograph and it's not so overexposed. In both photographs, the small aperture affected the depth of field, so we only see a thin line in the background of what was farther away, rather than an outline of some sort.

To wrap all of this up, what aperture, shutter speed, and/or ISO setting has been the most helpful to you for nature photography? Which have you found more difficult?

Bibliography: Sheppard, Rob. The Magic of Digital Nature Photography. New York: Lark, 2007. Print.

Technical Details of Photography Part 1

Hi everyone! When we think about photography, we always think about what's in the photograph and the artistic side of photography, but we never think about the technical details of photography; with the features on the camera we're using, aperture, shutter speed, etc. In this blog post, we will talk a bit about how to evaluate a photograph's exposure through the histogram.

According to The Magic of Digital Nature Photography by Robert Sheppard, the histogram is a "graph of the tonalities that your sensor records from the scene" (Sheppard, 51). It is a better interpretation of the exposure of your photographs than the LCD monitor. The left side of the histogram represents the shadows and the amount of black in the scene, while the right side represents the highlights and the amount of white in the scene.

There are certain details you can look out for when you are looking as to whether your photograph is properly exposed or not. When there is a gap or cliff at the right side of the histogram, then the exposure isn't completely optimal. When you look for a gap or a cliff enough times, then it becomes instinctive, and allows you to use the histogram to look out for certain things:

1.) Clipping - "if a histogram hill stops at a steep cliff at the right side, detail is clipped. This means there are additional tones and colors that could be captured, but are not because the detail is 'clipped' off" (Sheppard, 52). When this happens, you have reached your sensor's capacities and highlights are blown out.

2.) Gaps - you want to avoid gaps on the right side of the photograph because it shows that you have gaps in the tonal details of the photograph.

3.) Tonalities - It's important to watch where main tonalities fall because you don't want all of the tonalities in dark subjects to fall on the left side of the histogram. It would give less "noise" and better color if you add exposure to the photograph. You can increase exposure by adjusting aperture and shutter speed, which I will talk about in a different blog post.

Now, here are some examples of proper and improper exposure:

This picture was taken when doing a fall photo shoot with my friend, Carissa. When evaluating the histogram for the photograph, I saw that the photograph was underexposed, because the bulk of the graph is more towards the left side and the hill on the right side doesn't gradually decrease. If it would have proper exposure, then the hill would be towards the center and the cliff on the right side wouldn't be there. When we look back at the photograph, we can see that the leaves of the tree are dark, which can give a hint that there could be an exposure problem.

An example of proper exposure is the photograph of my friend, Carissa, swinging with trees in the background. When looking at the histogram, the hill is in the center, which tells us that the light is more evenly distributed, rather than the light or darkness going towards one side of the photograph. When we look back to the photograph, we can see that there aren't any areas where it is too dark, but there aren't any parts where the sun is blinding anything.

To wrap this up, have you ever used the histogram before? What are some tips that you have to create proper exposure for a good histogram?

Works Cited: Sheppard, Rob. The Magic of Digital Nature Photography. New York: Lark, 2007. Print.

App Photo Editing- Day 4: Grunge Field Trip

Hello Everyone!

Well, we are down to the second to final post. *Sigh* sad times. Okay, back to happiness :).

For this post, I wanted to do something different from what I've previously done. In my other posts, I used techniques from chapters one, five, and four to edit my pictures. Although there are many different editing techniques found in "iPhone Obsessed: Photo Editing Experiments with Apps." by Dan Marcolina, I decided to go with techniques from chapter three for this post: Grunge. The author recommended using a sharp and clean image for this because the whole idea of "grunging" something is to make it a bit dirtier (Marcolina 28). With this in mind, I searched for a high quality picture with good natural lighting. At last, I came across a picture of a couple of my friends and I on the bus on a field trip.

Don't I look great? Haha. Anyways, in the introduction to this chapter the author states that grunging a picture "takes the story to another era or changes the narrative of the setting, adding an air of mystery or desolation" (Marcolina 28). Of course, I wanted to have a result that captured this idea with my editing. 

I currently have an Apple iPhone 5C which is the device used for editing. For this experiment, the author used an image of him in a bathroom mirror. There isn't much on why he chose this picture to edit but I loved the final product of what he had and I wanted to recreate it. He only used two apps for this experiment. The first one was Photoshop Express which is free on the app store and I've used it before so I was already familiar with it. The second app he used was PicGrunger which is $0.99 on the app store. 

The first step is to use Photoshop Express to "crop, brighten, convert to sepia, and sharpen" the image (Marcolina 43). Within the app, I did four things. I first cropped the window out of the picture to make it a bit more square. Because the image is already pretty lit, I only had to adjust the exposure to 10. From there, I used the memory filter which is basically what the app had instead of sepia. Finally, I sharpened the image to 90. This is the process of that:

The second and final step is to use PicGrunger to "apply scratches and sepia texture" (Marcolina 43). Surprisingly, this app was very easy to use. I expected that I would need to adjust everything or draw things but I was glad to realize that this was not the case. I simply opened the app, selected a picture, then I was asked what effect I wanted. To go more into detail, I first chose the scratched effect, which is shown below. It was a bit much to me at first so I then decreased the strength to 50. That was basically everything I did because the default was the "Gig" style and sepia effect that the author mentioned. This is what that very short process looked like: 

After this whole process, I got this as the final result:

Looks kind of vintage huh? Is it just me? Through this experiment I have expanded my knowledge in a couple of ways. First off, I know now how to use another app that gives a vintage feel to pictures and is very easy to use. I will most definitely be using that app again. I've also learned how making something a bit less clean gives it an entirely new feeling. I loved this picture as the original but I love the way the edit turned out because I feel like it came from an old war album or something. In my photography experience, I never used grunge before and now I love it.  I absolutely loved the convenience of this app and the final product was amazing. 

Here's the final process: It was nice and easy. 

What do you think of this result? Where does it look like it's from to you?

MLA Citation: Marcolina, Dan. IPhone Obsessed: Photo Editing Experiments with Apps. Berkley, CA: Peachpit, 2011. Print.

Photography - Exposure

Exposure - Gatcum, Chris. The Beginner's Photography Guide, 2nd Edition. New York: DK, 2016. Print.

"Exposure: a good exposure involves balancing the aperture, shutter speed and ISO. in doing so, you determine three things: how much light passes through the lens (aperture); the length of time that light passes through the lens (shutter seed); and how sensitive to light the sensor is (ISO)."

Every good photo has to be exposed correctly, otherwise you just have a photo that either so dark you are unable to see anything, which meant it was underexposed, or a picture so bright, it just seems completely white, which is overexposed.

For example, this photo is overexposed. The colors look washed out due to too much lighting.

This photo is overexposed. The amount of light filtering through the window blinds was too much for the camera to handle.









A properly exposed photo is one tin which everything is clear and lighting that fits the mood you want to set.

Do you think all photos must have the "correct" exposure in order to be a good photo? Or do you think exposure should differ based on the mod  you want to set?

Photographic Composition- Repetition



So, here it goes! This picture obviously shows repetition, meaning it's predictable of what the next one will be. The Christmas lights are being repeated and as time goes on, nothing will change it. Repetition can be shows as linear or more of an interesting pattern, as it shows in this picture it is linear but the lights are all facing a different way.
 

Photography - Available LIght

Available Light - Gatcum, Chris. The Beginner's Photography Guide, 2nd Edition. New York: DK, 2016. Print.

Using the light around you to your benefit is the first step you should take to make sure you get the best quality photo possible. If your lighting is too dark, no one will be able to see the subject(s). If too bright, it will washout the photo, making everything too white. Making sure your position is key to lighting. For example, when i am outside taking a photo in a store (like the picture below), my lighting source is above me, but i also have to take into consideration that my lighting is florescent/tungsten, which is indoor lighting but for stores.

"Tungsten: Also known as Incandescent, this setting is good for indoor shots under regular domestic" (Gatcum).

"Florescent: Florescent settings compensate for different indoor artificial lights" (Gatcum).

these types of lighting affect my photo look and my editing process later one. For this particular photo, i found the lighting washing out the bright colors of the flowers.

What do you think is the best type of lighting - natural or artificial?

Landscapes - Important Elements to Consider

Hi everyone! In my last blog post, I observed a close-up picture of a flower and some of the techniques that were used and could be used to improve the photograph. In this blog post, I'm going to focus on landscapes and some of the important elements to consider when taking a landscape photograph.

One element that I focused on for landscape pictures is distractions. When it comes to photography, one little distraction can damage the photograph, which makes it a reason to check the edges of the composition before taking the photograph to get rid of the distractions. According to Rob Sheppard in The Magic of Digital Nature Photography, "The best that can be said for distractions is to look for them and get rid of them. even a very beautiful scene can be damaged by something that sneaks into the corner of the composition that obviously does not belong there... Distractions are most common at the edges of the composition - another good reason to check edges - but they can be anywhere" (Sheppard, 106). Sheppard's advice teaches us that we should check the edges of the composition on our camera for distractions to get rid of them before taking the picture. Doing this will allow for the photograph to be undamaged by anything that doesn't belong in the landscape.

The pictures above were taken in a park along the Soos Creek Trail. In the first picture above, the sign on the right hand side was in the picture, but doesn't quite belong in the picture. The amount of shadow distracts from the general landscape as well. These would be examples of two distractions that make the photograph not very appealing. However, on the second picture, the sign is gone and there are less shadows which makes the photograph more appealing and gives more focus on the general landscape, rather than a small detail of the picture.

Another element I focused on was vertical versus horizontal pictures. Horizontal pictures help grasp a greater part of landscape right in front of you. Nature itself is filled with horizontal landscapes and cameras are designed to create horizontal photographs. On the other hand, vertical photographs show the aspects of nature which aren't horizontal. They demonstrate things that you may not see in a horizontal image. In The Magic of Digital Nature Photography, Rob Sheppard informs us "Cameras, for the most part, are designed for horizontally-oriented photographs. As well, landscapes are pretty much horizontal parts of our world. It follows that horizontals are important to landscape photography. They parallel the horizon; they fit the scene spreading out in front of you; and they fit the way we see most landscapes... [Turning your camera to its side and taking vertical landscape photographs] helps you see new things in the world, and may even allow you to discover some new magic in your scenes that is not revealed in a standard horizontal image" (Sheppard, 106). This demonstrates that landscapes don't have a set angle at which you take the photograph. Horizontals may be appropriate in some cases because meaning and tone comes from the whole landscape. When there are many distractions and the meaning and tone come from a more specific subject, verticals are more appropriate.

The first photograph, although zoomed in, was taken horizontally, because the trees and grass made up a better landscape as a whole, and looked more appealing when including all three of the triangular trees. The tone comes from all of the landscape, rather than one part of it. The second photograph, while also zoomed in, was taken vertically, because the main meaning and tone comes from the tree itself - with the odd shape of it branches - rather than the landscape it's in as a whole. This allows us to see how a vertical picture or a horizontal picture sets the mood or the tone within the landscape picture.

The last element I focused on was lighting. Although lighting is put in the chapter about flowers, I decided to focus on lighting anyways, as it is an important part in any photograph and plays a role in the mood, tone and meaning of the landscape paragraph. In nature photography, there are different "types" of lighting. 

~ Backlight is when "you shoot toward the sun or bright area in the sky" (Sheppard, 69). The pros of back light is that it creates drama within the photograph because of the different areas of shadow and light, it "separates elements of a scene because of the highlights and shadows," the leaves and flowers glow, and the light creates a sparkle, a great texture and gives more depth if it's high enough to wrap over the subject (Sheppard, 70). 

~ Side Light is where the light "hits your subject from the side." The pros for side light is that it "makes natural objects ... look exceptionally solid and dimensional," and that the texture has a life like look to it (Sheppard, 72).

~ Front Light is "light that hits the front of your subject and throws shadows to the rear of that subject." The pros of front light is that colors are very well lit, color patterns are brought out, underlying patterns and colors are seen better because of the lack of texture, and two dimensional shapes of objects are emphasized (Sheppard, 72).

~ Top light is when the light comes from above the subject. This doesn't have any pros, so it's best for nature photographers to avoid this type of light. It brings up too much blue and can be flat and dull (Sheppard, 72).

In the first picture above, I used back light. Back light can be a bit troublesome in certain circumstances, as seen in the picture. In this case, the sun was very bright and "in your face," which made the photograph over exposed and created a shadow in the center of the photograph, which doesn't make the photograph appealing. In the second photograph, I used side light. In this photograph, the fact that the sunlight came from the side allowed for there to be more texture, makes the trees to look more dimensional, and emphasizes the life that is still left in this part of the landscape, like the grass and the remaining leaves.

To end this off, how do you deal with distractions in photographs? Do you prefer vertical pictures or horizontal pictures? What lighting do you like to use best?

Bibliography: Sheppard, Rob. The Magic of Digital Nature Photography. New York: Lark, 2007. Print.