How to Take Dramatic Photos That Inspire
We all want to take dramatic photos that inspire the people that see them or just capture important moments the way they should be. So how can we take photos that are more inspirational? While good equipment in the form of a Sony, Canon or Olympus digital camera will help, understanding how to adjust it is much more important.
Stop for a minute and think about any iconic images that have stuck in your mind. What makes them stand out? It is not always that they are ‘perfect’ photos but rather that they convey something or make the viewer feel something for the photo or the subject. There are many examples from photo journalism right through to art photography of pictures that ignite the imagination and stir the soul!
Finding the Right Location
As is the rule of thumb in real estate, location is key to getting the right photos that inspire. Dramatic locations will usually result in dramatic photos as long as you have the right digital camera and a bit of patience. While what we see from professional photographers can be inspirational it is often the result of hundreds (sometimes thousands) of photos being taken.
5 Common Mistakes for Amateur Photographers
Starting out with photography has never been easier with a wide range of Sony, Canon and Olympus digital cameras on the market. However, despite the ease of use of many modern cameras there are still some common mistakes and bad habits that amateur photographers can create. So while the ‘point and click’ digital camera is here to stay (and improving) there are some tips to keep in mind to make your photos more memorable.
Four of the most common mistakes that new photographers looking to improve their skills make are:
- Using the wrong settings
- Incorrect framing of the photo
- Taking pictures at the wrong time of day
- Misusing additional equipment such as lenses and filters
How to Start a Photo Travel Blog
So you have taken your fancy Canon, Sony or Olympus digital camera on holidays and think your photos are good enough for the world? Well, you need to start up your own travel blog in order to start sharing your great travel pictures. This does not have to be a lot of hard work or even any money and there are many people who have already caught the travel photography bug.
Where do you start with your travel photo blog? Firstly, you need to check out other travel bloggers and see what they do. You might even find a site that accepts travel photos or you might want to start your own blog. Either way there are plenty of options for sharing your photography online and a modern digital camera makes it easy.
Getting the Right Travel Photos
First of all, you need to take the right photos when you are travelling. These may be simple snapshots of where you are travelling, landscape photos or even photos of the people you meet. The ideas and opportunities are endless and if you intend on writing about where you have travelled, great pictures will draw in the readers.
How to Make Sure You Never Lose Your Photos
Losing photos from a computer or digital camera can be very traumatic especially if they are of family, friends and special events in your life. While it used to be a case of lost, damaged or aging prints these days we have to worry about glitches in our digital products. Most of us now store all our photos on our computer (usually on the hard drive) and do not consider the implications of not having back ups.
Keeping photos safe does not mean you have to have perfect backup systems in place on your computer system. Instead, you have to have photos stored in more than one place in the event of a computer crash. It is also a good idea to have actual prints done of your most important photos so you will always have a physical copy. It is not good enough to leave all your photos on your Canon, Sony or Olympus digital camera.
Using Digital Backups
Learning From Famous Photos and Photographers
Famous photographers become that way for a reason and they are great to learn from if you have an expensive camera or just a compact Olympus digital camera to experiment on. It is a great idea to take a look at present and past photographers to see what they did and what they have captured with their lenses. Some of the following list are famous for their art photography while others have very successful commercial careers.
Max Dupain – Australia in Black & White
Famous for the photo Sunbathertaken on Bondi Beach in 1937 Max Dupain captured Australian life with his black and white photography. For a beginner, Max Dupain teaches the importance of good composition and how black and white photos can bring out contrast. After serving in World War Two his photography took on a documentary style.
This allowed Dupain to highlight post war Australian life and capture it for his audience. A natural style dominates his later work and it is this style that makes his photography so accessible for everyone. To make a living he worked a lot with magazines and advertising.
Adjusting Your Camera for That Perfect Moment
The idea of good photography is to capture moments as they happen. This can be difficult when you are learning, but with a new digital camera pointing the way with smart technology the task has gotten simpler. If you used cameras back when everything was on film you would know how painful it is when you had them developed and missed out on some opportune shots because of some setting you forgot on your camera. Now, most digital cameras, including compacts like the Olympus digital camera models, come with a range of settings to suit most situations.
The main ‘types’ of shots you will be taking usually include:
- Action shots
- Indoor photography
- Outdoor locations
- Posed photos
How to Make Your Images Ready for the Internet
These days most of our photos make it onto the internet as soon as they come off our digital camera. Sharing photos on Facebook, Twitter and the dedicated photo site Flikr has become a fun thing to do for both amateur and professional photographers. It lets you share your photos with friends, or if you are more serious, it lets you find an audience for your art.
The Internet age has given photography a new lease on life and has made it a more popular past time than it ever has been. Access to affordable compact devices such as an Olympus digital camera, Canon or Nikon has also made it easier for us to capture special moments. The more improvements that are made to our digital cameras, however, the more the file sizes increases which in turn makes it harder to publish on the net.
Photography Exercises to Help You Improve Your Pictures
Whether you are using a compact Olympus digital camera or something even more sophisticated modern photography allows you to do more faster. This can lead to photographers getting a little lazy and not practicing their skills, and instead, relying on high technology to produce good shots for them. This is why it is a good idea to get into the routine of sharpening your skills as well as trying new types of photography with your digital camera.
Photography exercises do not have to be like a school lesson and instead should be fun and creative. While there are many set exercises you can follow it is better to challenge yourself with a range of scenarios so that you can react better to them. This could be varying light conditions, different subjects as well as fun and challenging locations. You can even get together with some friends and do the photography together so it is even more fun!
How to Make Your Snapshots More Arty
You may have started taking photos just for a bit of fun but you might now want to look at how you can make your photography more artistic. This not only involves using your camera properly but also adding some thought and direction to the type of shots you want to take. Here are some simple art photo ideas to get you started:
- Photos in your favourite outdoor places if you want to try landscape photography.
- Indoor photos of where you live expressing how you feel about it.
- Portrait photos of your friends and family.
- Architectural photos of your nearby area.
Shooting With a Variety of Light Sources
Light is an obvious necessity if you want to do photography of any kind but you also need to know how you can use this light to your advantage. Depending on your camera, location and the type of photos you want to take you need to be able to adjust to varying light sources. Light that you will be shooting with varies from: natural light, artificial light (studio equipment), indoor light (such as fluorescent) through to experimental lights you might come up with yourself.
There are very rigid rules regarding light and camera use and you need to learn them so you can understand how they can be used. Start off with the basics and (because digital photos cost nothing to take) you can try doing the wrong things (such as shooting into the sun) to see how they affect photos. The key to good photography is always knowledge mixed with constant experimentation.
