Point and Shoot Artistry. Volume 2 - Framing your Subject -or- Why you might not want to center everything you shoot.

Welcome to volume 2 of my series of posts to help you become a better photographer using your point and shoot camera.

In the last post we covered how to make sure your subject is in focus by half way holding down your shutter release button. Hopefully you have employed this technique and come up with some good results!

Today we're going to take things a little bit further by talking about framing subjects in the viewfinder, rules of composition (and how to break them) and how to generally make your photos look more dynamic.

As with every post in this series, all technical instructions are based on general functions on MOST digital point and shoot cameras. If something I write in these blogs doesn't work for your camera...always consult your cameras owners manual.

And now...on with Volume 2 - Angles and Centering.

Framing your subject in the viewfinder is the first step in creating a photo that can be amazing, or a resounding flop. A vast majority of us are guilty of sticking something in front of the camera, centering it in the middle of the viewfinder (generally underneath that strategically placed box/dot/star/etc.) and snapping a shot. Then later on when we look at the image or print, we generally go back and wish we would have done something to make it look not so boring and stagnant.

To fix this problem the simplest and most effective thing to do is to move your subject around the frame, adjusting how closely you are zoomed in, and adding empty space around them. But...but...EMPTY SPACE?!?! Yes, leave some room around your subject to add some area for the eye to rest, plus if you have some negative/empty space around, your viewer will be much more likely to focus their attention on the true subject of your photo...what ever that may be.

For example....

In this image we have an hourglass stationed beautifully atop a concrete tie along side some rail road rails.

Sure, it's an interesting subject, the background (what you can see of it anyway) seems to be interesting. But since the hourglass is so centered and filling a majority of the frame it's a pretty stagnant, safe shot that doesn't really say much.

So, how do we adjust this photo so that it makes more of an impact? Let's move it around the frame for our next shot...

In this shot, I moved the hourglass further to the left of the frame. This leaves more of the railway tracks to be seen, gives more of an idea of where in space/time/the world this object is located, and it offsets the visual weight of the photo.

The visual weight of a photo, in it's most simplistic terms, is how much stuff is crammed into one side of an image. The balance between left and right, or top and bottom.

Moving your subject to one end of the frame or the other will instantly move the heaviest part of the visual weight of an image and create an entirely different feeling.

So, now that you're armed with a bit of new found or newly refreshed knowledge, go out and photograph something interesting. Give it some empty space and see what sort of effect and feeling you can elicit by moving in around. I would love to see some of your examples, so please feel free to drop me a line and attach an image in the comment section of this post!

Back to Basics

The best thing about digital cameras and the computer technology that goes along with them, is that you can cram hundreds maybe even thousands of images on a single media card. A wise man once told me of digital photography "Electrons are free man, shoot it till ya get it."

It's true...you can shoot and fill your card full of 300 images and hopefully capture 10 good ones in what I call the modified Rambo "shoot'em till ya hit 'em" sort of routine. The other option, you can slow down a bit in your shooting and get more good photos than bad. Really think about what you are shooting and make it count. Even though you have 4 gigs of memory to play with, maybe in any given day you only shoot 30 shots, but since you slowed down a bit and really looked at what you were shooting, 25 of your 30 came out well! It's a good thing!

A great way to practice this new outlook on photography is to bust out the old 35mm film camera and run some film through it. When you only have 36 frames to work with, you will tend to slow it down a bit and use them much more wisely. Plus if you have been reading this blog for any amount of time, you know I'm a big fan of film.

 

So get out and shoot, take your time, and make 'em count. I would love to see what you all come up with so feel free to drop me a link in the comment section of any of the posts on the blog.

Photo-Go-Round: My Choice

Today I present to you the final installment of my first series from the Photo-Go-Round assignment my roomate/friend/designer extraordinaire presented me with last year in her inspiration book. This final panorama is from sort of a rural setting near Helvetia, Oregon. Just off of the Sunset Highway (major Oregon throughfare between Portland and the Coast) there is a little tavern/cafe that is perported to have the best burgers in the metro area. No small feat I assure you...it's a big area.

I think my favorite thing in this photo, as with my urban location panorama, is how funny moving things can be in this sort of media. You'll notice a random floating golf cart in the center of the photo. It's actually being carried on a trailer behind a pickup truck. I was very curious what it would look like if I just caught random bits of the hauler as it passed by...now I know! I love it.

Even though this is the final installment of my first series, I will be persuing another series of Panos in the near future...very interesting things happen when you let photos collide. :)

So, without further ado...Photo-Go-Round installment three...my choice!

Inspiration and General Coolness....

As photographers, designers, painters...just artists in general, I think it's important that we keep appraised of all the coolness going on in the world outside of our own personal mediums. *Gets on soap box* In order to be artists, we need to be able to appreciate the great work of our peers all over the world. We should be able to look at others work, and take from it inspiration and discover new techniques. *gets off soap box*

One of my favorite places to surf around aimlessly on slow days at work or when i'm just generally bored is Notcot.org. The cool thing about notcot specifically is that users and viewers can submit the coolness that they find on the internet. It's an invaluable resource to share ideas and what you think looks amazing, and see what everyone else is creating and looking at as well.

The site tends to lean a bit towards the design end of life, but there are some great photographers whose work gets highlighted and some AMAZING furniture and illustration work as well.

Go forth my friends...see the work of others and take something from it!