Photography Information |
|
Inspired Vision
A picture is worth a thousand words, so goes a Chinese proverb. A picture of a smiling child always brings a smile to our face and a picture of hungry and sick people always arouse feelings of compassion. Every picture if carefully looked at is a story, a piece of art and not just a two dimensional image. Names like Ansel Adams and Alfred Stieglitz are photographers whose names are etched in the hallways of photographic history with gold. Looking at their works not only provides inspiration but a new eye and a new dimension to life. Their work is not only photographs, but time frozen forever. What exactly goes behind making an image is not only skill but an art form. It's an expression and a story told through the eyes of the photographer. "Photography helps us to see" is cent percent right because it truly does so. It makes the eye wonder and the mind imagine. Photography can be very rewarding and can lead to times where you feel the power of an image tremendously. A photograph taken at some particular time or at some instance may lead you to wonder about life, poverty, birds, mountains, hunger, love and unlimited emotions and feelings. To be a successful photographer you need more energy and perseverance rather than knowledge. To know the basics and technical know how photography does not take as much as learning techniques and developing ones own style. Like many professional photographers, one could be on the road to photographic salvation by working hard and giving it your best wile making continuous. Learning with time is something that has irreplaceable value. A photographer's life can be easy and tough at the same time. The best results are spawned from experience and through experiments. The perils of a night long shoot or the wait for a perfect sunset can be both tiring but nevertheless rewarding when you get first prints out of the lab. Careers in photography can involve being a freelance photographer, a full time photographer, or an image editor, to name a few. Work ranges from industries such as travel, fashion, journalism, stock art and many others. Just like any other form of work, photography needs dedication, hard work and patience. The more of these ingredients and the more successful you can be. It becomes more rewarding once you get into an industry and start creating your own style and niche. "A great photograph is a full expression of what one feels about what is being photographed in the deepest sense, and is, thereby, a true expression of what one feels about life in its entirety" so said Ansel Adams. Had it not been for photography, the world probably would have been a different place, for knowingly or unknowingly we do find solace and entirety in the pictures we see in everyday of our lives. The next time you see a picture anywhere stare at it for a while, and try to find the story. Maybe you will find something new about yourself. I am a freelance Photographer and journalist based in the Middle East. Goto my websites for more info:- http://www.yemberzal.com
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Getting Rid of Red Eye The photos you took of the party are really great - except for one thing: "red eye" makes everyone look like extras from a low budget horror movie! Red eye can be a real problem if you're taking photos with a flash. It's caused by the reaction of light from the flash on the inner workings of your eye. Pictures of animals (especially cats) can suffer from a similar condition know as "pet eye". Traveling to Europe with Your Digital Camera? The Vacation Season is fast approaching and naturally you will be taking your digital camera along for the journey. After all your vacations are far and few between and it is nice to look back on those memories as you slave away at your job. However, when you travel with a digital camera, it is a completely different experience from that of traveling with a film camera. This is a lesson that far too many travelers seem to be learning the hard way, especially if you're traveling to Europe. After a couples years of relying solely on digital camera for taking photos when I travel, there are things you should consider before you head off on your next trip. Megapixel Cameras: How Many Megapixels Do You Need? Knowing which megapixel camera to buy can be intimidating. There are literally hundreds of models of digital cameras out on the market today. How can you know how many megapixels you'll need? Is your Digital Camera Compatible With Your Computer? So you recently bought a digital camera or perhaps your thinking about it. And perhaps you may be wondering how many pictures will your computer hold? First you need to answer a few questions to come to an accurate conclusion. First, how big is your hard drive and how much free space does it currently have? You can find the answer to that question by first left-clicking on "My Computer:" Right-click on "C drive." A menu should appear. Left-click on "Properties." A pie chart should be displayed that will show you the size of the hard drive and how much of the disk drive is free. Your next step is too know how many mega pixels does your camera have? A pixel is a light sensing cell on the image pickup device. African Safari Photography Best Five Destinations Good wildlife safari photography is not only about composition and camera equipment because you first need to find your subjects before you can even lift your camera. This best five African wildlife destinations list helps you do that. Travel and Scenic Photography 101 When you're driving through the mountains somewhere, and you notice a car parked half off the road and some guy leaning to the left to avoid a branch with his Rebel 2000 camera in the act of focusing, you've met me. I do this because, to me, a trip isn't fulfilling unless I've preserved that beauty for posterity. I'd like to share some of the techniques that make scenic photography such a wonderful artform - simple, yet elegant. First off, equipment. As much as the cheapo disposable camera beckons, get real. These cameras have fisheye lenses which I call "spam" lenses. They cram everything in, with equal blurriness and boringness. Good photos are sharp, unless you use blur for artistic effect. Sharp comes from an adjustable lens. It can be a fixed lens or a zoom, but it must focus specially for each picture. Fixed lenses are limiting for scenic pictures, where to frame the shot you may need to move long distances. Imagine using a fixed lens on the Washington Monument, when you're half a block away! Zooms get my vote, even though they often don't have as wide an aperture, which limits their capabilities in low light situations. Practically speaking, an SLR is the absolute best. They are lightweight, and can be used with top quality lenses. Film SLRs tend to be less expensive, but have the limitations of film, meaning you have to get it developed and so forth. Digital SLRs are VERY expensive, so for the budget conscious either go with a film SLR or a high quality basic digital camera. With digital, resolution is also a critical factor, so look at the specs before you buy. OK, we've got the camera, emotions are running high, and that's great, but not too great! Sometimes I find a spot that is so wonderful, I start shooting like a madman, only to be disappointed by the pictures. What happened? Emotions. When you experience a place, there are sounds, aromas and breezes as well as the visuals of the spot. Needless to say, you can't photograph all of these elements, only the visual. When overwhelmed by the spectacle of a scenic hotspot, we are often overwhelmed by all of these elements. So what to do? Look through your camera. The viewfinder does not lie (usually). Try to see what you are looking at as the finished picture. Most people perfunctorily take pictures, hoping that somehow the shot will come out great. If you wonder how the pictures came out when you are on the way to the drug store to get them, you're doing something wrong. At the moment you click the pic, you should know exactly what you will get. (Of course with digital, that's not a trick!). Now, I was a tad dishonest in saying that you can't capture all of the elements of a scene. You can hint at them. For starters, motion. Yes, even in a still picture, there is motion. Something happened before, during and after your picture. In a mountain vista scene, you may find something that hints at motion, whether it be a branch of a tree that has been swaying in the breeze, or a river flowing through the valley below. These add a sense of motion. Then there's the "rule of thirds." When you place the main object of the picture smack-dab in the middle, it is static and boring. Place it one third of the way from either side, and you IMPLY motion. Put the horizon in a landscape photo a third of the way up or down, not across the middle. Remember, when a person looks at a picture, their eyes move. You want to frame your photo to help that movement. If you can find some lines in the scene, such as a skyline, cloud formation, path through the forest, etcetera, use it interestingly, and with the rule of thirds to draw your viewer's eyes into the picture. Avoid "summit syndrome." You get to the top of Mount Washington and shoot the majestic vista. Great. The pictures come out ... boring! How? No PERSPECTIVE. Big vistas will be flat unless you have an object in the foreground, such as a rock or a tree, to give them perspective. Then the eye really grasps how big this scene is. People enjoying the view is a real winner, because the viewer may identify with their emotions, giving the image real impact. Cheese! Yes, you do have to take the family photos. It's obligatory. But when you do, make sure that they show the LOCATION of the photo. Otherwise, you might as well do it on your driveway. Frame the scene in context, with landmarks as part of the picture. Find a way to tell as story in the picture, such as little Sara climbing up the rocks by the waterfall. Finally, any element in the picture that hints at more senses than just the visual will make it remarkable. Actor headshots for example, tell a story about the subject. You can almost hear them saying their next lines. If you photograph a garden, the viewer may experience the aroma of the flowers. A tourist street with an accordion player on the corner may have your amazed friends whistling "Dixie." In summation, picture taking on travel is recording the experience in a satisfying way. Use motion, perspective, sensory, storytelling and so forth, to bring your photos to life. Oh, and needless to say, make your job easy and go to great places! See you at the overlook! The Beginner Buyers Guide To Digital Cameras, Or The Ins And Outs Of Megapixels The most important part of buying a digital camera is making sure that the one you select meets all of your needs. Digital Camera Batteries Every device needs a driving force to operate, just as every living thing needs a heart to keep it alive! Basically electric power does this job for any kind of devices nowadays. Similarly for any digital camera too, a good battery is necessary in order to ensure an excellent performance from it as long as possible. Being such a crucial task as if searching for a good heart for a human being, perhaps the most tedious thing about digital cameras is the quest for their battery consumption and thereby finding a suitable one for any particular one. Yet a basic overview regarding this so important component of a digital camera makes the ventures of the users somewhat less complicated and makes life easier with a proper selection of the battery! Optimize Your Photos for the Web It doesn't matter if your emailing photos of your grandson or putting images of your latest product on your online store. Too many people don't consider optimizing their photos for the web. We've all been on too many web pages where it seemed that the photos would never load, and sometimes they didn't. So here are some steps to make sure that your photos show up on your site. A Guide to Disposable Digital Cameras Disposable Cameras (also called single-use cameras) first came on the market as film cameras. You would take the entire camera back where you bought it and they would crack it open, take out the film and process it, resulting in photos that were virtually indistinguishable from photos taken with a more conventional camera. Now, following the trends in conventional cameras, there is a choice between using film or digital disposable cameras. Where Do Great Ideas Come From? At a Photo Club meeting I attended recently, the President made a comment on another meeting he had attended, where someone in the audience asked the presenter where to find good subjects to photograph. The presenter in question started giving specifics instead of identifying the core issues in question, Attitude and Perspective. Black and White is Beautiful Think about Laurel and Hardy for a moment, or Charlie Chaplin, and even Harold Lloyd. All true examples of early cinema genius. Today's DVDs offer the opportunity of not only watching these classics in their pure black and white format but also in the DVD provides a colorized version. Essentially though the colorized version never quite looks right, even though it's meant to look more modern and more realistic to latter day cinema. Crooked Horizons in Your Photos? ? Here is a Five Minute Digital Fix Remember the good old photography days? Picture Framing for Photographers - Part 2 There are two sources for obtaining the moulding for making a frame. You can firstly start with a straight piece of timber, and using a home routing system make your own moulding shape with a rebate to take the art work. Alternatively you can pick from a large range of ready finished mouldings available from your local frame shop or hardware store. I recommend the latter. It's easier, the choice is much wider, and it's more cost effective. However, one word of warning. Always look for a moulding with a good straight back and not too flat on the surface. If the moulding has a bump or some raised section in the top surface it will cut and join easier than a flat moulding. Most mouldings are made from pine or obeche. These are soft grain timbers and cut and join well. Hard timbers like ramin are more difficult to work with. What Should You Look for in a New Camera? These parameters are discussed at 2 levels: -Based on degree of functional use of available features -Based on the type of photography you want to attempt -->Based on degree of functional use of available features A person who is happy with his or her camera model usually responds with the following words of praise. 'Incredible ease of use' 'User-friendly controls' 'Intelligently and thoughtfully designed' 'Excellent value for money' 'Light and compact' These are the kind of terms that you will come across from camera owners who are satisfied with their camera models. These superlatives sum up what people usually look for or could look for at an overall level in their camera. It is a broad evaluation based on design elements, size and affordability. Before you make a decision to purchase you should explore a little further and study the type of features available to you. Unless you make the attempt to understand the features at your disposal, there is the risk of being stuck with a model that does not suit your particular requirements. Let's take a look at what features you should look for, as well as the features that you should be wary of when you choose a camera system. -->Features to Look For 1. The lens is by far the most important device in your camera. The quality of the lens ensures the sharpness of your image. The camera lens is described by length (given in mm), known as the focal length of the lens. 50mm is the standard focal length in a lens. A lens of shorter length is known as a wide-angle lens and is used usually by landscape photographers. A lens with focal length greater than 50mm is called a telephoto lens and is especially useful to professional photographers in capturing distant images. There are also cameras with a zoom lens. A zoom lens can offer various focal lengths, so you have a lens capable of many focal lengths. Simple put, when you use a zoom lens you can make your subject bigger or smaller within the frame. For instance, a wide-angle zoom can cover a range of focal lengths below 50mm, or a telephoto zoom gives you a range of higher order focal lengths. Some superior zoom lenses can take you from wide angle to standard and through to telephoto ranges. The power of the zoom lens is defined by the extent of magnification from a lower focal length to a higher end and is given as 2x, 3x and so on. Some lens tips: --A 50mm or 100mm lens is considered adequate for most non-professional hobby users. The professionals usually go for telephoto lenses of 200mm or more. A lens with higher focal length costs a lot more. Most beginners don't need to invest in a telephoto lens. --Check if your camera is compatible with the range of lenses that the manufacturer of your model has on offer. Most manufacturers have hundreds of lens options on offer and your requirement for lenses varies as you progress in photography. Your camera has to be compatible with lenses of higher focal length and speed. If you are planning to upgrade your camera by buying another model from the same manufacturer, check for compatibility with older accessories so that you can put to use some of the lenses already available with you and save yourself an additional expense. 2. Depth-of-field preview button A depth-of-field preview button is a necessity if you want to achieve better focus. It allows you to identify the area that will be in focus in your photograph. This area is referred to as the 'depth of field'. When you adjust the focus in your camera the preview button is a useful tool that can help you vary the focus and depth of field in different shots. 3. Image sensor resolution In digital cameras, there is no film in use but this is instead replaced by a device called the image sensor. The image sensor renders colors, is sensitive to light and is the device that captures images in small pixels on its surface. Image resolution is a measure of the sharpness or level of detail in photographic images. Image resolution is expressed as a number and is measured in mega pixels. High-end professional use cameras have an image sensor resolution of around 12 mega pixels and the most advanced professional models go up to almost 14 mega pixels. At the mid range you have camera models with resolution ranging from 2 - 6 mega pixels. To deliver large format prints of superior quality, you should go for models with resolution greater than 3 mega pixels. At the lower end, you have models of 1 mega pixel or less and the sharpness of the photograph is slightly inferior compared to cameras with higher values of image sensor resolution. Lower pixel models are best suited for small format prints. 4. If you have the facility for Auto-bracketing it can be a very useful tool. Auto-bracketing enables the camera to automatically take 3 exposures or in some cameras 5 exposures of the same shot by varying the Exposure Value (EV) to lighten or darken an image. Each of the images will be slightly differently exposed and this is a great tool to ensure that you capture the moment perfectly. You can bank on at least one being a properly exposed picture. This tool comes in handy especially for professional photographers. 5. If tonal quality of the photograph is your top priority when you choose a camera then it is best that you go for a digital camera. Photographic prints of scenes captured on a digital camera have a level of tonal quality that is far superior to best quality traditional prints. 6. There are sophisticated camera models available today that can capture movement and audio-visual images. If you want to go beyond static images and capture the first steps of a child or activities during family get-togethers, then you should look for a camera with these advanced capabilities. It will create a better experience when you go down memory lane. The Kodak Easyshare LS753 Zoom Digital Camera is one such model that offers audio-visual capability. Making Money With Digital Photography And Live Events A few years ago I became interested in digital photography, mainly for web publishing and personal reasons. You know, how nice is it now to NOT have to deal with film, scanning pictures, and the costs of developing all of those "not great" photos that you didn't know were so bad until you paid to have them developed! The Naked Truth on Shooting Nudes There are major obstacles to overcome to get into nude photography, not least of which is the need to practise technique. By its very nature there has to be at least one subject, and the big problem for the photographer here is image. To some the image of nude photographer is tied in with the "dirty Macintosh" brigade, with the false wig and dark glasses. Make Your Digital Camera Batteries Last Longer One technology that hasn't kept up with the rapid pace of new digital cameras is camera batteries. The more features a camera has, the quicker it seems to use up precious battery power. There are three features of digital cameras that chew up battery life the quickest: Digital Cameras Demystified Demystifying Digital Camera Jargon How to Buy Wholesale Disposable Cameras Wholesale disposable cameras are disposable cameras bought in quantity. Bulk disposable cameras are the best single-use camera deal online. If you really want to save money, disposable digital and disposable film cameras can be bought wholesale, in quantity. |
home | site map |
© 2005 |