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• Light Shaping and Snoot One big benefit of using a hard light is that it is easier to control where it is going. Diffused light flies off everywhere, and because of its ability to wrap around a subject, it can be difficult to fine tune. If you have a hard light that is striking more of the scene than you want, you can easily block it with barn doors, flags, snoots, cookies, and gobos. All of these are basically objects you put in front of or around the light to block or modify it. I call it shaping the light. Barn...
• 5 Habits of Highly Effective Photographers To be truly effective when taking photographs you need a mix of skill, knowledge and above all, patience. Frustration through a lack of ability to get the shot you want will, more often than not, drastically reduces your chances of succeeding. Don't let your emotions get in the way, keep a level head and apply these five habits of highly effective Photographers. 01 Don’t expect your camera to do all the work This means saying goodbye to ‘Auto’ and bravely using other modes such as Aperture P...
• Cookies And Gobos In photography, we call these patterned flags a "cookie". They are very useful for adding a little life to a backdrop or creating a scene. In the theater, they are called "gobos" which stands for GOes Before OpticS the gobo is physically located between the light source and the lights optics. It is actually inserted into the light's housing. To avoid being burned up and ruined by the intense heat of the lights, theatrical gobos are generally made of metal. In photography, we don't place a gobo...
• Hard Light What is hard light? We define a hard light as one that is small in relation to the subject, generally un-diffused and it creates hard-edged, dark shadows. What we are looking at here with hard light is the light quality and finding a suitable balance that provides the light quality we are after. Our key light is the light that we are using as our main light source. It is the brightest light hitting your subject. Now let's spend a minute or two discussing the light quality being emitted by our...
• Editing Photos on iPhone and Android with ParkerArrow Lightroom Presets The scope and ability for easily editing photos on iPhone and Android have come a long way. You no longer need to have a full on desktop computer setup to get that amazing look you're chasing after. In my opinion, the iPhone photo editor, and yes, I'm leaning a little more towards iPhone here for now, but hear me out. The best iPhone photo editor right now has to be Lightroom CC. You've no doubt seen how many Instagrammers have exploded in popularity over the very recent couple of years. This h...
• What is Depth of Field? The depth of field is simply how large the focused area in a photo actually is. Let's see how this technique can be used to help create emphasis in your photos. Everyone has seen photographs in which everything in the picture is crystal clear, from the foreground flower to the distant mountains. You've also seen pictures where only the main subject is sharply rendered, and everything else is blurry. These are two examples of the effect which the depth of field can have. The image where the mai...
• Photo Exercise Exercise 1 Here's what you do; go into a field in the early morning, just after the sun clears the horizon. With the sun directly in front of you, get down low to the ground and scout around until you find a nicely shaped spider web. Beautiful isn't it? Now, as long as you're there anyway, take a few shots for your collection. Get down low and fill the frame with the web. Don't forget to pre-visualise and write everything in your notebook. Once you are done with that - make a mental note o...
• 12 Ways To Find New Photography Inspiration They say that ‘if you aim at nothing, you’ll usually hit it.’ So I encourage you to set some specific goals on your path to finding photography inspiration. Here are some tasty tips to inspire you – one for each month of the year which will help you improve your Dark Photography skills. 01 Print your images Are your photographs destined to remain hidden on a dusty old hard drive forever, unseen by the world? Remember the buzz you once had in the pre-digital days (if you were around then), wh...
• 13 Bad Photography Habits That Can Ruin Your Photos Do this simple test below. See if you have developed some of these bad photography habits. They are easy to pick up, but hard to shake off! For each bad habit, give yourself a test score. Finally, resolve to drop at least one of these habits this year. 01 Leave the Camera at Home The best camera is the one you have with you – even if it’s on your smartphone. Not every photo you take is photography competition material, or is of commercial value. Regardless, a huge megapixel count and optimum l...
• Light Angles Matter Light angles can make a big difference to your photography. Using a side-glancing light to accent an item with shadows can soften and balance out your image. Hard light is great for that. What about the face of a young girl wanting to be a model? How would you light her face? A glancing, hard light is going to show every blemish and line in her face. Do you think that she would want that type of photograph in her portfolio? Probably not! By the way, she doesn't have to be a model. Any woman is...
• 10 Commandments for Landsacapers To take the stunning photographs you want to there is a lot more to consider than just the old point and shoot. Planning is the key and you will find that the more research and planing you do the less time you will need to spend trying to figure out the how. This will also reduce any potential expense you may encounter through the consumption of not just time, but other resources that don't come freely. Let's explore the ten commandments for landscape photography that have helped us catch that...
• Light Qualities Previously we learned a bit about photography lighting and light qualities that have to be considered when you are planning your creative vision. Some of the questions to consider include; it hard light? Is it soft light? Does the light give off a white or yellow tone? This is a sample of how hard light can present on a subject. Notice how the distinction between light and shadow is very obvious. The lighter areas between the nose and lips, and on the chin are a stark contrast to the shadow cas...
• Control Viewer Emotions Try to start thinking of light not only as a way of getting a proper exposure onto the film or digital sensor, but as a way of controlling your viewer's emotions. When you start adding an emotional component to your photographs, you will immediately leap ahead of all the other local photographers. The difference between hard light and soft light here can be very powerful. Hard light is also good for defining texture and irregular surfaces. So, as an example, think of a bride in her wedding gown...
• Making Your Light Bigger If you want to make your photography light source larger, but don't want to diffuse it with a softbox or scrim, you could bounce it off a wall, a reflector or fire it into an umbrella. Give this a try and see how the light source has gotten larger. I appreciate that most of you probably don't have studio lights, and may never get them, but it is still important to know how to modify and shape light. With digital photography, it is pretty easy to control the color casts on your final photo, so t...
• Lightroom Presets for Portraits Ok, so I'm going to let you look behind the curtain, so to speak, and let you in on one of my secrets to how I keep my Clients happy with their portraits; I've relied on Lightroom presets for portraits for a while now. You may wonder where the value is in using presets in post-production, let me explain. How many times have you come back after a paid portrait photo shoot, like a wedding, only to find out that the light was not quite what you hoped it would be? Even when you checked your shots u...
• Fotocast – A Unique and Powerful Weather Forecast App Designed Just for Photographers! There’s a new weather forecast app on the scene for mobile devices. But this one is different from the rest - it’s designed just for photographers and videographers! When you first open the app, it asks you what type of photographer you are, and presents many choices. This is because the app is fully customized to what kind of photography you practice. Obviously, different types of photographers will look for different types of weather conditions that work best for their craft. The first thi...
• Using Your Digital Camera What makes one image more pleasing than another? By following A few simple steps about where to place elements within your pictures, you'd be surprised how much you can improve your photography. Composition is the name given to the combination all the elements within the photo and their position in the scene. Compositional rules can be thought of as guides to help get better photos. Here are some key Techniques to keep up your sleeve. Framing Always fill the frame with your subject. If you...
• 5 Tips From Annabel Law; The Top Wedding Photographer in Singapore Have you found that you are struggling for wedding photograph ideas that are unique? You're not alone if you answered 'yes' to that, in fact, in my experience, it is normally the Bride who is the most apprehensive about her wedding photos, and what they will look like. This is why we have a few tips on the topic from a woman who I believe is the top wedding photographer in Singapore. Annabel Law has worked with hundreds of people on countless photo shoots in her time, thus, earning herself the...
• Megapixles, Memory Cards and Speed Knowing your megapixels and data can be a little confusing when you first start looking at cameras. You end up flooded with questions about how many megapixels you want, what kind of lens, what sort of photos you will use the camera for, and that's before the upsell for extra equipment. When looking at the sales pitch for a digital camera, it's easy to understand why it can seem like an endless stream of information on all of the specs, particularly about the megapixels. However, this is a cri...