Here are a few tips on how I see the world of photography.
I am often asked, "What brand of camera do you use?"
Most people won't ask you what brand of piano you're playing. It isn't necessarily the brand of camera (or the piano) that makes all the difference, it's how you use it! I have seen some nationally award winning artists at top-rate art shows that use a child's camera as their art medium!
This might sound like a highfalutin philosophy, but this is how I see it:
Lighting plus perspective create mood. In my mind, the subject of your photography is, indeed, very important, but it doesn't stand a chance if the angle, cropping and lighting doesn't offer a strong helping hand to your photography.
This photograph was completely unaltered:
I bought both cameras that I use since my first photograph at clearance sales, and both under $179. Off clearance, the most expensive would have been $349. Up to the time of this writing, have not used additional lenses or filters. My cameras are typical point-and-shoot models.
This photograph was completely unaltered:
I bought both cameras that I use since my first photograph at clearance sales, and both under $179. Off clearance, the most expensive would have been $349. Up to the time of this writing, have not used additional lenses or filters. My cameras are typical point-and-shoot models.
You can see some of my photography on my webpage:
or click on the large floral picture at the bottom of this blog. Not all of my photography is floral content. The picture is just somewhat representative of my other photography.
Samples of my photography can also be seen on my Facebook page by searching the email address:
MJKeller568@aol.com
Most importantly: What are you photographing?
If you go on a family vacation, by all means, please photograph your family and friends standing in front of Mount Rushmore, the Statue of Liberty, or Niagara Falls, for example - then make them move out of the shot, and take several pictures without them! Check my photography to see how man pictures of humans I have in my files. Other than **myself**, which is by far my favorite subject :), I SELDOM take pictures of humans. Taking pictures of people, in itself, is an art in it's own right. There is a lot of knowledge out there on that type of photography, but you won't find much of it in this article.
Second in the line of importance is:
Remember that once you click that button, and take a photograph, the picture that you have just taken has to speak volumes for *itself*.
Have you ever gotten home after an outing with your camera, and reviewed the pictures a couple days later? I bet you have seen several photos in that collection that made you stop and ask, "Why did I take that picture?" Or.... "Even thought the lighting, etc, is correct, and it's not a bad picture, the view isn't as nice as I thought it would be!" Or worse yet, after a major event, "Who is this person, and why did I take their picture?"
The reason that you are deleting all those pictures that you really don't want to keep, or you are posting bad pictures to websites is that when you snapped that picture, you were trying to capture a "moment" instead of a "picture". I have to take great issue with the film company that used the slogan "We are here to help capture the moments of your lives.". That isn't necessarily the truth, for reasons that will soon become apparent.
When you are standing in a large flower Garden, for example, and you snap a broad general picture, you were not aware that you were actually trying to capture the warm sunshine on your cheek, the smell of the air after a heavy rain, a whiff of the wisteria growing on the fence behind you, and the birds singing in the trees. At the time of this writing, there is no technology available that will allow you to convey the "moment" you were experiencing with all your senses. While I will practically kill myself trying to get you to experience those moments, I will have to sadly admit that it is impossible to capture them with either a video or still camera. With this consideration, we have come to the conclusion that the picture you take has to speak volumes for itself. The subject and how it is captured becomes the most important aspect of your photography.
Your viewers will never be able to feel the same wind on their cheek, that beam of much-needed sunlight on you felt on your shoulder, they will never hear that robin announce it is spring, nor will they ever share in smelling that beautiful Iris that you are trying to permanently capture. Your photograph has to do all the work by itself. When I am asked to review and critique other people's photography, I notice that 99% of the scenes they capture probably had some long-lost "moments" attached, and in the end, the photograph was too weak to stand on its own.
Even though Mark is still WAY TOO OFTEN attempted to take pictures that he will later regret ("Moment pictures", as we call them), he will occasionally start to aim the lens of a camera at a view...pause for a moment.... then put down the camera and walk away. Knowing very well, but wanting a response in any case, I will ask him, "Why didn't you get that shot?" He will answer me, "It was a 'moment', instead of a picture!" There you have it, folks! You CAN teach an old dog new tricks! :)
The moral of that saga: Make sure your photos can stand for themselves. You want to capture a photograph, not a moment!
Using the flash, and other settings on your camera:
I find the use of the flash from a point-and-shoot camera, for the lack of a better expression, rather rude, or minimally - cold and harsh. I can't say that I have never used a flash, but out of thousands of pictures taken, I can count on my hands the times I have used a flash. As a rule, I would apply the same philosophy to most general overhead lighting in any building.
The flash that comes with any point-and-shoot camera will cause harsh shadows in your photograph, and overhead lighting removes the tones in picture that help create mood.
I would strongly encourage you to experiment with the "Manual" settings that are on your camera: Shutter speed, aperture and film sensitivity (ISO), even though you aren't technically using 'film'. If you choose to use any of these settings, and deviate from the "smart / automatic" feature of your camera, you will need to use a tripod. Buying a tripod is much like buyinga camera: You can get good, cheap cameras, and you can get good, cheap tripods. I bought one of my 3 tripods at a retail store, and I picked up one of my other tripods at a thrift store, and the other at an estate sale. If you want to be absolutely certain that your camera will fit the tripod, you should buy the same brand of tripod as your camera. Generally, however, if you have the piece that screws into the bottom of your camera from one tripod, as in my case, it might work with other brands of tripods.
Why do you need a tripod? It isn't solely so you can look like a professional photographer. If you change **any** of the manual settings of your camera, you will get some horrible blur or distortion if a tripod is not used. Photography is next to impossible without a tripod if you change aperture, shutter speed or film / ISO sensitivity. In addition, you can take pictures in darker settings WITHOUT the use of a flash, allowing your picture to appear natural instead of being washed out. You can spend anywhere from a couple dollars to hundreds of dollars for a tripod. My most expensive tripod was $24, my least expensive was $4 at an estate sale.
If you experiment with the manual settings on a camera, it becomes a much more versatile machine. You should, however, 'remember what you did', and the environment you were in to get those results, so you can repeat them again when the opportunity arises. If you randomly change your camera's settings, and you get lucky and take a good picture with those settings, you won the battle, but you didn't win the war. Kind of a "give a man a fish, and he eats for a day, teach a man to fish, and he eats for a lifetime type deal! If you jot down, or remember the conditions that you used those settings, you can repeat them later with the same results, thus getting better use of your camera.
Using the flash, and other settings on your camera:
I find the use of the flash from a point-and-shoot camera, for the lack of a better expression, rather rude, or minimally - cold and harsh. I can't say that I have never used a flash, but out of thousands of pictures taken, I can count on my hands the times I have used a flash. As a rule, I would apply the same philosophy to most general overhead lighting in any building.
The flash that comes with any point-and-shoot camera will cause harsh shadows in your photograph, and overhead lighting removes the tones in picture that help create mood.
I would strongly encourage you to experiment with the "Manual" settings that are on your camera: Shutter speed, aperture and film sensitivity (ISO), even though you aren't technically using 'film'. If you choose to use any of these settings, and deviate from the "smart / automatic" feature of your camera, you will need to use a tripod. Buying a tripod is much like buyinga camera: You can get good, cheap cameras, and you can get good, cheap tripods. I bought one of my 3 tripods at a retail store, and I picked up one of my other tripods at a thrift store, and the other at an estate sale. If you want to be absolutely certain that your camera will fit the tripod, you should buy the same brand of tripod as your camera. Generally, however, if you have the piece that screws into the bottom of your camera from one tripod, as in my case, it might work with other brands of tripods.
Why do you need a tripod? It isn't solely so you can look like a professional photographer. If you change **any** of the manual settings of your camera, you will get some horrible blur or distortion if a tripod is not used. Photography is next to impossible without a tripod if you change aperture, shutter speed or film / ISO sensitivity. In addition, you can take pictures in darker settings WITHOUT the use of a flash, allowing your picture to appear natural instead of being washed out. You can spend anywhere from a couple dollars to hundreds of dollars for a tripod. My most expensive tripod was $24, my least expensive was $4 at an estate sale.
If you experiment with the manual settings on a camera, it becomes a much more versatile machine. You should, however, 'remember what you did', and the environment you were in to get those results, so you can repeat them again when the opportunity arises. If you randomly change your camera's settings, and you get lucky and take a good picture with those settings, you won the battle, but you didn't win the war. Kind of a "give a man a fish, and he eats for a day, teach a man to fish, and he eats for a lifetime type deal! If you jot down, or remember the conditions that you used those settings, you can repeat them later with the same results, thus getting better use of your camera.
About altering (manipulating) your photographs:
While I seldom alter my photography, on occasion I find a tweak here or there if not absolutely necessary, an interesting or fun addition to the photograph.
After changing whatever it is in the photograph that I want to change, I *always* save the file under another name, preserving the original, untouched photograph as a separate file.
Many people use Photoshop. I will not publicly down this software. It definitely has a designated purpose. You do have other choices, however - and they are absolutely free. I use Picasa 3, which is free no-strings attached software:
The following photograph was altered using Picasa:
Picasa not only helps you keep your files organized, but it offers:
* many photo altering features, such as red eye removal, adding "glow", retouching (got somebody in the background that you want to be removed from your photo?)
* Adding soft glow to a picture
* some better printing capabilities than my other software offers.
The other software that I find invaluable, yet absolutely free is GIMP.
Yes, it's called GIMP - Graphical Image Manipulation Program.
(or Google "GIMP" for other download sites)
The following photograph was created using GIMP. It consists of a sunrise from my front yard, and the hand that I photographed from a statue in a local cemetery, combined to get:
About archiving your digital files (photos or otherwise):
** DO NOT keep your photographs on the memory card that you have in your camera, or on a device such as a memory stick or a USB drive** Those things are easily lost, or if they are not lost, at some point, they will die, and take your fine photographs with them! **
It is an unfortunate fact that many people are lulled into the false security of believing that a computer's hard drive is a permanent storage device. At some point in the future, every hard drive that is manufactured by today's standards **WILL** fail. That is a given fact. With normal use, since I purchased my first computer in 1992, I have had probably 20 hard drives crash, taking EVERYTHING with it. Even though I am fortunate enough to have permanent copies of most of my photographs, there are several great shots that I can never duplicate that I have lost, and that I will never recover due to hard drive crashes.
Mass storage tip #1:
Every few months, but not as often as I should, I use cheap recordable CDs from Staples, Office Max, Office Depot, Walmart / Target, etc, to burn photos that I really want to keep. I label the CDs with a general label (Photo CD #1, for example), and I will often use Picasa 3, which is a free downloadable photo manipulation program to print off a page of 'tumbnail' photos. I fold up this page, and put it inside the CD jacket, so that some time in the future, when I have long since forgotten what photos I put on that CD, I can take out that little cheat sheet and look at the thumb nail photos to remind me of what photos are actually on that particular CD.
Tip #2 for mass, semi-permanent storage:
In addition, I have also purchased a fairly inexpensive mass storage device from Best Buy (an external hard drive). In the past, if I wasn't accessing this hard drive, they had a button on the front to completely turn them off. While it is entirely possible, yet not recommended, many people (including myself) would use these drives as just an alternative to your ordinary hard drive. They would store and run games and other programs from them, when their initial intended purpose was solely for storage.
The latest generation of these hard drives do not have an on / off button. When the computer is on, they are on - all the time. That doesn't stick with me that well, if you know what I mean. I am of the persuasion that I should 'turn it off if I'm not using it, to preserve and extend the life of the device." I still have my original MP3 player that is 5 yrs. old, and I use it every day. Mark, on the other hand, has gone through four MP3 players, and I doubt that the 4 MP3 players combined have had a total of 3 hours playing time on them!
Anywho, even though I accessed this new external hard drive only to store photos (less than 10 times, I would say), after about a year, it crashed with no hope of recovery. I took it back to Best Buy for them to test it. I was thinking that the power source was faulty. They told me that the problem was, indeed, with the hard drive, and not the power pack. I knew that the hard drive had a 6 year warranty. I sent it back to the manufacture for a replacement, and I received the replacement in less than a week.
Now, I have the external hard drive completely disconnected from the computer and it's power source unplugged from the wall - completely powered down. Every 3 or 4 months (or after an important photo shoot), I will plug it back into my computer to transfer photos and other documents that I want to keep. After the transfer, it gets unplugged again.
Tip #4)
If you have photos that you REALLY want to keep, print them out on a stable photo paper and archive them in an acid-free photo album or better yet, frame them. I have far too many photos to print out, but I have printed the ones that I consider the most valuable to me.
Happy shooting....
- Michael
Happy shooting....
- Michael
