When we’re learning to compose good shots, we can get some wonderful creative ideas by looking at others’ work. It’s not that we want to copy their style, instead we need to absorb and remember the ideas and concepts; then apply that knowledge when we create our own images. Here are a few Photography Composition Tips that will help take your photography from ordinary to extra-ordinary.

Learn the Basics

There are many wonderful resources out there either on the web or in book form that can help you learn the basics of photography. You need to know how to work your camera so you get the proper exposure. Knowing how to use your shutter speed, f-stops and ISO settings are important to achieve the shots you envision in your mind. Choosing the proper lens also takes a bit of thinking and using a tripod is a must in certain situations.

Use of Foreground Elements

A foreground element in a photo will be the first thing that a viewer will see. Sometimes people will use a prop, a gate, a rock, a tree or a small object to grab attention and lead the viewer into the photograph. Using foreground elements will give depth and meaning to the rest of the image.

Use of Standard Compositional Elements. Diagonal lines is one of the most effective compositional tools that is used to lead the viewer to the main point of interest. Setting up the shot by using an imaginary triangle will help take the viewer to from one point to the next and back again to the start, giving a feeling of completeness. This is a very useful tool when setting up portraits that contain more than two people. The use of S-curves and shapes are also a great way of leading the eye around the photo.

Using Light

Nothing adds more drama or more interest to an image than good use of light. Proper use of light and shadows give the image a three dimensional feel. Painting Masters of the past knew that the balance between light and shadows was of primary importance in giving their paintings and portraits life. Being able to identify and use available light sources in an artistic and interesting way is an art that takes plenty of practice and patience. Composing your shot to make use of this light can take your photos from good to spectacular.
Points to Remember

Here’s some final Composition tips for you to remember when composing your image:

~ Make sure your horizon line is level.
~ Look for distracting elements. Poles coming from heads, wires etc.
~ Watch your depth of field.
~ Keep it simple.

Being critical of what you see through the viewfinder and using these composition skills will take your images from being merely good shots to absolutely amazing and creative photographic art.

Once you practice using these simple tips, it will become second nature and your shots will improve every single time. Spend the time to practice and learn from each shot you take. You will start to see a difference in your photography and then it will become effortless.

Benipayo Photography

San Jose  | Studio | Photography | Children

Contact: Michael at michael@benipayo.com

408-717-3670  — 415-763-7643

Scott Voelker is the creator of NewPortraitBiz. He has taught 1,000′s of students how to start a photography business. To receive his Free video lessons visithttp://newportraitbiz.com
Visit Scott’s Blog at http://newportraitbiz.com/blog for even more up to date Free lessons.

When we’re learning to compose good shots, we can get some wonderful creative ideas by looking at others’ work. It’s not that we want to copy their style, instead we need to absorb and remember the ideas and concepts; then apply that knowledge when we create our own images. Here are a few Photography Composition Tips that will help take your photography from ordinary to extra-ordinary.

Learn the Basics

There are many wonderful resources out there either on the web or in book form that can help you learn the basics of photography. You need to know how to work your camera so you get the proper exposure. Knowing how to use your shutter speed, f-stops and ISO settings are important to achieve the shots you envision in your mind. Choosing the proper lens also takes a bit of thinking and using a tripod is a must in certain situations.

Use of Foreground Elements

A foreground element in a photo will be the first thing that a viewer will see. Sometimes people will use a prop, a gate, a rock, a tree or a small object to grab attention and lead the viewer into the photograph. Using foreground elements will give depth and meaning to the rest of the image.

Use of Standard Compositional Elements. Diagonal lines is one of the most effective compositional tools that is used to lead the viewer to the main point of interest. Setting up the shot by using an imaginary triangle will help take the viewer to from one point to the next and back again to the start, giving a feeling of completeness. This is a very useful tool when setting up portraits that contain more than two people. The use of S-curves and shapes are also a great way of leading the eye around the photo.

Using Light

Nothing adds more drama or more interest to an image than good use of light. Proper use of light and shadows give the image a three dimensional feel. Painting Masters of the past knew that the balance between light and shadows was of primary importance in giving their paintings and portraits life. Being able to identify and use available light sources in an artistic and interesting way is an art that takes plenty of practice and patience. Composing your shot to make use of this light can take your photos from good to spectacular.
Points to Remember

Here’s some final Composition tips for you to remember when composing your image:

~ Make sure your horizon line is level.
~ Look for distracting elements. Poles coming from heads, wires etc.
~ Watch your depth of field.
~ Keep it simple.

Being critical of what you see through the viewfinder and using these composition skills will take your images from being merely good shots to absolutely amazing and creative photographic art.

Once you practice using these simple tips, it will become second nature and your shots will improve every single time. Spend the time to practice and learn from each shot you take. You will start to see a difference in your photography and then it will become effortless.

***

Benipayo Photography

Portrait | San Jose | Wedding | Photographer | San Francisco

Contact: Michael at michael@benipayo.com

408-717-3670  — 415-763-7643

Author:  Scott Voelker is the creator of NewPortraitBiz. He has taught 1,000′s of students how to start a photography business. To receive his Free video lessons visit http://newportraitbiz.com
Visit Scott’s Blog at http://newportraitbiz.com/blog for even more up to date Free lessons.

In this article you will find 6 composition and framing tips to help you improve your digital photography skills and create shots that are more than just average. Practice these simple tips the next time you grab your camera.

Tip #1 Shoot Vertical

When shooting a human subject, your format will be vertical 99% of the time. This is what a photographer calls a “Portrait”. If you shoot horizontally, it’s referred to as a “Landscape”.

Tip #2 Shoot Off Center

One thing that a lot of beginning photographers do is capture their subject exactly in the middle of the frame. There is no rule that says you have to place the subject in the center of the photograph. Some compositions can be more exciting and dramatic if the subject is framed off-center. It gives the image a sense of movement and leads the viewer into the photographer.

Tip # 3 Fill The Frame

Try to fill up the frame with the subject. It is natural to show too much of the surroundings by shooting too wide. Very successful head shots can be produced when there is no space above the head or even with some of the head cropped off. This simple tip alone can make your ordinary photos look more professional and interesting.

Tip # 4 Using Your Subjects Eyes

The eyes are our most expressive feature. Try to keep the eyes in the upper third of the frame and not exactly in the center. Very often the viewer of a photograph is drawn to the face and expressive eyes can make a very dramatic photograph.

Tip #5 Create Your Own Center

There should be only one center of interest when creating you images. You may have several subjects in the photograph but you can still achieve this by having the subjects touching one another or overlapping.

Tip #6 – Learn What To Crop

Don’t crop off limbs at the joints. For example, a photograph that is cropped at the elbow will look strange. Cropping at the forearm or bicep area will give a more natural look.

Final Thoughts:

Use these simple Digital photography Tips to help you improve your composition and framing. Practice often and learn from every shot you take and soon you will be shooting like a professional.

***

San Jose Photographer – Benipayo Photography

Contact: Michael at michael@benipayo.com, if you want a portrait session.

(408)717-3670     (415)763-7643

Author:  Scott Voelker is the creator of NewPortraitBiz. He has taught 1,000′s of students how to start a photography business. To receive his Free video lessons visit http://newportraitbiz.com

Visit Scott’s Blog at http://newportraitbiz.com/blog for even more up to date Free lessons.

Still life photography has many uses. Perhaps you want to take a picture of a beautiful shell or perhaps take a picture of a product that you’re selling on eBay. Other reasons for learning still life photography may include selling still life photograph downloads at microstock sites or to food magazines. No matter what your reason, still life photography is a great skill to learn.

Unless you are photographing specific products or pictures for a magazine assignment, the subjects for your still life photography are endless. Despite common belief, still life photography isn’t limited to just pictures of apples and grapes. Even something like artfully arranged spools of thread can be interesting and visually appealing. Microstock sites like Shutterstock and iStock that cater to commercial users have a high demand for all sorts of still life, often of very simple objects, like a cup of coffee or a key.

People often times think of still life photography as a lot easier than other types of photography like sports or landscape photography. With stills, you often have full control over the composition and can arrange the inanimate objects exactly how you want them.

And sometimes, good quality still life pictures can be even more challenging to photograph. That’s because they are close up so it’s easy to spot imperfections like a blemish on a piece of fruit that would usually pass unnoticed.

Despite its challenge, using basic photography skills and the following tips, you can create quality still life pictures.

Lighting for Still Life Photography

Professional photographers usually use a soft box or a light box to shoot their still lifes. Although soft boxes can help out a lot, they still aren’t absolutely necessary to get good results as you’ll see shortly. However, if you do want one, you can find a soft box online or you can easily make one using instructions you find online. The purpose of these lighting tools is to provide even light on the subject.

You can also get a good quality of light by setting up your photo shoot outside. A high overcast or bright sky can create a natural soft box effect without having any of the harsh shadows.

Composing Still Life Pictures

When composing your photograph, you need to arrange the objects in a pleasing composition. You should consider using classical composition techniques like the “Rule of Thirds,” “Leading Lines” or “Frame within a Frame” for ideas of how to best compose your pictures. Artfully arrange the objects, and use your imagination. For example, if you’re taking a picture of an apple try taking a bite out of it to give it some added interest.

Fill the Frame with Your Still Life Subject

When taking still life pictures, always remember that your subject should be the only thing that you see in your viewfinder or LCD screen. You need to remove any distractions or clutter from the background so you can have a clean and up close image. If you have a backdrop or background you don’t like don’t worry about it because it can be easily solved. The light box or soft box will solve this problem, but if you’re taking pictures outside and have a distracting background simply place a piece of white foam board behind your subject and you’ll be all set. If you want a sharp image, make sure to use macro mode or you can end up with a fuzzy image.

Look for a Good Angle – and Shoot!

Instead of shooting from your height, hold the camera so that it is level with your subject. You should also try shooting from a variety of different angles. Hopefully you can start applying these still life photography tips immediately so you can start seeing a difference in the quality of your still life images.

San Jose Photographer – Benipayo Photography

Contact: Michael at michael@benipayo.com

If you are interested having a portrait session with me -

408-717-3670     415-763-7643

Autumn Lockwood is a writer for Your Picture Frames. If you’re looking for 11×14 picture frames visit our online picture frame shop or call us at 1-800-780-0699.

Learning how to properly compose pictures can mean the difference between great looking pictures and bad ones. This article will help give you some tips to improve your photo composition and take great digital pictures.

Filling the Frame & Clearing Clutter

There are exceptions to this as you’ll see in a second, but generally filling the frame is one of the easiest things you can do to compose interesting photographs.

Most people make the mistake of trying to include too much in their picture and end up with a boring photo where nothing really stands out.

For example, if you are taking a picture of your child playing on a swing, you should fill the frame of you child on the swing and leave out the swingset and other background clutter like Uncle Ed tending to the barbeque.

Otherwise your child will be lost in the clutter and the picture won’t capture the wonderful details of your child’s fun flight through the air on the swing. You can always go back and take a close up of Uncle Ed flipping the burgers.

The great thing about digital cameras is that you can see the picture in playback mode to make sure it looks okay. Then if something you hadn’t noticed before is there, like a stray piece of litter on the ground you can re-shoot the picture.

Sometimes leaving lots of empty space in the photo also works well. You may want to fill two thirds of the picture of something like a sandy beach to get a special effect. Just be sure to get a close enough shot that your subject fills at least about a third of the frame. So now it’s time to talk about one of the most important tips for taking digital photographs.

Rule of Thirds Technique

Most pictures have the subject directly centered in the picture with a lot of empty space (or clutter) around them. That happens because most digital compact cameras with autofocus have center weighted focus.

Professionally taken photographs rarely have the subject in the center because they use manual focus (we’ll look at a trick that digital compact users can sometimes use). If you have a DSLR you can also use this trick too.

The “Rule of Thirds” is one of the most popular techniques. With this method, the photographer imagines six evenly spaced lines breaking the image into nine even parts. Some cameras have a feature that lets you opt to have this tic tac toe grid, superimposed over your image in preview mode.

Using this grid in preview mode – or your imagination – you can frame the composition so that the subject (whether an individual, group or object) is on one of the lines of the grid. And you don’t need to line this up exactly. Soon enough using the rule of thirds will become second nature with a little practice.

Focus on Focusing

Now lets talk about getting your subject focused without placing them dead center in the picture. This method works like a charm for subjects that are still, such as people who are posing, trees, and other still objects. Here is how you do it:

1. Move your subject in the middle of the frame where your viewfinder’s focus point is in the center and press the shutter release button half way down.
2. Wait for the green light to glow steadily signifying your focus is locked.
3. Keeping your finger pressed on the shutter release button so it stays pressed half way down, move the camera until you have the composition you want.
4. Now, hold the camera steady and press the shutter the rest of the way down.
5. Always wait for the green light because that is the camera’s signal that it has taken the picture.

More Composition Tips for Taking Digital Pictures (Or Film)

Focus on the the main point of interest of your subject. With people and animals, the eyes are often the most expressive area so they tend to be the center of attention.

To make photos pop, develop a photographer’s eye for contrast. The brighter the brights and the darker the darks, the better the contrast.

If you want to add interest to your photos, try using different angles for a new perspective. Stand on a chair or lie on the floor. It is best to vary the angle in which you take your pictures so you can show different perspectives and views.

Start using these tips and before long you’ll be getting all kinds of compliments on your well composed pictures displayed on the wall.

San Jose Photographer – Benipayo Photography

Contact: Michael at michael@benipayo.com

If you are interested having a portrait session with me -

408-717-3670     415-763-7643

Autumn Lockwood is a writer for Your Picture Frames and loves taking pictures. Shop online and see our large selection of photo frames in a wide variety of styles, colors and sizes. If you’re looking for an 8×10 picture frame or any size, visit our website or call us at 1-800-780-0699.