Photography Basics

Here’s my Crash Course on Photography:
(everything that follows applies to both film and digital cameras unless I say otherwise).


Settings:
If you’ve just bought your camera or you don’t know how to operate every function available, sit down with your manual and figure out how everything works. It sounds really simple, but I know that a lot of people just use the Automatic setting on cameras which are capable of far more.

Using the Automatic setting on a good camera can be an easy way to take good photos, but usually, learning how to adjust the settings on your camera will result in even better photos.

If you bought your camera here and the manual is only in Japanese, go to DeoDeo and see if they can order you a manual in English. You might have to pay for it, but it’s probably worth it. Or you can get online and see if you can download a manual for free.

Light:
Taking notice of lighting conditions is one of the easiest ways to improve your photos.

One of the main settings to adjust on your digital camera is your white balance. If you take a picture outdoors on a cloudy day and you leave your camera on the sunny setting, it just won’t look very good. The same goes for using a fluorescent setting with incandescent light (or vice versa). Notice your lighting conditions and adjust accordingly. If you check the outdoor photo that you just took and you notice a cold (blue) cast, try changing the setting to cloudy – that usually just means the camera is adding a warmer cast to the shot.

For both digital and film cameras:
As you begin to take notice of lighting condtions, the best times of day to take photos outdoors are from sunrise to around 10am and then again from around 4pm to sunset, depending on the season. Look for a nice warm glow at the beginning of the day and the end of the day. The broad light of full noon/afternoon light washes everything out, but morning/late afternoon/evening light gives definition to your subjects by providing shadow contrasts because of the angle of the sun. You will get more color saturation by avoiding taking photos outdoors in the middle of the day. More color saturation means brighter colors, greater contrast, and better photos altogether.

Be careful that your subjects aren’t still in shade in the morning because that will often result in a usually unwanted blue cast to your photo.

Architecture and nature especially benefit from the warmth of morning/evening Golden Hour Light.

When you’re taking pictures of people, you’ll often get squinty subjects if they are facing the sun, but backlighting results in dark portraits, so have your subjects turn to have their backs to the sun or pose at an angle and use your flash even in broad daylight to prevent unwanted backlit silhouettes or excessive squinting. Using the flash in this way also helps you to avoid having all your photos of friends wearing sunglasses all the time (fashion is fun but sometimes it’s nice to remember your friends eyes, too!)

Composition:
I found a wonderfully concise explanation of composing (framing) a photo in WIRED Magazine (August 2006).
Okay, nevermind, I’ll need to scan that because the online version doesn’t include the framing bit. argh.

Sharing your photos:
The key word is EDIT.
Your mantra is EDIT EDIT EDIT.
If you have taken 3, 5, or 10 shots of say, Hiroshima Castle, only show people your best 1 or maybe 2 if they’re significantly different from each other.
Of course, your friends will want to see every party pic that they’re in, but that’s another thing entirely.

Make 2 separate albums/edits:

1) all the pictures where everyone wants to remember all the silliness of your night out/ your road trip, etc.

2) only the best 1 of each of your shots of each person/place/thing. Simply editing makes you a better photographer.

On taking enough photos and editing:
Using a film camera with Hiroshima Castle as an example: For an assignment/job, a professional photographer could easily shoot 10 rolls of film on just the castle.

How could you shoot 10 rolls on just the castle? Well, you want to make sure you don’t make a mistake in metering your light, so you would change aperture settings (this is called bracketing: the aperture/ f-stops are what determine how much light you allow in and the depth of field), composition, focal length (shooting a wide shot -- say, 18mm-50mm including all of the castle; or coming in tighter and focusing on a detail of the castle like a rooftop tile at say, 70-105mm or higher).

By walking around the castle, looking for good light, interesting details, local people or seasonal elements to include in the photo, and then changing any/each of the 5 main factors of a photo for each shot (composition, f-stop/aperture/depth of field, shutter speed, focal length – the size of the lens, and film speed), it’s easy to shoot tons of pictures of one subject.

However, that same photographer would never show all those photos (except maybe their editor) to anyone. From 360 photos, she might show 20 of her best.

Of course, you probably won’t have to take that many pictures to get some you’re very pleased with, but I hope that my example gives you an idea about not only editing, but taking enough photos to make sure that you get the photos that you want.

Thankfully, all this is much cheaper these days with digital cameras. However, if you do like to take lots of photos, investing a large memory card (1 GB or 2 GB) is worth it so you don’t run out of space at the wrong moment!

Aperture/f-stops:
As I mentioned before, your aperture/f-stop settings determine how much light you are letting into your camera as well as the depth of field. A low number like f2.8 or f4.5 means that your aperture is open wide and lots of light is coming in. This is good if you are taking photos in low light.

You would also choose a wider aperture if you want only 1 element of your composition to be in focus. A wider aperture (small number) gives you a shallow depth of field – so you can focus on something in the foreground and let the rest of the photo be a little out of focus – this often makes for a more interesting photo.

If you are taking a landscape photo of say, a mountain range, then you might want to choose a smaller aperture (and use a tripod) so more of the photo is in sharp focus.

Film Speed/ ISO settings:
If you know you’ll be taking pictures in bright light, you can choose a film/ISO setting that’s slow (like 50 or 100 ISO) for nice sharp pictures.
For variable light conditions, 400 ISO is a good choice.
Low light would warrant 800 ISO.
Remember that low ISO numbers usually mean sharper (more detailed/less grainy) images.

Also, remember that low numbers are slow: this means you don’t want to choose a slow film or low ISO numbers if you want to capture a non-blurry image of a moving object. A high ISO (fast film) will freeze action more effectively. On the other hand, sometimes a blur illustrates action better than anything else.

Speaking of blur:
Camera shake is the worst. It’s so frustrating to think that you took a nice photo only to look at it later when it’s back from the lab or on your computer screen and realize that it’s blurry. To prevent blurry photos that are your own fault, use a tripod or just take a deep breath and hold it, steadying yourself against a pole or even your elbows against your sides and don’t move until after you’ve taken the photo. A lot of people, especially with snappy digital cameras, will point, shoot, and then already be moving even before that photo is even finished being taken.

Okay, for review, I’ve talked about lighting, composition, editing, aperture/f-stops, focal lengths/lens sizes, film speeds and shutter speeds.
Once you have more control over any/each of these elements, you will have more control of your photography and greater satisfaction at your successes.

Taking pictures on automatic can be fun for snapping away, but turning the dial to manual and knowing that an image is good because you made it good will make you feel good!

Sharing your pictures:
So you’ve had some amazing experiences and put together some awesome images and you want to share them with friends, family, and the whole world:

My favorite photo sharing website is flickr I like the fact that it’s a global community of photographers (both amateur and professional) with lots of different special-interest groups. You can tag your photos with keywords, decide which photos are public, and which are available only to friends or family. There are oodles of options to play with.

Some people prefer sites like snapfish, kodak gallery, or shutterfly to share photos with a limited number of friends/family. These sites offer more options for others to customize cards/gifts/prints. However, they lack options in online presentation, tagging/keywording, and are not as open to browsing/exploring other peoples’ photos for armchair travels, laughs, or inspiration. It all depends on what you want from your site.

Community sites like myspace can be a great way to meet like-minded creative people if you just filter out all the players -- unless that’s you ;)

Sharing your experiences through your writing and photography by networking/blogging on myspace or posting blogs on sites like this one can be a great way to meet new people and keep in touch with your loved ones from back home.

I hope that you'll let me know once you've started your blogs so we can broaden our linked community here in Hiroshima!

peace,
flo