Most landscape photography is carried out during the day, particularly during the 'golden hours' of sunset and sunrise. But have you thought about taking landscape photos after the sun has gone down, when it's dark?
We don't see many landscape photos shot at night, mainly because of the extra effort that has to go into a night photo. But landscapes at night can make for some great photographic opportunities.
Read the rest of this entry »Whether to watermark your photos or not when posting them online is something that often polarizes photographers. Some strongly believe that you should always watermark your photos, while others strongly believe that you should never add something that detracts from the image.
In this article I'll cover some of the reasons both for and against watermarking, so you can make up your own mind.
When photographing certain subjects or scenes, we want all of the image in focus. This is often the case in product photography and landscape photography. We want sharpness from front to back with no area of the product or landscape out of focus.
This can be tricky to achieve, but there are a number of techniques that can be used to achieve a very large depth of field (the amount of the image in focus).
Getting good photographs of fish in an aquarium can be very tricky. The lighting is often quite dim, and it can be difficult to shoot through the tanks without capturing reflections on the glass. In this article I'll share a few tips on how to try and deal with these problems and get better aquarium photos.
Kuroshio Sea - 2nd largest aquarium tank in the world by Jon Rawlinson on flickr (licensed CC-BY)
Most modern cameras handle quite well. However, they are designed for the average person, and if your hands are larger or smaller than average, then you could find that keeping a firm grip on your camera is not as easy as you'd like.
This is one reason why it is often a good idea to try out a camera before purchasing it. How a camera handles is an important factor in how easy it will be for you to use. But if you do find yourself with a camera that is not quite grippy enough for you, there are a number of different things you can do to remedy the situation.
A website is almost essential for photographers today. It helps you market yourself 24 / 7. It lets potential clients easily see the sort of work you create, the services or products you provide, and will bring in new clients or sales. Even if you are not interested in sales, it still lets you share your vision with the rest of the world.
However, there are quite a few factors that go into creating a successful photography website. In this article I am not going to go into how to code a website or look at a specific website provider.
Rather, I will go over the important points you need to consider when building a photography website. These are the same whether you are having a website custom built for yourself, or using one of the many photography website providers, such as Zenfolio or Smugmug.
Website screenshots - New Website by Grégory Tonon (licensed CC-BY-SA),
Live to Create Photography by Sarah Zucca (licensed CC-BY-SA),
Redesigned Cat's Eye is Online by Jayel Aheram (licensed CC-BY),
ardenswayoflife.com by Arden (licensed CC-BY-SA)
A quick release system is designed to make it quick and easy to attach a camera to a tripod, or remove a camera from a tripod. Instead of having to screw the camera onto the tripod, you fit the camera with a quick release plate that slips into a quick release clamp on the tripod.
This can be quite a time saver, and many photographers make use of a quick release system. Many of the different heads available for tripods (or tripods that come with a head included) also make use of a quick release system. There are a few different quick release systems you may come across, and there are also a couple of issues with using a quick release system that you should be aware of.
Read the rest of this entry »One of the phrases you hear quite often in photography, particularly from a landscape photography perspective, is the Golden hour. This refers to the period around sunrise or sunset. Slightly less common is the phrase Blue hour, which means the period shortly before sunrise or after sunset.
Neither of these periods are precisely an hour, and their length varies with the seasons. But both periods are important to many photographers in the terms of the natural lighting found at these times of day.
Read the rest of this entry »Most photographers don't modify the appearance of their cameras at all. However, you may sometimes see a photographer (typically a professional) with the logos on their camera covered by black tape. Why would they do this? Are they testing exciting new camera models before they're released?
cc licensed ( BY ND ) flickr photo shared by Rocco P Hill
While this could be the case, there are actually quite a few good reasons why some photographers might want to cover their gear in black tape.
Read the rest of this entry »Fungi don't seem to be as popular a subject as flowers. Maybe it's that they're not so easy to find, or that many of them are quite dull in coloration compared to flowers. Or maybe it's that photographing them often involves getting down in the dirt.
The fact is that fungi do actually make great subjects for photos, and I want to share a few tips on photographing them in this article.
Mushroom Mosaic by Red~Star (off & on--taking care of Jasmine) on flickr (licensed CC-BY-SA)
