Discover Digital Photography

Cropping your photos usually refers to the process of editing a photo and cutting away one or more edges of the image. There are multiple reasons why you might want to do this, such as improving the composition, enlarging the subject, or simply changing the aspect ratio of the photo.

But some photographers are dead set against cropping, preferring to get it right in-camera. In this article we'll look at both the benefits and problems with cropping an image in software. (Not to be confused with the crop factor of a camera).

Mountains can make for some great photos, whether they're snow-capped, bare rock, or covered in green foliage. For most of us, we don't regularly get the chance to see or walk up mountains. So when we do get to photograph in a mountain range, we want our shots to look as good as possible and really capture the splendor of the mountain. In this article I'll share some tips that will hopefully help you do just that.

Minimalist Photography refers to the process of creating an image with a very simplistic composition. The photo is carefully framed to remove all distracting elements. Often the extraneous aspects of the scene are abstracted away, resulting in a photo capturing shape or form rather than a specific subject.

There have been lots of books written about black and white photography, but relatively little is written on the subject of color photography. In some aspects this is understandable - black and white can be trickier since we do not see in black and white, thus we need more guidance on it.

However, since we are so used to seeing (and photographing) in color, it can be easy to overlook certain points when creating a color photograph. In this article I want to share a few ideas to help get you thinking more about the use of color in photography, and how it can be used to improve your photos.

Lighting is obviously very important in photography. Without light, there'd be no photo. But what you may not realize is that the direction of the lighting plays a large role in the look of a photo.

There are three main directions of light that are purposefully used in photography - Front Lighting, Back Lighting, and Side Lighting. It is these that I want to take a look at in this article.

Before the days of digital photography, photos would (virtually) always be printed. There wasn't really any other way of viewing the images, unless you liked looking at the tiny negatives!

But in this digital age, the vast majority of photos are never printed. They sit languishing on hard drives, unlikely to be looked at again. So, what can you do about making sure your photos actually get seen?

Macro photography in a studio setting can be quite rewarding. You have much more control over the scene, being able to easily modify the lighting, background, and move around your subject without anything getting in the way.

(Based on the image Studio In The RAW: High Key Set-up by Alan Antiporda on flickr, licensed CC-BY)

When I say 'studio setting', I am not talking about a full blown photography studio. I just mean indoors, in a controlled environment. With macro and close-up photography, the top of a small table can be your studio!

Perspective distortion is something you'll often find in photos that contain straight lines, such as the lines of a building. This type of distortion comes in the form of converging or diverging lines. For example, if you take a photo looking up at a tall building, the sides of the building will form converging lines, getting closer together higher up the building.

New York City, Lower Manhattan, Financial District, Broadway Av. : Equitable Building 1915 by (vincent desjardins) on flickr (licensed CC-BY)

Often this effect can be put to good use, to create an image that is more compelling than if the straight lines were perfectly vertical (or horizontal). But there are some instances where perspective distortion may be unwanted. For example, in architecture photography, perspective distortion is sometimes avoided.

There are a few different ways that perspective distortion can be removed, which I'll look at in this article. These techniques can also be reversed if you want to add or increase perspective distortion in your photos.

If you've been looking at purchasing a tripod, you might have noticed that there are two types – those that include the legs only, and those that include the legs and a head. The head is the top part of the tripod that you mount your camera on, and which lets you move the camera around on the tripod to achieve your desired framing.

There are a few different types of head available for your tripod, which is what we'll look at in this article. Some tripods come with a built-in head, which cannot be removed. Others come with a head included that can be removed (which allows you to swap for another head if wanted). If you purchase a legs only tripod, then you'll need to purchase a head separately.

Photography is all about capturing light, and natural light from the sun is the most often used main light source in photography. However, natural light can vary quite considerably depending on a variety of factors.

For best results, it is important to understand how natural light is affected by these different factors, and in turn how this will affect a photo captured in that light. This is what I want to look at in this article.

Combination of three images taken in different natural lighting conditions: left - direct sunlight; middle - sunlight through thin cloud; right - overcast. Note the difference in shadows between each image.