August 19th is World Photography Day so in honour of this I have roped in my friend Summer to write another guest post. Summer has been taking amazing photos for ages and knows a lot of tips which she has been sharing with me through my re-launch of this blog and my social media pages so thought she would be better at writing a photography post than me. Enjoy 🙂
Welcome to Photography day!
In honour of the day I’m going to go through a couple of tips that can take basic photo’s up a notch and add in a few shots of my own.
Rule of Thirds
The rule of thirds is a simple composition technique. If you were to put a grid on the photo, splitting into thirds horizontally and vertically, you want the subject to be on one of those lines. For some reason it’s very pleasing to the eye and a simple way to boost the photo.
Focus on the eyes
Focussing on the eyes if you’re taking a picture of a person or an animal allows the photo to capture more depth. When people are looking at these types of picture, the eyes are the way to connect to the subject. If they’re blurry it just takes away the best bit.
Make as many mistakes as possible
It’s only through figuring out what really doesn’t work that we understand what does. Making mistakes can either show us a new way of succeeding, or just cement that some ways really don’t work. Either way we’ve learnt something new.
Photograph what you love
This one is simple and obvious. If you are passionate about your subject it is shown in the image. There is far more soul in an image taken by someone who loves what they’re looking at then someone just there to take a photo. For me if you hadn’t guessed, it tends to be animals.
Don’t overload on gear before you’ve learnt enough
A lot of people feel like they need to buy all of the gear before they can take amazing photo. Don’t get me wrong, the right gear can make a big difference, but you don’t want to end up with £5000 worth of stuff and no idea what to do with it. As an example, there two photos were taken with my phone.
Try burst mode for unpredictable subjects
When taking photos of unpredictable subjects, burst mode may seem like cheating to some but it is the best way to get a good photo. A lot of my photos are animals and many of my best photos come from spur of the moment actions or “right place right time” photography. Burst mode means you’re more likely to capture that one moment.
Stop Chimping!!
Chimping is the term used when you’re constantly checking the photos you’ve taken. One of the worst habits is to take a photo and then immediately go into the gallery and look at it. Not only will you end up agonizing over the inevitable bad photo you take, but you could miss a brilliant shot because you were looking at your last one. That’s not to say you can’t look at your photos, just spend more time taking them when you’re in the field.
(There isn’t really a photo to demonstrate this so I chose the most appropriate one)
Now you know the rules, the biggest one is to go and break them all!
Thank you Summer for another fab guest post. Hope you love her photos as much as I do. Check out her Instagram for more.
Until next time, TTFN.
Which photos are your favourites? Which tips will you be trying out? How helpful was this post? Let me know in the comments, feel free to share some of your photos with me too.
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