Post-Processing Workshops/Classes on Lightroom and Photoshop for Photographers in Delhi(India)

It's been long time that we have been conducting Workshops on Lightroom and Photoshop at various Photography Academies and Institutions in Delhi, India. So far, we have been involved more into 1:1 sessions as compared to group workshops. During one of the 1:1 session, we got to know that photographers are not able to find about us online and need to contact various academies. For the same we though of putting this blog entry here and soon will be hosting a separate website.

So if you are Photographer and  keen in understanding Lightroom or Photoshop, feel free to contact us at VJ@travellingcamera.com 

Before you contact us, we strongly recommend you to think more about your editing needs and also talk to our old students. This will help you in creating specific charter for yourself and will obviously be helpful for us to be more focused.

Our first Lightroom Workshop at Academy of Photography Excellence(APEX), Vansant Vihar, Delhi

It started with a very informal discussion with one of my mentors during a Photo-Walk. We were just discussing about an exhibition he was planning to host and complexities of digital manipulation in terms of color management and printing. This topic extended to get professional editing services for Photographs...

PHOTOGRAPHS/PHOTOGRAPHY-SERVICES for FREE ?

It's been some time that I have been offering free Photography services to various companies, Friends (who comes in life for few days and go away), some reputed newspapers of country etc.  Apart from giving photographs for free, I have also been part of some events only because of my personal interest about those events. E.g. - I have covered few sports events.  You won't believe that three days were spent on a product shoot and that so called friend never came back and lost till date...

One fine day, I got another proposal from one  of the adventure sports organization that I have been selected as official Photographer of a three days event and it will be a sponsored trip with some conditions. Credits will be given to me but NO MONEY PLEASE :) ... Even I was ready as I needed not to take any leave for it. Then I called one of the experienced Adventure Sports Photographer and he asked me to say NO to these people who make crores of rupees out of these events and don't want to pay to Photographers. Although I had committed to those folks, but I decided not to do any such assignment for FREE !!!

On an average, I get 3 proposals in a month from people who have NO MONEY for photographers. Magazines, Newspapers, Corporates, Event organizers and Book publishers feel that Photographs are something which can be easily accessed without budgeting. At times it feels that they are doing me a favor by offering to use my work and giving credits :)

Initially I was not sure if I should reply to such queries or not. Most of the times I simply ignore and at times send them a nice reply in straight words, which they don't like. At times I try to find out the possibility of getting some money and then people disappear automatically...

My favorite quote is - "Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternative"

So people who come to me for Photographs, most of times they are not much concerned about Quality and money is more important for them. I have seen people earning crores out of an event and don't want to pay to Photographers even in thousands. My personal advice to these folks is to buy a Camera and click your photographs yourself ! Does it sound difficult? Ohh sorry, I forgot to add that you have to spend some time (In years) to understand Photography and also need to try out various photography techniques to start with. Ohh Yes, all this is free as you are owner of your time. Your time is Free it seems, BUT NOT MINE !

Even sometimes I feel guilty that I have snatched work of many Professional Photographers by doing some assignments for free, even after spending money on my travel and stay. Does it sound stupid as well? Yes, it's stupid and inhuman...

Here I would like to request all Hobbyst Photographers to avoid such clients who are nothong but short time opportunists who want to use you for saving very little %age of money, by killing a JOB of Pro Photographer. Think how we are spoiling Photography market and some of us aspire to enter into that. For getting an entry we are spoiling the same market by offering our services for free. As you know these folks are getting comparatively good quality photographs t no cost and they are not bothered about best by getting Pro folks.

Folks who look for free Photographs or Photography Services can't be trusted even if they offer very little after some negotiation. Even you can't be sure about the way they are going to use your Photographs.

One fine day, one of my friend who is running a Software company called me to provide some photographs of confident students who are well dressed with nice background of a good institution. Does this Photograph sound very simple to shoot? He simply asked me to email few photographs for his client. When I asked details about the client, his organization had $4.8 billion revenue that year. When I asked about money, reply was - Come on your photograph will be published on website of UK's reputed university. I said Thanks to him with a big NO.

I can keep writing about it, but would stop here by requesting Hobbyist Photographers to learn saying NO to such opportunists who are spoiling Photography Industry !!!

I have got a Gorrliapod :)

After getting it, I checked online reviews... I tried it with Nikon D90 with 80-200mm lens and its working amazingly fine for me :)

Some basic tips about Macro Photography

Here is a small video which talks about Macro Photography and what all should be main consideration while shotting macro objects.

As we know MCRO/micro photography is about shooting very small objects. With normal lenses its very difficult because the are restricted from shooting objects from shorter distances which is main requirement of MACROs. Photographer needs a Macro lens or Extension Tubes for this purpose. Extension tubes are cheaper options which helps us using our standard lenses for shooting macro objects.

Even when we have Macro lenses and Extension tubes, there is challenge of getting nice Depth of field so that complete object is clear in final photograph. For that we need to shoot at low aperture which effectively means HIGH F value. Many lenses support F45 types for Macro shots. Since light will be low at F45, we need to shoot with slow shutter speed and TRIPOD would be must in that case.

Use Timer to avoid camera shake due to Click... For more details, watch this video...

Rick Sammon's Top Ten Digital Photography Tips

After a Series of video by Karl Taylor, here is another video I watched where Rick Sammon talks about his ten tips about Digital Photography: I have described all these tips in my words my mixing my views, so watch original video for pure thoughts of Rick.

1. Learn How to see the Light :

 Light is more about Color, Highlights, Shadows and its Quality with respect to subject you are planning to Capture.

2. Create sense of Depth and Dimension

 Another thing which needs to be consider is dimensions of view you want to capture. By Dimensions he means horizonal distances, Vertical Distances and how far objects are placed.... All three sides which can be described as Height, Width and Distance...

3. Take a Hike !!! Take a walk and Take time before Shooting

Its very important to understand overall situation, so spend some time around the place and decide how you want to capture the moment/place.

4. Always look Down Back, Up

 When you are set to shoot, make sure about your placement to capture the moment in correct perspective.

5. Tell the Whole Story

Its a duty of Photographer to  capture any place or moment in such a way that final results tell that story to viewers.

6. Framing

Framing take a photograph to next level of Beauty. 

7. Be Aware of Background

Background is very important. Most of the times Photographers just think about main subject while shotting and ignore overall environment and background which is an integral part of photographs.

8. Fill the Frame

Watch the Video...

9. RAW Rules

10. Envision the End Result

Natural Light Portraiture : By Karl Taylor

Here is another video by Karl Tayor where he explain about shooting People Portraits in Natural Light.

There are great tips in this video but I liked this one : "Its a complete Myth that Sun should be kept behind the Photographer so that Subject/Model is well Lit" : If you have the same myth in mind, watch out the video and you will be amazed by final results by Karl...

In this video, he is going to shoot a Model during Sunset behind her.


Karl has given 5 Tips about Natural Light Portraiture:

1. Communication with Model : Its always a good idea to regularly communicate with the Model to make her/him comfortable with overall setup of Photo-Shoot. This is very important for good finals...

2. Choice of Lens : Karl is using 85mm Lens on Full Frame Camera and describes this in detail... So watch the video below...

3. Choice of Aperture : Large Aperture is good for People Portraits. Karl is using 1.2 Lens but recommends Aperture between 1.8 to 2.8.

4. Lighting : First he started with the Photography Myth mentioned above and placed his Model in front of Sunset. Karl want to shoot into the SUN.This will give a nice backlit onto the Hair. Because light will be very less on face,  Fill in light with standard silver reflector will help in this case, but need to make sure that its not too harsh...

5. Environment...Location, soft background with shalow Depth of Field...

Watch out the video to know more from Karl about Natural Light Portraiture...

Few Important Tip about Action Photography by KARL TAYLOR

As shared in last post, I am watching some Photography videos by Karl Taylor. 

Recently I checked his video about Action Photography, where he is demonstrating a Photography event for Bike racing. He is carrying two cameras, one with Telephoto and other with super-wide angel lens.

In this video we talks about Panning, Motion Capture apart from fast shutter speed to capture the moment. Accoring to Karl, its very important to capture the moment of action in any photograph and a sense about current action should always be there.

Panning is a photography technique in which your camera follow the moving object for sometime, which makes background blur with clear moving subject as still. Blur in background is gives the sense of motion. So it clearly meet the goal of capturing the subject with the sense of motion. Karl is standing just close to the track with wideangel lens on his camera. He is using Shutter Priority and trying to set Shutter speed to match with the speed of Bike... Before actually shooting, he tried some trial shots to set Exposure Compensation for Shutter Priority....

For more detailed and nice description watch this video:

Interesting Video on different types of Lights : "Photography Tips on Understanding Light" - Photography Tips by Karl Taylor

Few days back, I started viewing some Photography related videos on youtube and checked few videos by Karl Taylor

I am impressed with  this guy  and his videos are really helpful.  Personally I am learning a lot from these videos. Here I am sharing one video where he is talking about differenyt types of lights and a demo of shooting during sunset... he calls it Magic Hours...

He has classified light into four categories:

1. Transmitted Light

2. Soft Light

3. Hard Light

4. Reflected Light

and defined like: 

HARD LIGHT is Small light source like SUN on clear sky - Extremly bright having Hard edge shadows, String textures and Sparkles.

SOFT LIGHT is light coming from Large surface area like SUN behind cloud blanket : hardly any shadows... Incorrect usage of soft light may give dull results...

SUN-SET : "Magic Hour" ???

During this moment there is Soft light from Sky, Hard Light through Sun, Reflected light on water surface near sea shore and check out the video for more details....

has dmoed a photo-shoot during sunset on sea shore with superwide angel lens with 6-7 seconds of shutterspeed in Manual mode with small Aperture. ND Filters are used to balance lighter sky with darker foreground.

TIP : "Try to shoot 1/2 hr before OR after the Sunset to get better results"

After a small demo about sunset shoot, Karl talked about shooting people portraits using window light and a simple reflector. Check out this video and hope it will be helpful for you !!!

What is Stock Photography and what all a Photographer should focus for this?

Stock Photography is a modern way of generating revenues through your Photographs.On web there are many website where you can upload your good photographs with good resolution and find clients to use them by paying some amount. These websites charge some comission on sale and some may charge some fixed amount. So its very important to read all these conditions in advance for deciding the website you want to use for this. There are many Stock Photography sites these days like Fotolia, dinodia, Shutterstock, crestock etc. Just find out more and explore which is best for you.

Stock Photography, a way to generate revenues and clients on web don't care who you are, they are just concerned about the Photographs you have. So you need not to struggle for proving that you can do better than Professional Photographers in a particular area or other.


Its not a fast way to earn money and may take 5 Years to establish yourslef on these websites to earn decent money. And all this also needs significant time for shooting, editing and uploading. So need to give suffiecient time for this and with appropriate content as per market needs.



 Stock Photography needs market oriented Photographs with good compositions and creative ideas... Will add more on same blog about the areas one should focus for Stock Photography, in terms of genre, color compositions, resolutions etc...

Different Quotations by famous Photographers in the World

ANSEL ADAMS:

1. "You don’t take a photograph, you make it." : Full awareness of what makes a good photo is essential in taking great photographs. Why would anyone be interested in this photo and what elements can be included or excluded to make it truly great?

2. "Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop":Even one of the masters in photography, Ansel Adams, didn’t expect to get more than 12 great photographs each year.How can anyone expect more? Take a look at your last year in photos – do you really see 12 photos that stand out from the rest?

HENRI CARTIER BRESSON:

1. "Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst": Do you know how many photos you have taken up until now? You will have to take thousands of pictures to reach a point where you can begin to evaluate them objectively. Looking upon your photos as if you were looking at them through someone else’s eyes is a good way to give yourself constructive criticism. Comparing your first photos with your most recent, do you see improvement? Do you remember how you loved some of your first photos – do you still love them or are they now not so good anymore?

GARRY WINOGRAND:

1. "If I saw something in my viewfinder that looked familiar to me, I would do something to shake it up": How often have you seen a photo that is missing something? “This is a good photo but I’d make it different somehow.”? Sometimes small things make a big difference. Don’t be afraid to shake things up.

Tips for Getting Backgrounds Right

1. Check your Background Before Hitting the Shutter Release

Ok - this strategy isn’t rocket science, in fact you’d think it almost goes without saying - but unfortunately it doesn’t and many of the mistakes that I see in photographs could have been avoided simply by checking the background before taking the shot and taking some sort of evasive action.

Always scan the background of your shots before taking a shot. Look for colors that don’t fit with the rest of the image, bright patches that might distract the eye, lines that clash, people that don’t belong etc.


2. Move Your Subject

This is once again a fairly simple technique but is probably the first thing you should consider. Quite often asking a portrait subject to take a step to the left or right will fix things either by putting the distraction behind them or by putting it out of frame.

3. Change your Shooting Angle

If you have distracting elements in the background of a shot but can’t move your subject another strategy is to move yourself and shoot from a new angle. This might mean rotating around your subject but could also include getting down low to make the sky the background or even getting up high and shooting down onto your subject to make the background the ground.

4. Using Aperture to Blur Backgrounds

One of the most useful things to learn as a way to combat distractions in backgrounds (and foregrounds) is to use the power of your lens to throw the background out of focus using depth of field. What you’re trying to achieve with this technique is a nice blurred background where you can’t really make out what’s going on there.

The easiest way to do this is to use a wide aperture (the smaller the number the wider the aperture). The wider your aperture the more blurry your background should become.

The quickest way to see the impact of this strategy is to switch your camera into aperture priority mode and to take a number of shots at different apertures. Start with an aperture of f/20 and work your way down - one stop at a time. Once you get down to under f/4 you’ll start seeing the background in your shots getting blurrier and blurrier.

5. Using Focal Length to Blur Backgrounds

Another way to help get your backgrounds nice and blurry is to use a lens with a long focal length. Longer tele-photo do help a little to get narrower depth of field (although the amount is less than many think). In actual fact the impact is smaller than it seems and the main reason for the change is that with a longer focal length the subject actually takes up more space in the frame. Lots of arguements have been had over whether focal length impacts this - you can read more about it here and there - I’ll leave it to the experts to discuss the finer points but will say that using longer focal lengths does seem to have some impact and is worth experimenting with.

6. Place Subjects In front of Open Spaces

Placing your subject a long way in front of other objects will also help to make those objects more blurry. For example if you have the choice between shooting your subject standing right in front of a brick wall or standing in front of an open field - the open field shot will have a much more blurred background simply because the brick wall is just centimeters from your subject and inside the focal range whereas an open field stretches off into the distance where everything will be out of focus.

7. Fill your frame with your subject

One of the most effective ways of removing distractions from backgrounds is to remove the background altogether by totally filling the frame with your subject. Get up close and/or use your zoom lens to tightly frame the shot and you’ll not only remove distractions but could end up with a high impact shot as well.

8. Make your Own Background

Sometimes there just isn’t any suitable background and so you might want to consider making your own. This could range from buying a purpose built studio background or simply buying some cloth to do the job for you.

The other thing to keep in mind is that in many instances you can move things around in the background of your shots (especially if you’re shooting indoors).

9. Post Processing

I’m no expert in using photo editing software but there are numerous ways of editing a shot after you’ve taken it to get rid of distracting elements. These can include blurring techniques, actual removing of elements and replacing them and techniques such as selective coloring (ie making your subject stand out by making your background black and white (or at least sucking some of the color out of it).

Tips for Battery Power Conservation when you are out for long time like Trekking,,,

Last year I went for a Trek with Canon Rebel XT and I had no extra battery. It was five days trek and there was no option for charging the batteries, so I managed to conserve power for all five days. So I read a lot of links for power conservation before going for trek. Recently I was discussing about new plan for 8 days trekking in Kinnaur and realized that it will be very-2 difficult to use one battery for 7 days. I am still thinking of the options I can opt to manage this.

But here I wanted to share few tips for battery power conservation:


1. Think About Your Shot First:

Think about the shot’s value before getting the camera into action. You may find that a lot of the pretty things you normally would snap four images of without thinking, turn out to be scenes simply enjoyed without need for a picture. This step alone will save a lot of battery use indirectly by reducing the amount of times you want to get your camera out.

2. Turn Off Auto Focus:

This tip only works if you use a DSLR camera. Most point and shoots (P&S)don’t have a focus ring on the lens like DSLR lenses do. If you have a point and shoot, you don’t have much of a choice. But for those with DSLRs, using manual focus can be a huge power savings. Most cameras will start focusing when the shutter release is pressed down half way and will continue to focus until the shot is taken. And the larger the lens, the more power will be sucked from the battery to bring objects into focus.

3. Turn Off The Review Feature:

Both DSLR and P&S cameras have the ability to review a shot after the image is captured. While technology for screens is advancing and battery consumption is a prime concern (as well as clarity in sunshine) it’s still best to simply turn off the review feature.

4. If Your Camera Has A Viewfinder, Use It:

More and more DSLRs are being shipped with “live view”, popular on most all P&S cameras. But this can also be a huge power draw. For the same reason turning off the review feature saves energy, turning off “live view” and using the camera’s viewfinder can possibly save more power. Personally, I purchase P&S cameras that can still be used with just a view finder for this very reason. Constant display of what’s in front of the camera is not a wise use of battery power when running low. If your P&S does not have a viewfinder, allowing you to turn off the “live view” on the LCD during shooting, this tip may be of little help.

5. Image Stabilization:

Just like autofocus, the battery is drained from constantly moving elements around inside the lens to compensate for camera shake. It’s best left off, or only turned on for vital shots.

6. Off Your Camera When Not In Use:

I know this one sounds obvious, but many of us get in the habit of leaving our camera on and letting it power down automatically.

7. Don’t Transfer Pictures:

If you are accustom to using your camera to download photos to your computer, now might be a good time to think about bringing along a USB flash card reader. Downloading from your camera will surely suck down more power as most cameras don’t take advantage of the power capabilities.

8. Increase ISO To Lessen Flash Use:

Your flash can kill your batteries in no time flat. Depending on your camera’s capabilities, it may be a worthwhile option to increase the ISO a bit in marginal lighting situations to lessen the use of the built-in flash. Before your trip, or right now, do a few quick tests in moderate indoor lighting (the most likely scenario for flash use) to see just how far you can push the ISO before it doesn’t look good to you. This setting is purely subjective. If you can stand the grain at ISO400 on your camera, then go with it. Some cameras look horrid above ISO200. Don’t take someone else’s, or some website’s, word for it, try it out yourself and see what looks good to you. Flash use has been shown to reduce battery life by as much as 40%.

Patterns and Repeatetions in Photoigraphy

While repetition in the monotony of daily life can at times be a little boring - capturing it in your photography can create an image with real impact.

Life is filled with patterns - many of which we overlook due to the business of our days - however once you get an eye for spotting them (and it takes being intentional and some practice) you’ll be amazed by what you see and you’ll wonder why you didn’t incorporate them into your photography before.

When it comes to capturing repetition in photography a couple of techniques come to mind - you can either emphasize it or break it.

Let me explain with a few examples:

EMPHASIZE PATTERNS:

Filling your frame with a repetitive pattern can give the impression of size and large numbers. The key to this is to attempt to zoom in close enough to the pattern that it fills the frame and makes the repetition seem as though it’s bursting out (even if the repetition stops just outside of your framing).

Some examples of this technique might include faces in a crowd, bricks on a wall, a line of bicycle wheels all on the same angle etc. Almost any repeated appearance of objects could work.

BREAKING PATTERNS:

The other common use of repetition in photography is to capture the interruption of the flow of a pattern. For example you might photograph hundreds of red balls with one blue one.

Sometimes you’ll find these broken patterns naturally appearing around you and on other occasions you might need to manipulate the situation a little and interrupt a pattern yourself.

Broken repetition might include adding a contrasting object (color, shape, texture) or removing one of the repeating objects.

Pay particular attention to where in your frame to place the break in the pattern. It might be that the rule of thirds comes in to play here.

Also consider your focal point in these shots - the broken pattern might be a logical spot to have everything focussed sharply.

This week I’m setting myself a little assignment to get out and take some shots that emphasize patterns and repetition.

Light Pattern on my office walls : Can you describe???

Going out for Photo-Shoots help a lot

My new learning to improve as a photographer would be to go out and shoot in different situations.

For the earlier part of my venture into the photography hobby, I spent most of my time developing myself indoors. Reading articles, magazines, forums, a basic photography training and blogs. That’s not BAD and I strongly suggest continuing to read and grow in your knowledge of photographic techniques, but the only true way to improve is to put everything we learn and read into PRACTICE. Go out and shoot!

Disregard all fear of what people will think of you as you snap away on the street or at your favorite venue or park. “Oh what a mad guy”, “That camera is not even that great”, “That looks like a cheap lens”, etc. Don’t let others or the price/quality of your equipments set limitations on you! We all have to start somewhere.

I have read it numerous times on the forums and elsewhere. It’s not the quality or price of the camera, but the photographer behind the camera that makes or breaks an image. The only way we can improve our photography is to practice and shoot a lot.

I am an introvert by nature, so going out and shooting random people, street life, and the like is not my strength. I get pretty intimidated when people start staring at me while I take pictures, and self-conscious. On a recent drive, I decided that I need to just break out of my comfort zone. I need to go out and shoot. For last few weeks I have been going out with some of my photographer for shoot in delhi and I feel its helping me in improving my mindset about urban & street Photography.

Appreciate the Camera you have :-)

Lots of times I have seen people dreaming about good equipments. Its not bad but one should focus on photography rather thinking about new cameras and gadgets.

All cameras have are essentially the same thing, a shutter that exposes light on a light-sensitive surface. Sure, there are differences in engineering tolerances and technical ranges and the latest technology. Remember old Photographers had not these gadgets and their work is outstanding...

"The real difference between an average photo and an amazing photo, is the photographer, not the camera."


Here’s how you can make your camera amazing. It just takes a little bit of work:-


1 Read your camera manual. If you don’t have it anymore, you can probably find it online. Learn every feature and aspect of the camera you have. It will take amazing pictures if you know how to use it properly.

2 Take your camera with you everywhere you go, and take lots of photos. Take photos of everything. Find something uninteresting and find a way to make it interesting. That is the essence of art.

3 Practice in manual mode. All cameras have a manual mode take a photo and change a single setting. Then change that one setting and take another photo. In my opinion this is the best way to understand the manipulation of light.

4 Make each photo count. One of the biggest downfalls of digital photography is the ability to take so many photos so easily for so little monetary investment. So we buy a cheap camera and snap away, hardly taking a thought to what is in the view finder. STOP! Think about your next photo, then take the time to make it amazing. You’ll start thinking like a photographer and your photos will improve ten fold.

5 Keep your best photos in a special place, discard the rest. Professional photographers take thousands of and show only their best to the client. Take photos for you, you are your own client. One day you’ll look back and be amazed at your work.

Macro Shots : A new challenge

Today I got a Macro Lens and started using it...

Now what I found:

- Difficulty in getting right Depth-of-Field
- Shake is making the shot worse..

Dept of field is a powerful tool when taking macro images, and it’s a technique we need to understand in order to work true macro magic. We will generally be using very shallow depth of field settings when getting up close to the subjects, and the closer we get, the shallower depth of field becomes.

At times this can be frustrating. For Example, we think we have captured a great image of a flower in full bloom, but then find that parts of the image are too soft. One way of getting around this is to stand a little further back and use more zoom, but be prepared to pay the penalty in terms of Camera Shake...

A much better option is to adjust the aperture setting manually. Selecting a smaller aperture, such as f/16 or even f/32, will increase the depth of field and ensure that the subject stays sharp. Larger aperture settings, such as f/2.8, will provide sharp focus area that can be measured with millimeters.

However, as soon as the aperture gets smaller, shutter speeds start to get much longer in order to compensate for the reduced amount of lighting coming through the lens. At settings of ISO 100 and f/16, shutter speed will be roughly 1/60secs or even slower, which can be a bad news if we are taking a hand-held shot because the risk of camera shake increases considerably.

We can still take the shot by using a tripod. If a tripod is unavailable, steadying the camera against a wall, fence or even a camera bag will make things much less shaky.

Autofoucs saves a great deal of time and hassle in norma shooting modes, but it’s often a good idea to use manual when shooting up close.

FOOD PHOTOGRAPHY : How do you photograph food and get good results?

I am gearing up for shooting food items and found some good tips about food-Photography. Here are few of them. I will try to update the same in near future...

Lighting: Treat the food you’re photographing as you would any other still life subject and ensure that it is well lit. One of the best places to photograph food is by a window where there is plenty of natural light - perhaps supported with ceiling or wall light to get rid of Shadows if you want. Sometimes shadows add very good impact in photographs. This daylight helps to keep the food looking much more natural.

Composition: Pay attention not only to the arrangement of the food itself but to the context that you put it in including container and any table settings around it. Don’t clutter the photo with a full table setting but consider one or two extra elements such as a glass, fork, flower or napkin. These elements can often be placed in secondary positions in the foreground or background of your shot.

Be Quick: Food doesn’t keep it’s appetizing looks for long so as a photographer you’ll need to be well prepared and able to shoot quickly after it’s been cooked before it melts, collapses, wilts and/or changes color. This means being prepared and knowing what you want to achieve before the food arrives. One strategy that some use is to have the shot completely set up with props before the food is ready and then to substitute a stand-in plate to get your exposure right. Then when the food is ready you just switch the stand-in plate with the real thing and you’re ready to start shooting.

Style It: The way food is set out on the plate is as important as the way you photograph it. Pay attention to the balance of food in a shot (color, shapes etc) and leave a way into the shot (using leading lines and the rule of thirds to help guide your viewer’s eye into the dish). One of the best ways to learn is to get some cook books to see how the pros do it.

Enhance It : Have some vegetable oil on hand and to brush it over food to make it glisten in your shots. :-)

Angle for your Shot: A mistake that many beginner photographers make is taking shots that look down on a plate from directly above. While this can work in some circumstances - in most cases you’ll get a more better shot by shooting from down close to plate level (or slightly above it).

Colors : Colors are very important. Food should neither look dull nor extra-colored...

How To Take Better Photographs Of People

Subject Placement. The biggest mistake many photographers make is to try to shoot a person's whole body, head to toe. Don't attempt this, unless clothes are important (such as a uniform). Instead, focus on the face. The eyes and mouth are the most important features, so start there and work out until you have just enough to represent the individual(s).

Lighting. A standard lighting technique is to position yourself so the sun is behind you and to one side. This arrangement will shine light on the subject's face, while the slight angle will produce shadows to illuminate form. A better approach is to put your subject in a shady area with a shadowed background. Unlike the human eye, photographic film can't easily handle bright areas and dark shadows, as in direct sunlight, so use the shade for a narrow tonal range. Overcast days are usually best for portraits.

Lenses. Use a long lens such as 135mm - the 'people' lens. A wide-angle distorts the face, although it can be effective for parties. Find a simple, mid-toned background and use a wide aperture to throw it out of focus. Center the eyes in the shot, not the head, to provide balance in the shot. When photographing children, crouch down so that you're shooting at their eye-level.

Setting The Scene. Try to set-up your camera ahead of time rather than making people wait. Help relax your subjects by engaging them in conversation. Get them to laugh or smile with a joke from the day. Finally, be sure to put yourself in the shot ;-)
-- that's what the self-timer is for!

Common Mistakes

BLURRY PHOTOS:

Blurry photos are usually the result of camera shake. The simplest way to remedy this problem is to buy and use a good, sturdy tripod. If you can't shoot with a tripod, remember to use a faster ISO on digital cameras or faster film on film cameras. This allows you to increase your shutter speed. The faster the shutter speed, the less likely you are to suffer from camera shake. A rule of thumb for handholding is to use a shutter speed that is 1/lens focal length or faster. In other words, if you're shooting a 200mm lens, you need 1/200th second or faster. Don't forget to compensate if you shoot digitally. If you use a 200mm lens on a Nikon D100, it is the equivalent focal length of 300mm, so you will need to shoot at 1/ 300th of a second if you want to handhold.

UNDEREXPOSED PICTURES :

Underexposure often results from letting the camera make all the exposure decisions. Remember, the camera's meter wants everything to be medium (or gray.) If you do use the auto exposure functions, one common mistake comes from using auto exposure compensation and then forgetting you've done so. Make sure that you get enough light into the scene before you press the shutter.

OVEREXPOSED PICTURES:

Like underexposure, overexposure can result from letting your camera make all the decisions. With slide film, overexposure means blown out highlights and that means lost information. Basing your exposure on shaded or dark areas and letting the camera set the exposure is a formula for overexposed slides. Look for something medium to meter from or, better yet, meter the highlights.

RED EYE:

This is a common problem resulting from on-camera flash. Move your flash off- axis. Use a flash bracket and connecting cord. You can also bounce the flash off a ceiling or wall. You can also use remote flash triggers to fire a flash that is mounted on a stand or anywhere else, as long as it is not on camera.

LENSE FLARE:

Flare occurs when direct light hits the front element of the lens and light starts bouncing around inside the lens. This causes the light to reflect off all the elements. This can reduce contrast and make your pictures look "hazy". Most commonly, it results in a series of round highlights across your image. Be sure to use a lens hood to help prevent this. Sometimes you'll need more than a lens hood. Try using your hand or a hat to shade the lens. If someone is with you, ask him or her to stand so that they cast a shadow on the lens.

Sometimes it's hard to detect lens flare when looking through the viewfinder; using your depth of field preview button will make this easier.