Lesson Skill Level - All Skills
Gear required - Camera
Composition
Now that I have my Photography Lovers Community active, I am going to start posting some photography tutorials and tips in there as well. One of my goals with the community is to hopefully be able to teach people a little more with photography and get people interested in it as well.
One of the things with photography is that it takes practice and to get better at it, you actually have to go out and shoot new stuff. You can learn as much as you want through classes and stuff, but if you never put that stuff to the test and actually go shoot, you will have a hard time progressing with your skills.
I will be rewarding people that take part in these lessons with curation from me and you will also have a chance of being curated by @ocd and others if you post into the Photography Lovers Community. I hope that you take some skills away from these lessons as you go out and shoot.
Lesson Objectives
Learn and understand the basics of composition to become aware of all the elements of your frame in order to create more thought out and overall better photographs.
Incorporate the Visual Elements into your photographs and understand the meanings behind them.
Seeing better photographs
Before you take a photograph, ask yourself the reason behind the photograph you are about to take. Many people just take pictures to take pictures, but most truly great photographs do not happen by chance. There are many things to consider when trying to create the perfect photograph, and this lesson is aimed at trying to make you aware of the different things you should consider when creating your photos.
Lesson Objectives
When a viewer is looking at a photograph, they are unable to view the whole photograph at one time. Instead, their eyes see portions of the photograph at a time, and some visual elements of the photograph draw more attention than others.
The eye tends to follow the path of a line, and converging lines tend to draw the eye into the point of convergence. Take this image below for example. The eye naturally follows the path, while the trees keep the eyes moving towards the middle of the photo. Once you are there in the middle, then your eyes begin to seek out other elements of the photo and piece together the photograph.
Visualization
The world renowned photographer Ansel Adams described visualization as:
The ability to anticipate a finished image before making the exposure.
You will take better photographs when they are more thought out and you are able to predict what the final image will look like prior to you even clicking the shutter.
Framing
The edges of your image make up its frame and can either make or break your photograph. Many times new photographers focus on the main subject that they are photographing and do not pay attention to the rest of the stuff in the shot. It is very important as a photographer to make sure that you train yourself to see everything in the frame so that you can eliminate distracting elements of your photograph.
It is difficult for the brain to ignore distracting elements of a photograph, so it is best to try and watch for those distractions prior to taking the photo and take the steps to avoid having them as prominent in the image. This can be done by changing the angle of the shot, changing your focal length, changing your depth of field, and many other techniques.
Fill Your Frame
A lot of photographs contain too much information. This can be a bad thing because the extra subject matter can be distracting from the main subject and add little to no interest to the photo. By choosing to fill the frame with your main subject can lead to a more successful image. So, don't be shy and get close to you subject.
Composition
Composition can be thought of as a thoughtful arrangement of Visual Elements. The visual elements can be broken down into three main elements.
- Line:
Lines can be strait or curved, vertical or horizontal.
The boundary between lighter and darker tones can
define a line. Lines add strength, motion or softness to
an image.
- Shape:
If an image is enclosed by lines or defined by the
outer boundaries of a tonal value it has shape. Different
shapes evoke different emotional responses.
- Form:
The three dimensionality of a subject must be implied
since depth can’t be perceived in a two dimensional
photograph. The representation of shadows on the surface
of a subject shows the subjects form.
Fill Your Frame
When I was setting up this shot, I was at a Civil War battle reenactment. I wanted to get as many of the soldiers in frame as I could, but also wanted some of the sky near the top third of the frame because the sky clouds in the sky had a dramatic effect. There are many different lines in the composition that I was trying to pay attention to and work with as I took this picture and I was waiting for all of the "actors" to fall into place.
I wanted the pathway on the right to be on the far right of the frame but keep the berm at the bottom left of the frame and extend across the center of the frame, leading the viewers eyes and while showing all the soldiers that were fighting along the berm. Once I had my composition set, I just waited for everything to fall into place and then the magic happened.
Now it is your turn
I would like you to go out and create 2 photos that showcase what you have learned in this lesson. They can be of whatever subject matter you choose and make a post about that. Take into consideration the information in this lesson when you are taking those pictures. Pay attention to your backgrounds, pay attention to the lines and shapes in your frame.
As you are taking pictures, do not delete the photos that you think do no look good. Keep those images as well, and include them in your post and explain the process that got you from those images to your final images that you chose. I would like you to explain the information that you took away from this lesson and how it will help to benefit you as you continue with your photography.
When you are done, post the link to your post here in the comment section of this post so I can visit your post and check it out and reward you for your efforts. Make sure that you post into the Photography Lovers Community and use the tag #photolessons with your post.
The purpose of this lesson is to help you think more critically about your approach to photography and what your end goal with your photograph will be. There is a lot that goes into creating a good photograph and the only way to get better is to practice and learn as much as possible.
Thank you for stopping by and I hope that you learned something from this lesson. You are awesome. I am looking forward to seeing what you create.
I've noticed that it's always in your attitude to be a leader of something. Congratulations on your new community. I'm sure I'll be practicing these lessons at home. Thank you for sharing your knowledge so kindly.
You are welcome. I am looking forward to seeing what you do.
Man, what an awesome idea. I’ll definitely taking part in this. Thanks for doing such good things and helping others.
Thank you. I am looking forward to seeing what you come up with and how you put these tips to use.
Great post, I feel like composition has always been my strong suit over the technical stuff.
Thanks Josh. Composition could be one of the most important pieces of the whole photography puzzle. Without a great composition and you are left with a bad photo from the beginning.
You know my photographs are not of the typical type, but as far as composition goes I do try and weigh things up before shooting. Sometimes there is not the time, as some angry bastard might be chasing me out, but I do try!
Also, there is only so much one can do with an iPhone 7. These big cameras are just that, too big for me to cart about.
LOL, I can only imagine you getting chased out of a place by someone and you turning to take a picture of them on your way out. Now that would be awesome.
Phone cameras can take some awesome pictures as well, and it is really up to the person behind the camera to make a cool shot and your stuff has always been really cool to look at.
They do get a little pissy.., one place some woman with massive teeth stopped us going into an old hall. I should have taken one of her. She could have been half-horse with those jaws and probably would have taken a bite outta me!
What a great post! I'm amazed at how my photographic skills evolved since I started posting in Steemit, the tutorials and posts I read here had tons of information and created the will to learn more. Glad you decided to produce some more, will be keeping a closer eye on the blog! Thank you!
Thanks man. The blockchain has a good way of trying to make you push yourself further in terms of creativity. I have learned a lot from others as well and found motivation in trying to produce things here that people will like. I will be making more of these types of tutorials, along with some cell phone photography tips.
Very cool blog. I found you through my friend @phorton's blog. You've really risen to the top of all things photography here on hive/steemit. Really impressed. I've been doing "real life captured photos" on my blog. But I'm much more of a professional traveler than photographer.
In fact I just use my Samson phone camera. I don't like carrying a big expensive camera around in public for the photos I like to take. Especially if I'm in some sketchy neighborhood in Mexico or something.
Is there ever a time where a phone Camera can rival a $5,000 Nikon?
Or any tips on how to get the best out of a decent phone camera?
Following and putting you on my auto voter.
Thanks and have a great day!
From Ao Nang Thailand -Dan "World Travel Pro!" :)
Thanks Dan. I appreciate the compliments. I know what you mean about not wanting to carry a large camera around with you in certain areas of the world. The cameras on phones nowadays are amazing and I would have to say that it doesn't matter too much about what type of camera you are using if you are able to use all the fundamentals of photography to get a good photo. A lot of it is creativity as well and trying to capture things in a way that are out of the norm so that they will look interesting. It also has a lot to do with your post process and how you edit the images. A lot of people think that editing photos is wrong and you should keep your images as close to what the camera captures it as, but I think that a lot of the magic of photography comes with editing the pictures to make them look like what you saw in your head and not necessarily what the camera sees.
Hey buddy! Thank you for the advice. I certainly can get more creative with how I take my photos. I saw you stopped by my last photo post in Phu Quoc. To be honest that one was probably one of my least impressive. It's good to know the problem is me not the expensive camera that I don't have! lol I'll certainly be following along with your blog and learning all that I can. Thanks again, and have a great day!
Seriously? WTF? And you too?
Maybe we should just all spam-farm with hunderds of our previous posts that were published in last few months or years?
This content was already on the blockchain. You only added few small paragraphs at the beginning, while 80-85% of the rest is a recycled content.
I would never expect that from you considering that you have reported a lot of abuses yourself.
Well considering that this is a tutorial for my Photography Community, I guess I should have used the cross-post feature to put it into that community, but then I wouldn't have been able to add any other information to the post that was originally made over 8 months ago. When I put the other tutorials I made into my community, I will probably send the rewards to null or dao, but I will be sharing those posts again as well.
Ok, downvotes removed. Please be careful next time. It sends the message to others that it is fine to do so.
Great tutorial. It will help to improve our photography skills.
Thanks for this tutorial, it helps a lot especially for a newbie like me. 😊
I want to learn more about photography here in this community.
Thank you for this tutorial! I am just starting to learn about photography and this post has been a really good first lesson on my journey. Will catch up with the second one right now :P
(and I seriously do not care about the fact that you re-posted such an amazing piece of guidance)
Nice post..Will keep it in mind..
Great post and brilliant community. Glad to be a part of it!
How could i missed out on this, I'm just seeing this but i must say I'm wowed with this great lesson, so insightful and inspiring,.really looking forward to your contents and learning more from you.
Very interesting, even for expert photographers!
I know I'm late for this post, but I'm glad I found it pinned in the community, it was very useful to read it. I'll practice your tips to improve my pictures. Thanks for inviting me to the community.
No problem. Looking forward to seeing what you do with the information.
Take advantage of it and learn of course. hehe thanks.
Posted using Dapplr
Source
Copying and pasting previous posts or significant parts there of could be seen as spam when:
Spam is discouraged by the community and may result in the account being Blacklisted.
Please refrain from copying and pasting previous posts going forward. If you believe this comment is in error, please contact us in #appeals in Discord.