I get a lot of friends who are initially disappointed with the purchase of their first dSLR. They like the quality of the picture, but don’t think the pictures they’re taking are any better than with their point and shoot. I always caution people when buying a nicer camera that it is not the camera that makes the photographer. Sure, it helps, but it’s not everything. One thing I’d like to accomplish through this blog is to try and give willing readers some tips for taking “better pictures”. It’s impossible to quantify what exactly “better” means, but I figured I’d share some tips that have helped me. I read a lot of nerdy techie blogs and stuff…most of it is stuff no one would care about here, but I did come across one site today I thought was worth sharing: http://www.geekosystem.com/tourist-photo-art/. Artist Corrine Vionnet went through a bunch of photo sharing sites and layered hundreds of pictures of famous landmarks together. What is immediately apparent in her work is most people take pictures of landmarks, historic sites, etc from more or less the same vantage point. Sure, you can make the argument that this is simply due to public access to these areas….people take the picture from the same spot because that’s where tours and trails bring them. The more important point I want to make is that regardless of the cause, the effect is still the same and more or less the same picture is taken by hundreds of people from the EXACT same spot. This is because most people see the world from a singular perspective….this view of the world surprisingly doesn’t vary a whole lot from person to person. One of the best, simplest tips I can give budding photographers to make pictures look more “interesting”: after you take a picture, retake the picture of the SAME subject from a different point of view. Experiment with as many points of view as you can. Don’t be afraid to get your feet wet….get on your knees, lay on the ground, climb trees (don’t hurt the trees though), wade in water (be careful with the camera), etc. Try looking at your subject and taking a picture from an angle you don’t think anyone has ever done before. Remember to stay safe when getting your shot and be mindful of trespassing signs and don’t break any laws, etc. You will be amazed the results you can get simply by finding unique point of views for you subject. Happy shooting!
Photography
OneLight DVD
in Movies, Photography
Thanks to a recent black friday sale I got my hands on the OneLight DVD Workshop by Atlanta photographer Zack Arias. Being relatively new to off-camera lighting, I'm trying to take in all the tips and advice I can get at the moment to make not only my photos better but make myself a better photographer. Zack is great at what he does and offers a workshop in Atlanta and throughout the country. Unfortunately the workshop sells out REALLY fast and cost wise is out of my current budget. For people like myself, he put together the next best thing: a workshop DVD. While a little pricey, it's still a fraction of the cost of the real-life workshop, and I've already picked up some tips from the disc. Can't wait to get through the whole thing and start applying some new tips/tricks/etc. Some of the proceeds for this sale went to an Atlanta charity, so not only do I get to pick up some lighting tips, I'm putting some $$ back into the Atlanta community. Hopefully I'll get through it this weekend and get back to shooting some in the near future. I have several sets of pics I need to edit at the moment, and this being the end of the semester I'll have my plate full for the next two weeks or so. Til then....
The Zack Arias OneLight DVD Workshop can be purchased from UsedFilm Studios here:
Website
Thanks to the help of a buddy of mine over at Wizkid Sound, the website is now live! You can find it at www.deveauphotography.com. It is kinda a work in progress, but for the first website I've ever done I'm relatively pleased with the results so far. I will be making tweaks to it in the coming weeks starting with optimizing the resolution of the pics for the web. Any feedback about the site would be greatly appreciated, shoot me an email at deveauphotography@gmail.com. Cheers and have a great weekend!