Monument Photography

Dear Viewers and Fellow Photographers,

Monument photography is the type of photography that catches people out, a lot of the time. It usually turns out something like this: your on holiday, e.g. London, and you get your camera out to take a photo of the grand St Paul's Cathedral, and you imagine it will turn out something like this:

http://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/image/epw005903

St Paul's Cathedral

This photo is exemplar. Grand, centre of attention, nothing blocking it's view, and topping it up, a dramatic blue sky. However, when you put your camera down to observe your photo, its a bit like this:

http://www.geocaching.com/mark/details.aspx?PID=PP2507

BAD St Paul's Cathedral

Undramatic. Not all of the cathedral visible. Almost as if it is a miniature model of the real thing. Its the kind of photo taken from a hotel window or through a tour bus. The sky is dull, and there is dust in front of the building itself giving the photo it's unclean effect.

Monument photography is one where you cannot take good photos without correct conditions. In this case, the photographer claims a windy and rainy overcast whilst taking the photo, and looking at the width of the photo, it was highly zoomed as well. 

All you have to do is take a wide lens along with you, and if you want to get abstract textures, a zoom lens as well. The wide lens, as you may already realise its reason, is simply for the wide grand feelings of the monuments in the picture. The zoom lens is more for times when you can't get into the monument area or when trees are obstructing your view, or even zooming into areas of decoration, such as the top spike or the dome (in this case) of buildings.

Be sure to share and subscribe!

Yours Truly,

Snapography.

Text Photography

Dear Viewers and Fellow Photographers,

Strange a topic as this is, it is very important for day to day life and will come up (if it hasn't already) as a problem to solve. Text photography is not a special type of photography, but it entails a variety of sub parts and areas to look on.

First of all, text photography has a lot to do with the content of the photo than how the photo has been taken and how it looks. The viewer of the photo would be looking for what has been written on the document and therefore, it must be legible the whole way through. Macro setting will help really well in these conditions, and also a slightly high aperture setting for brightening up the picture, and helping it become more legible at the same time. It will also make the photo look professional.

The second sub topic of text photography is more of an abstract take to it rather than the document take. An example of this would be:

http://www.efta.int/sites/default/files/images/content/image-law.jpg

This is the sort of picture you would use on a website or a magazine, which would be using it to give glimpses of the topic, and may be used as a background or backdrop. They can be commercially sold as stock photos as these photos are real sellers over the internet. However simple it may look and seem, you need the correct angle, lens and settings to get it to focus on the right thing. My attempt would be:

My own photo

This is a good photo but not perfect for my needs, as the background. This is because the picture is very dark, and the content of the picture is sparse.

It however, is the perfect picture for how to take a photo - it also depicts well that not only do you need the knowledge of how to take a picture but the understanding of the value of what's in the picture.

The picture had not got a perfect lighting arena, it was taken outside. However, the macro and F point of the photo were spot on, focusing the whole picture and causing a vignetting of the picture.

For documents, on the other hand, you should depend more on your office scanner, but a descent smartphone could do you well.

Yours Truly,
Snapography.

Abstract Photography

Dear Viewers and Fellow Photographers,

Abstract Photography is more difficult than normal photography. This statement is debated across the Globe by everyone, and is always wondered on about how it is not a 'real' art, but I would say that is a rather aesthetic way of thinking, an idea more like 'art for art's sake'. I strongly disagree with this as photos and all art has a meaning behind, whether what the viewer's feels whilst reacting to the image, or the importance to the artist which creates it. Many people usually forget that photographers are Artists.

Anyway, looking at Abstract Art you can see the absolutely huge range of what Abstract Art can mean. They usually have no definition, unlike a composition, and also no back meaning, it is simply to arise emotions in the viewer, and in many cases it is not even that. Here is an example of one:

http://thedesignwork.thedesignwork.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Creative-Pictures-of-Abstract-Photography-06.jpg

This photo is actually extremely eye catching. It is one of the few photos that actually have not been under heavy editing software to add more 'abstractness' to it. It is clever, the way how the slab of land in the bottom half of the photo seems as if it is a shape, no longer land at all. It is also extremely clever, the way it uses this feature to make the viewer concentrate on what it actually is, and is surprised that something as natural as land can be so confusing. The photo has no meaning whatsoever behind it, and the picture has only made to seem to flick through natural and unnatural due to the editing done to it. A more real life abstract picture would be something like this:

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCQAtDyDTIRskBxWvF0dLT5L5PXcsPj8ZGgSN0k5nmIBvEx468lgR2sfzyyT1Psd8oCZK3cRxsFW1d9sBmZnDGYk4uQMo40w8hCVRw8yTM62sTK2dwAv91rf-aHRqoG1_MvjohXCODe78/s1600/abstract+photography+ideas.jpg

This photo uses it's colours to define itself outside 'photographic'. The photo makes you want to look at the main object at the top of the photo and actually right into the bulb. The lights look like they are swinging because they seem to be at different angles to each other by the way the photographer has angled his camera. Also what makes this photograph look intresting is how the lights are purple under their own glow and how everything around them is pitch-black.

In Abstract Photography there are two main things, the editting and the object. The editting required to make a picture as normal as it is look so unreallistic is huge, and usually people get others skilled at such things to finish it off for them. Colours are important for this, as you can see in the first example as well as the last example, for the sea and the water and the lights and obviously the background.

The last style of Abstract Photography is the grayscale ones such as the one below:

http://designyoutrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Abstract-Photography-02.jpg

In this photograph you can see the amount of editing done to give the effect of whatever the long things are to seem to light up the clouds. This is a good photograph because of the alteration of the shape of the objects, which to our perspective look straight and identical but sometimes looks as if they are curved, bent or just abnormal. This picture shows to which extent the abnormality of the picture can go to.

Abstract photography goes a long way, pleasing the non-photographer and confusing the common photographer.

Yours Truly,
Snapography.

Garden Photography

Dear Viewers and Fellow Photographers,

Garden Photography is not a simple one-time topic. It consists of many areas, for example some sorts of Weddings or celebrations to the flowers. The Garden is an area full of photographic success for many reasons:

http://www.glamourandgraceblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/garden-bridal-shoot-Just-For-You-Photography_01.jpg

http://www.finegardening.com/CMS/uploadedimages/Images/Gardening/Issues_101-110/041101836_garden_photography_ld.jpg

The Garden, normally is an area full of colours and themes. You can add a huge amount of detail to the photos such as field of view to give it an extremely amazing effect. In the first picture you can see how the background gives the overall picture a somewhat 'beautiful' effect. The picture has a natural beauty effect which nowadays is not really available to lots of us.

In order to get such a great effect from your photos, you have to remember to have your subject of the photo in line with the background of the whole composition. Also you have to remind yourself how much effect the background has on the entire photo, and try to introduce different colours, and also try not to have a skyline or a definate outline to it, this enables the photo to keep it's wonder and heaven-like feature. Also, if you have more time to take the photo, try to keep colours in the background contrasting from your second object, in this case the flowers, and if you can, you might even make it the same colour as the first object in your photo. This combines the whole photo together.

This links into the use of flowers in your photos, this is well represented by this photo:

My own photo

This is a photo taken in Italy, near the Bay of Naples. It is from a famous tree type found in Italy, nicknamed 'The Blood Red' tree in Latin, due to a fable how Satan was hung on the tree and the tree had absorbed the blood leading to the colour of it. You can see the photo has a blurred out background and you can see the importance a background can give to a photo.

There are many examples of this on the internet which can inspire you to keep the background vivid in Garden Photography.

Yours Truly,
Snapography.

Aquarium Photography

Dear Viewers and Fellow Photographers,

Aquarium Photography is hard. Normally, the photo turns out to be blue and even discoloured, and leaves the untrained photographer wondering why the camera cannot capture what the human eye sees, and aquariums are the perfect example of this:

This is not a very 'fabulous' photograph, lets just say. The photo has no clear object, which is meant to be the shark but it really isn't visible, the angle of the photo doesn't give it a sea-like effect, it's blurred and "its all blue". There are many, many  visible problems with this photo.

http://ilmadventures.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/big-shark.jpg

Lets start torubleshooting, if your photos turn out like this when you go to the aquarium then its not quite worth keeping them. The first problem with this photo is with the object. In order to get a good photograph in the low light situation, keep your aperture high as well as the shutter speed. This will minimise the blurred effect on the photograph, while still letting light into the camera. If you sort out the problems with the object in the photo, it might turn out like this:

http://www.thesaltybox.com/News/3088-Sea-Life-London-Underwater-Pumpkin-Competition.html

This photo has a clear object, and has lost some of the dark bluish effect which is good. Now to remove the dirty blue you have to unsaturate the image, possible on some versions of digital cameras but not very effective, so what you have to do is probably edit it on any software on your computer, Picasa will be able to do the job. If you are able to do this successfully, your image may look more like this:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-vnZaWjSNVDA/UVi0CX6N3nI/AAAAAAAAAhw/zCLgujcB6xQ/s250-c-k-no/2013-03-31

The object is now clear, the water is not coming into the way of it, but the image has 'vignetted'. To solve this sort of problem, (if you get it) is to add a blue 'lighting setting' on your camera. This will undo this to a certain extent, and will also remove any remaining 'blueness' to the image. It should turn out slightly like this:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-R0AeMgLX9Dg/UBqZ906HUcI/AAAAAAAABOw/k4SMLPCo-mA/s1600/Sea+Life+London+075.JPG

The photo is finally visible, unblurred and clean. If you gave a DSLR, you can put on a macro lens and take photos like this:

http://imagene.youropi.com/london-aquarium-activiteit-londen-1(p:activity,6793)(c:0).jpg

Your Truly, 
Snapography.

An introduction to Camera Settings 2

Dear Viewers and Fellow Photographers,

This post is the second post to the An introduction of Camera Settings 1.

http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=3244&picture=camera-setting

The picture above is a photo of a normal settings dial on a camera. 

The preset 'Sports' mode is a very useful preset for fast moving subjects, and on some optical cameras is the option for 'Burst' mode. The preset sets the ISO high to capture moving objects sharp, (not blurred) and the shutter speed is also extremely fast. This preset is very useful, and is the third most used preset (after Auto and Macro). The Aperture changes according to what the camera detects, as lots of people use sports mode for many different reasons- one being they cannot hold their camera straight enough and so their photos always turn out to be 'jogged' or blurred.

The next preset is the Backlight option. In this image you cannot see clearly enough the symbol as it is different to many others, which have a tree in front of a sun. This mode increases the aperture by a significant value meaning that the photo is visible and is not just a plain silhouette. The photo however can lack sharpness and the normally low shutter speed doesn't help the situation. This preset is probably the least used preset, and this is probably because there are only a few occasions when people take a photo of something when the object is in the shadow (unless they are trying to achieve a desired effect).

The next preset, which is not shown on the dial in the picture above, is available on most cameras. This preset is extremely hard to use for some, however for the more experienced photographer, it is slightly easier. This mode enables you to take photos in the night, when there are low-light conditions and when the camera's Auto setting cannot cover (this might vary for some models - there is an Auto-Scenery options in some cameras which detects it is night time so it switches to it. This feature can be better on some cameras than others.) The preset changes the shutter speed to extremely slow and tries to keep the Focal Length as large as it can. This means that you can only successfully use this preset when you are using a tripod, not matter how steady hands you have. Some readers might already have experienced the flurry of wild colours when they were trying to take a night shot.

These are the rest of the Presets that come inbuilt to a classic digital Camera. The next post will be on the Manual setting modes.

Yours Truly,
Snapography

An introduction to Camera Settings 1

Dear Viewers and Fellow Photographers,

There is a lot of mathematics adjoined to the world of photography, and if people don't understand it, they remain constrained behind their camera's Auto setting, and many don't even experiment with it as they worry that they might end up changing their camera's settings so it 'breaks'. This never happens, as if you manually changed a setting, there is always a way to change it back.

http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=3244&picture=camera-setting

On the camera dial (shown in the picture above) you can see how it is split into two sections. The bottom half (including the green rectangle) are presets, options quickly accessible by the confident and also the not so confident. The green square is the Auto mode, a mode in which most people choose to shoot with - the camera is equipped with technology to detect the surrounding and find out about how much of Aperture and Shutter Speed will make the picture look 'good'. I say good because this technology varies to how good it can be on each camera.

On the presets, you can see the first one down is the 'Portrait' option with the Woman's face on it. The camera will have preset settings (which may or may not be flexible) which tell it to keep the aperture high, a short focal length and slow shutter speed. These are the sort of conditions you find when you are taking a portrait - you are close to the face so the light can be low, the face is close to the lens so the focal length is also low and the camera should not be moving because the people may be posing for the picture. This sort of setting can be flexible on some aspects like the shutter speed and aperture, but are around this area. In auto mode, the camera can only know if it is a portrait picture if the camera detects a face - this normally does not happen.

The next preset is the landscape option. This is indicated with mountains and a cloud on it, and the normal settings the camera will have is probably large focal length, low shutter speed and small aperture. This is most probably because usually when taking photos of a landscape, the object of capture is usually very far and large, and so the large focal length will allow it to keep distant objects in focus and the whole of the photo in focus. The shutter speed is low as in a landscape photo usually nothing is moving fast enough to blur the image, and the longer the shutter speed the better quality of the objects will appear. Aperture is low because in landscape photography there is a lot of natural light to brighten the picture.

The last preset for this post is the Macro photography option. This is usually represented with three petals and two leafs for the flower. The Macro option is usually very flexible, as it might be used for quite a lot of things, outside or inside. The shutter speed is low/medium, the aperture is low and the focal length is at it's bare minimum (except if there is a Super Macro option). The 'bare minimum' focal length depends on the type of camera and it's specifications, something to look out for when buying the camera (the more the range of the Focal Length the better). The shutter speed is set low/medium because when taking close up photo shots there is not a lot of movement, the aperture is low (but very flexible) because there is [usually] a lot of natural light.

Explanations for the other presets and Manual Modes will follow very soon - keep checking so you don't miss it

Yours Truly,
Snapography.