Pricey Cameras Don’t Make Better Photos
By Albert Chi— Some years ago while getting a routine checkup at my dentist’s office, he turned to me and said: “I want to learn photography. How important is the equipment you buy?” He knew I was a professional photographer but was not expecting the answer I gave him, which was, “Not that important.” “That’s not what I hear,” he huffed. “All my friends have spent thousands on photo gear and they tell me that without making a...
Back To Basics: Quick ‘n Easy Print Framing!
By Peter E. Randall— Based on nearly sixty years of experience, I believe there are two major elements to photography. The first part is the making of an image, whether on film, digital or smartphone. The other aspect is what to do with it. Today, internet programs such as Instagram or Facebook appear to be the prime destinations for digital images. This may be momentarily satisfying, but it does nothing for the long-term appreciation...
Sloooooow Down For More Creative Images
By Albert Chi— Most photographers dread shooting when poor light levels require slow shutter speeds for proper exposure. Chances are pictures will end up blurred due to camera shake, subject motion, or both. And to compensate, you can only up the ISO so much before running into noise and artifacts. Here are some ways to make slow shutter speeds work for you. In fact, even when you have enough light to use faster speeds, shooting with...
Back to Basics: The Power of Light
By Suzanne D. Williams— Light is the key element in every photograph and having an understanding of it is essential to becoming a good photographer. Relying on your camera’s automatic settings will at some point become a hindrance because these settings can be misleading. The camera does not always make the correct choice. Instead, you, the photographer, must be able to recognize the light and know how it will affect your final...
Back to Basics: Using Focus Creatively
By Suzanne D. Williams— You can exert a great deal of creative focus control over your images once you learn how to use some of the basic functions your digital camera offers. First, though, let’s define a few terms that are essential to the process. Photographers who use the term “point of focus” refer to the subject or object in a photograph where they want to draw the most attention. “Focus” itself...
Seeing Differently
By Michael Freeman— One of the first tenets of professional photography is that you have to try harder, always and all the time. There’s almost too much said about this, so I’ll restrict myself to one only, from American photographer William Albert Allard: “You’ve got to push yourself harder. You’ve got to start looking for pictures nobody else could take. You’ve got to take the tools you have and probe deeper.” Well, maybe I’ll allow...
Take Great Holiday Party Photos!
By Maggie Kornahrens– There will be a plethora of cameras and smartphones at every party and soiree in the coming weeks and if you want to capture the spirit of the holidays in fresh and exciting ways, be willing to branch out of the ordinary. Cameras these days are advanced enough so that anybody can shoot great family party photos. Here are a few tips that can take your holiday pictures from ho-hum to ah-ha. Keep it Simple. Holiday...
What Rembrandt Taught Me About Portrait Lighting
By Joel Grimes– Part of the requirements for receiving a BFA in Photography from the University of Arizona included half a dozen semesters of art history.At the time I felt like this was overkill and was only interested in attending my photo-related classes. In hindsight, one of the greatest influences that shaped my personal vision as a photographer did not come from studying the work of the master photographers, but that of a master...
Back To Basics: Orientation Can Make Or Break Your Image
By Suzanne Williams– The composition of a photograph is exactly what the word “composition” itself implies. It is the way the objects in an image are “composed”, or we could say, “arranged”. Composition is, for the most part, subjective to the photographer’s eye. The fact is that there are many ways to arrange the same scene. Think of a well-known photograph. Ansel Adam’s...
Spark Up Your Holiday Photos!
By Suzanne D. Williams– We’ve all done it, taken that endless stream of holiday photographs with the same people doing something, only we can’t exactly tell what. Then there’s the familiar, “Oh look at the tree!” only it’s slightly blurry and the top is missing. Sound familiar? Who doesn’t have similar Christmas and other holiday pictures somewhere? Believe it or not, there is such a thing as...
How To Print Beautiful Antique Christmas Cards
By Arthur H. Bleich– The Christmas card-giving tradition began in London in 1843, when Sir Henry Cole commissioned an artist friend, John Horsley, to design a card that could be mailed to his friends. Some say Sir Henry thought up the idea to avoid writing long letters in reply to those sent by friends and acquaintances– an English tradition at Christmastime. He had a “To___” printed at the top so he could write in his friends’ names–...
My Photographic Evolution
By Suzanne D. Williams– My daughter’s graduation from high school some years ago prompted me to comb through files filled with old photographs. She’ll always be my baby and I had several of those “mom moments,” wishing to re-enter my now rosy past. But I was also forced to revisit some really bad photographs. Why in the world did I save all of these? There is something to be said for viewing the overall grand design of...
Back to Basics: Resolution Simplified, Part 2
By Arthur H. Bleich– In Back To Basics: Resolution Simplified Part 1 camera and print resolution were explained. In this part, we’ll cover printer resolution, how to select the best printer settings for quality output and how to add more pixels to an image to enlarge it (within reason) without it looking like patchwork of pixels. To make things as easy to understand as possible, I’m not diving too deep because I...
Back to Basics: Resolution Simplified, Part 1
By Arthur H. Bleich– Resolution goes hand-in-hand with almost every aspect of digital photography– from image capture to the final print. If you want your photographs to be the best they can possibly be, it’s necessary to have a basic understanding of it. At first, it may seem confusing because many who try to explain it often use the wrong terminology or throw lots of numbers around which only makes things worse. This is my...
Exploring Light
By Bryan Peterson– You can do one of the best exercises I know near your home whether you live in the country or the city, in a house or an apartment. Select any subject, for example, the houses and trees that line your street or the nearby city skyline. If you live in the country, in the mountains, or at the beach, choose a large and expansive composition. Over the course of the next twelve months, document the changing seasons and...
Try Soft Light For Great Portraits
By Arthur H. Bleich– In the early days of amateur photography, enthusiasts were always being warned to “keep the sun at your back” because films were slow and needed lots of light to record a decent image. But before photography became the beloved hobby of the masses, Victorian studio photographers had discovered that the best way to light their subjects was to avoid the sun altogether. They set up indoor studios with...
How To Survive If Your Drive Takes A Dive
By Arthur H. Bleich– There are few things more chilling than to see this message pop up on your computer screen during startup: “This disk is not readable by this computer.” Is your data still on the hard disk? Is it a software problem? A hardware problem? A connection problem? What happened? If it’s your internal drive that’s gone south, you won’t even be able to get online for help. You get that numb feeling of fear. Well, hang in...
What To Think About BEFORE You Shoot
By Arthur H. Bleich– Chances are you already know about different post production work flow techniques that can be used in Photoshop and/or Lightroom after you’ve shot your pictures. But it’s equally important to establish a workflow you can follow before you even make the shot. Here are nine things you should think about before you lift the camera to your eye. I’ve grouped them so when you begin to follow this recipe you only...
Quickstart Guide To Inkjet Papers
By Drew Hendrix –Today’s selection of inkjet papers provides amazing creative opportunities for photo enthusiasts by offering quality, control and cost savings previously unknown to photographers who worked with conventional photo papers. There are many more options to let you match the paper’s surface to suit your photographic style. Weight, texture, shade and more can finely tune the look and feel of your prints. Never in the...
Frame Your Images for Maximum Impact!
By Arthur H. Bleich– Throughout history, great works of art have been showcased in frames and your best images deserve no less. It’s amazing how they’ll stand out and gain stature; a framed photograph seems to announce: “Look at me, I’m worthy of viewing!” But how do you choose the right frame? For years I’ve put off framing my best images for two reasons. First, I wasn’t up to learning how to frame from scratch; for example, making...
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