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Digital Photography Lessons – Are Shadows Ruining Your Photos?

Terrific photographs can be ruined by distracting shadows.

Unfortunately, shadows are a constant challenge for photographers. Fortunately, there are quite a few easy but effective fixes.

First, what causes the shadow? Well, obviously it is caused by the light hitting your subject and not hitting the background behind them.

So, if you’ve got a problem with shadows falling on the background, one way to remove the shadow is to remove the background. Obviously, if there is nothing for the shadow to fall on, voila! No shadow.

So, the first fix in our shadow removal arsenal is to remove the backdrop – if possible.

When your photo shoot is being done outside, all you have to do is move your model so that there is no backdrop behind them. Pretty simple.

If your photo session is being done indoors, you obviously can’t take down or remove the walls, so move your model into the center of the room. They’ll be posing far enough away from the walls so that the shadows will magically disappear. Usually makes for a more unique and better shot too!

The second way to approach the problem is to position a light to illuminate the background.

If you are using a “studio” lighting setup, once you get your subject lit the way you want them, add an additional light that strikes only the background and not the subject.

Adding the extra light can be more than just a shadow remover. By adding in scrims, cookies and colored gels to modify the light, it becomes a part of the design of the photo. The modifiers will throw colors, patterns and shapes on your backdrop.

Think of light like a ball on a billiards table. It will hit the subject at a certain angle and reflect off at that same angle – like the billiards ball striking the cushion and bouncing off. (This is important to remember when trying to eliminate glare from eyeglasses.)

The shadow on the other hand, is ALWAYS directly in line with the light. So, you can minimize the shadow problem by changing the angle of the lights so that the shadow falls into an area that won’t show in the final photo.

Indoors, with a studio light setup, just move the lights around until you find the optimal angle. Outside, you have to move your model around until the light is coming from the right direction. Reflectors can help too! you can change the angle of light when using an on camera flash by bouncing it off a wall or the ceiling. Just be sure the wall or ceiling are not painted a color that will throw an odd color cast on your model.

The size and strength of the light source – as related to your model – is what will control the harshness and intensity of your shadows.

If you lower the intensity of the light, that will also lower the intensity of the associated shadow. It will still be there, but you may be able to minimize its’ distracting effect.

Moving the light further from the model or reducing the lights’ power are two simple ways to lower the intensity of light hitting your subject.

You can wrap light around a model – and minimize the shadows – by making the light bigger. This is done with reflectors, softboxes and umbrellas.

These modifiers can be thought of as being like a cloud. A cloud that moves between your model and the sun is nothing more than a giant diffuser. It makes the entire cloud a light source (bigger) instead of just the sun (smaller). This wraps the light around your model minimizing shadow intensity. Go outside and check out the difference in shadows when the light is coming from the sun and from a cloud. You’ll notice some astounding differences.

There are entire books written about this subject and this message is by no means an exhaustive solution, but it should give you something to consider.

Happy shooting.

Tags: camera, Digital Photography, freelance photography, make money, photo, photo jobs, photo marketing, photo studio, photographer, photographers, Photography, photos, professional photography   Posted in Photography

Improving Your Portrait Photography – Eliminate Wrinkles!

Your job as a photographer (whether you’re an amateur or professional) is simple. You have to make your subjects look as good as they’ve EVER looked without your tricks and techniques being obvious. That’s a task easier said than done.

Unless you are a master retoucher or spend countless hours in Photoshop (or both), it’s hard to change too much in a portrait without ruining it. To get seamless retouches, You need to do most of your fixes “in camera”.

This first tip concerns acne and wrinkles.

It won’t take long in your photo career to realize that teens are plagued with acne and adults have wrinkles. They may or may not actually say anything to you about it, but both age groups want to eliminate or at least lessen their respective problems.

Let’s face it, as we get older our wrinkles become more pronounced and actually deeper. Wrinkles are the first photographic signs of our age but they’re a problem that is actually fairly easy to fix.

What defines a wrinkle? It’s the shadows filling in the crevices. As we get older and those crevices get deeper, the shadows become darker and darker. How to get rid of wrinkles and take years off your photographic model?

Lighten the shadow! (There’s a blinding flash of the obvious.)

What creates shadows? It’s light skimming across the face from the sides or the top. The side light is not able to get into the wrinkle crevices and creates a shadow. The deeper the wrinkle, the darker the shadow. This can (and does) add a lot of visual years to our subject.

So, going in reverse, avoid hard side lighting! Pretty simple. By having the light aimed directly into the face, it will penetrate to the bottom of the wrinkles’ crevice and either lighten or totally eliminate the shadow. Obviously giving your model a younger appearance and saving you a lot of time in Photoshop.

Acne? Use the same cure. Acne scars, pimples and other facial blemishes are at least partially defined by the shadows they cast on the face. Again, light skimming the face from the side will cast longer and harder shadows thus making the acne scars more pronounced and pimples appear larger. Shine your light directly into the face and they will be minimized or disappear altogether.

Use a reflector of some sort or even your on camera flash in addition to the sun to fill in the shadows. Your smooth faced teens and wrinkle free adults will thank you.

You now know as much as most professionals! Now it’s time to make some money with YOUR camera! to see how easy this is, follow one of the links to my site…

Tags: camera, Digital Photography, freelance photography, hobby, home-business, make money, photo, photo jobs, photo marketing, photo studio, photographer, photographers, Photography, photos, professional photography   Posted in Photography

How to Photograph Wildlife

Wildlife photography is a very exciting branch of photography, but it requires patience and dedication. It is very easy to become frustrated, but your efforts will be rewarded. Photographers may spend an entire day trying to get one particular shot! These tips are intended to either get you started photographing wildlife, or to inspire you to stick with it. There is a certain awe and beauty about capturing the natural world, particularly animals.

1. Be patient- this tip cannot be stressed enough. It is easy to get frustrated, but if you are willing to wait, you will be pleasantly surprised.

2. Keep your distance. A lot of times if you get too close, animals will not stick around. Whether you are in national parks, the wilderness, jungles, etc., it is crucial that you give animals space, and allow them to get close to you if they so choose (animals are highly curious).

3. Photograph wildlife in their natural habitat. Photographing exotic animals at the zoo is fun, but your photos will turn out better if you are able to capture wildlife where they actually live.

4. Try shooting wildlife with different shutter speeds. For example, if you photograph a zebra running with a fast shutter speed, you will get a clear image of the zebra in the act of running. Alternatively, a slow shutter speed creates a blurred effect.

5. If you are patient (this is where tip #1 comes into play), the wildlife may even compose a brilliant photo. Many times animals will create unique photo opportunities if you just observe them through the lens.

6. It will be in your best interest to purchase a zoom lens. Many times it will be hard to get close to wildlife, and a zoom lens gets you closer without putting you in danger and without disturbing the animal.

Remember to stay inspired by viewing the work of other wildlife photographers. You can search for wildlife photographers online or in photography magazines.

Tags: camera, digital camera, good photograph, graphics, light, media, multi-media, nature photography, photo, photograph, Photography, picture, pictures, shadows   Posted in Photography

Photograph Composing

Photo composition is important because it not only makes your art interesting, but it also keeps the viewer engaged. These tips are meant to help you improve your composition. If you are a beginning photographer, it will take a little bit of time to get an ?eye? for composition, but you will continue to get better.

1. Make sure that you always keep composition in mind. Try not to rely on cropping your photos later. While you can crop your photos later, you will waste a lot of time cropping all of them in order to get an interesting image.

2. You will want to first consider the placement of your subject. You generally want to avoid putting your subject in the middle. Place your subject in a “sweet spot.”

In order to visualize these sweet spots, imagine a blank, rectangular photo. Imagine 2 vertical lines breaking the frame into 3 equal parts. Next, 2 horizontal lines will break the frame into 3 equal parts. These lines will intersect in 4 spots, and these are the sweet spots. These sweet spots are the places to put your subject for a great photo.

3. If you use lines and texture creatively, your viewer will be drawn in. They will also be guided around the photos with these lines.

For example, if your subject is a spiral staircase, the lines will draw the viewer around the entire photo. A cycle can be made if you have grass that draws the viewer from the bottom of the photo to the top, and rays of sun that draw the viewer from the top of the photo to the bottom.

Horizon lines can be placed either above or below the center. Lines from subjects such as trees, ladders, buildings, or railroad tracks can also be used to create strong composition.

Tags: art, arts and entertainment, camera, graphics, hobbies, media, multi-media, photo, photo critique, photograph, Photography, pictures, Portraits, visual arts   Posted in Photography

Unlimited Photo Uploading And Bandwidth – Speedimg.com

We all have images that we want to show to our family and friends, and to others around the world. Free image hosting websites make this possible, because it does not cost us anything to upload images to them, and we receive links to our photos that we can then pass on to others, so they can view our photos.

Image hosting has become very important for a lot of people who use the internet. For anyone that uses forums, and blogs, they are especially useful because they allow the user to upload an image, and have multiple codes ready to use. The codes generated allow people to easily post their images to forums using special tags, and also allow easy to integration of their image into a web page with html code. They also give you the direct link to the image if that’s all you need. All of this happens gets generated in a split second, that’s what makes free image hosts so popular.

When uploading your photos to the free image hosting websites, you do not have to register with them to be able to upload, but registering with them does have its added benefits. Registering with the image hosting sites is also free, and the added benefits of this are, that you can easily keep track of all your photos, keep tack of all your photo links, and you can also see how many people have viewed your images that day. It really is worth while considering becoming a registered member.

If your thinking of paying to join an image hosting website, simply because you can have unlimited bandwidth and unlimited photo uploads, then your throwing your money away. You can do all this and more at Speedimg.com for free already.

So now you have decided you want to use a site like Speedimg.com, and want to know how to upload images from your computer, to the image hosting site. Its very simple to do. When you are at the site, click on the browse button, or whatever its called and locate the photos you want to upload, and then click on the upload button, and thats it. You will then be shown a list of links relating to the photo you have just uploaded, and with these links you can now show your photos of to the world.

Free image hosting websites also allow you to upload multiple images at a time. This saves time and bandwidth because you select all the images at once, and upload them all at once, instead of uploading an image, then going back to the main page, then uploading etc. Most image hosts allow you to upload an image already on the internet. All that you need is the URL to the existing image and the image host will download it and upload it to their server.

Tags: advertising, camera, computers, home, hosting, image, images, models, online, online business, photo, Photography, photos, web hosting, webhosting   Posted in Photography

Taking Photos of Water

Water is a wonderful subject to photograph. Some people may think it is boring, but think again. Water is actually a very versatile subject. Here are some tips and suggestions for creating awesome water photos.

1. Plan a trip to the ocean. Sunrise and sunsets are beautiful over the ocean. Capture the different colors reflecting in the water. When there is a full moon, you can also get its reflection.

2. Moving water, such as rivers or waterfalls, can be shot with a fast or slow shutter speed depending on the effect you want. Film is exposed to light for a short amount of time with a fast shutter speed. Film is exposed to light for a long amount of time with a slow shutter speed. To create a blurred effect, use a slow shutter speed, and to freeze the water in motion, use a fast shutter speed.

3. Find reflections. What does the world look like in a puddle? Use reflections to create abstract images. Make sure you use at least an F11 stop to get the most detail (in focus).

4. If you are feeling adventurous, try underwater photography! It’s not likely you own an underwater camera, so just buy a disposable one. Your next vacation to the ocean will be a lot more fun if you can photograph the fish.

5. Don’t forget about mist, rainbows, clouds and snow! An important note to remember when photographing snow is that you will want to overexpose by one stop. So, if you are at F8, shot at F5.6.

6. Try using a polarizing filter. The filter will eliminate the reflection and make the water more transparent. When you look directly down on the water (from a bridge), you will eliminate the majority of the reflection.

When photographing water, the options are endless. You can find inspiring photos online, and then you are ready to go experiment.

Tags: digital camera, good photograph, photo, photograph, Photography, picture, pictures, Polaroid, snapshot, water, waves   Posted in Photography