Open Aperture Photography

Tip #10: Shoot for the Moment

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Photography Tip #11 - Patterns in Nature | Photography New Bern

2011-11-21T11:09:00.000-05:00

Photography Tip #11 - Patterns in Nature
Difficulty: Medium

This tip is a bit more difficult than a few of our more recent tips. It's not tough because of the technical photographic knowledge that you need; it's tough because you need to identify the picture with your eye before you take it.

First off, most patterns in nature aren't natural. Sounds like an oxymoron but it's true. Most of the patterns that you see are manmade in some way. It's possible for stones, trees and fallen leaves to make an eye-pleasing pattern, but you're more likely to see patterns in a fence or brick sidewalk.

All of these pictures come from Tryon Palace in New Bern.

My first example is a wooden fence against a brick wall. Lots of lines can help make a pattern to catch your eye.

That fence is there to help the small bush grow but it makes an interesting pattern-on-pattern image. The wood has strong lines that go left to right and up and down. The brick has smaller left to right lines but they're still strong.

The next step is to find a pattern with a visual element that can draw your interest. These little black poles make a nice pattern and I like how the vine is growing up one of them.

That vine creates a small piece of visual interest to hold your eye while the lines draw your eye through the image.

Our last example is this tree/bush (not sure what you'd call it) that is growing along a small wooden fence. This piece of visual interest is like the vine in the picture above but much larger. In this one, the visual interest is the main focal point and the pattern, the wooden fence, is much more subtle.

There's a piece of fence that runs across the image about halfway up the tree/bush but it's hard to see because of the way that the shadows fell.

Try to look for some of these patterns while you're walking around every day. The more you practice looking for patterns, the better you'll get at seeing them.

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Tip #9: Step Back, Zoom In

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Photography Tip #10 - Shoot for the Moment | Jacksonville NC Photographers

2011-11-14T14:05:00.000-05:00

Photography Tip #10 - Shoot for the Moment
Difficulty: Basic

It's the moment that makes the image. It's the smile on your child's face when they're playing. It's your dog yanking on their chew toy with all their strength.

If you can catch somebody, with perfect timing, in the act of doing something wonderful it makes your image that much better. It'll add context to your picture that can't be found otherwise.

How do you do that?

It's pretty basic (hence the difficulty of this tip). Be ready and know what to look for.

Here's three tips on how to catch the moment:

1) Watch for repeated patterns

Every Easter my wife Amanda makes homemade manicotti. It's ridiculously good. She even makes the crepes from scratch.

One year I decided that I wanted to get her in the act of making the crepes. When they're ready, she picks up the frying pan and flips the fresh crepe into the air.

That's where the repeated pattern comes in. Every time she makes a crepe, she flips it. I knew how she would flip it and what would happen when she did.

I waited for her to flip the crepe and took this picture:

Another reason that repeated patterns can help: You get more than one chance. I probably had two or three shots where my timing was off. I took the picture too early or too late. Since Amanda repeated this action, I had multiple chances.

Unrelated to the timing, I used a low angle to make it look like she was flipping the crepes higher. To learn more about camera angles, visit our past tip blog about changing your eye level.

2) Use your life experiences

I took some shots at our nephew's baptism this year. What image says "baptism" more than anything else? Since I know what happens at a baptism, I knew the shot I wanted was getting water poured on his head.

You can do this at any event where you have a feel for what will happen.

What happens at the end of a wedding ceremony? The first kiss. It's a great picture opportunity. There's usually similar wording that leads up to it too. When you hear that wording, you're on notice for your picture opportunity.

3) Be ready to get lucky

It sounds like an oxymoron but the more you're prepared, the more likely you are to make the most of a fleeting opportunity.

Know your camera and how it works. Know the lighting in the environment and if you'll need to use your flash. Have your camera at hand.

We have a lot of these opportunities when we cover weddings. So many picture moments go flying by and we're the only ones to catch it.

Take this next image for example. This is one of our brides, Nicole, having a great time dancing at her reception.

When you look at their finished disc, this image appears in the middle of about twenty images of guests dancing and partying, but it stands out as one of my favorites from the entire wedding.

Since there's so many dancing pictures in a row, I was clearly in the right place. But how did I get this image from all of those? I was ready.

I had camera in hand looking for people having a good time. When I heard Nicole yell I turned, framed the shot and took the picture very quickly. I knew what I wanted from the camera and flash so they were ready to go. That just left my reaction time to turn and shoot.

This next image is another one of our wedding couples, Josh and Sara, at the end of their ceremony. Sara was so excited that she raised her fist in celebration.

To be honest, I totally missed this. I didn't even see it happen because I was getting into position for them to walk to the down aisle.

Amanda grabbed this picture because she was ready to go with her camera. She knew what to do when the opportunity presented itself.

Hopefully you can use one or two of these tips and get people in action because you're prepared and know what to look for!

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Tip #9: Step Back, Zoom In

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Photography Tip #9 - Step Back, Zoom In | Jacksonville NC Photographers

2011-11-08T16:37:00.000-05:00

Photography Tip #9 - Step Back, Zoom In
Difficulty: Basic

We have a pretty quick, easy photo tip for you today: When taking a picture of somebody, step back and zoom in.

Why do that if you're still going to have the subject do the same thing? It's more flattering.

Take this photo of Amanda as an example. I took this shot zoomed all the way out.

First off, thank you to Amanda for letting me take an unflattering picture of her and put it on the blog. What a wonderful wife.

Back on subject, this is really unflattering. I had to stand very close to her to frame her how I wanted. (For more info on framing, check out Tip Blog #4.)

When you're zoomed all the way out as I was here, you make features look larger than they would normally appear. That's good for interiors of a house but bad for people. Amanda's nose looks very large and her shoulders look broad. That definitely doesn't describe petite little Amanda.

In this second photo I stepped back and zoomed all the way in with my base lens.

This one looks more flattering (other than the wind blowing her hair). Her nose doesn't appear to stick out and her shoulders don't look as broad.

If you want to make your subjects look good, and if you want them to let you take pictures of them, try this tip. I know if I always made Amanda look like she did in the first picture, she'd never let me take pictures of her!

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Photography Tip #8 - The Lights of Golden Hour | Photography New Bern

2011-11-01T18:02:00.002-04:00

Photography Tip #8 - The Lights of Golden Hour
Difficulty: Basic

Golden hour is a fantastic time for shooting cityscapes because of the lighting at that time. "Golden hour" refers to the time shortly before and shortly after sunrise or sunset.

If you take a photo at the right time it can add extra personality and life to it. Take this next photo for example.

The street lights and shop lights bring life to this shot of downtown New Bern.

Here's one more example from the same time of morning and the same setting, but this is in black and white:

The street lights look like they're glowing. If you look closely you can also see Christmas-type lights around the windows of the white building to the image's left.

So how can you do this? It's simple: Go at the right time.

The sun is brighter than man-made lights during the day. Even if an outside light is on, you'll never pick it up with a camera. If you wake up early for sunrise or go out at sunset, you'll be set.

Here's a handy golden hour calculator to help with your shooting. You can see that golden hour begins about a half hour before sunset. The closer you are to sunrise/sunset, either before or after, the better.

Here's a specific timing example for you.

I took this next image of a ferris wheel at New Bern's MumFest at 6:56 am. Sunrise on the day I took this was at 7:08 am.

You can see the streetlight on in the foreground. The later you get after sunrise, the more sunrise orange that you'll lose from the shot and the more the sun will overpower the light (that's why to shoot close to sunrise/sunset).

See how the golden hour calculator also mentions "blue hour?" You often hear blue hour in a similar context as golden hour. Blue hour is just before golden hour in the morning and just after it at night. Take this image of a full moon over the Alamo for example.

See how deep the blue is in the sky? This was taken during blue hour.

Hopefully this will help your timing the next time you want to take some cityscape shots, especially of someplace like historic downtown New Bern.

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Photography Tip #7 - Paint with Light | Photographer Jacksonville NC

2011-10-14T15:37:00.000-04:00

Photography Tip #7 - Paint with Light
Difficulty: Hard

Ever try to take a picture of something that's glowing? It never works, does it? If you use your flash you can't see it glow, if you don't use your flash it looks blurry. Even if you do get the glowing object to look right you probably can't get anything around it to look bright enough.

Here's a picture that I took of Amanda shortly after we carved pumpkins one year:

This one's pretty tricky (hence the "hard" difficulty). You'll need a flashlight and tripod in addition to your camera for this one. A remote for the camera is helpful but not necessary.

Here's the setup steps in order:

1) Prepare your glowing object and any other subject(s). In our case we were using a carved pumpkin. I lit the candle and got Amanda into position where I wanted her.

2) Prepare your equipment. Set up your tripod and attach your camera. My tripod was as low as it could be because Amanda and the pumpkins were on the ground.

3) Set slow shutter speed. If you're using a DSLR, make sure that you set a slow shutter speed. This will give you a better chance to "paint" when we get to that step. A one second shutter speed is optimal. You can have a longer shutter speed if you don't have people in it. People will move and create motion blur if your shutter speed is too slow.

4) Push shutter button. For those who don't know what this is, it's the "take picture button." This is an obvious step but I put it in so that I could mention using a remote. I like to use a remote on long exposure images so that I don't bump the camera with my hand and create motion blur. Setting the camera on a timer will also accomplish this.

5) Paint with your flashlight. In our example above, I moved the flashlight over Amanda's face to make it look brighter. Your don't need to point the flashlight at your glowing object (the pumpkin) because it creates its own light.

Make sure you look at the outcome. This takes practice and odds are that your first try won't be the keeper. Be patient. It also helps to have a patient subject because your multiple attempts could take a few minutes.

One quick note: Most of you are probably wondering why Amanda looks so blue and creepy. I used an LED flashlight to light her. LED lights give off a bluish tint. It looks even more blue because of the orange color of the pumpkin and orange light from the candle inside. If you like the effect, especially for a creepy occasion like Halloween, an LED light is the way to go. If you want to avoid the blue light, select a flashlight with a traditional bulb.

Hopefully you can use this tip to make some really neat images this Halloween.

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