Before you can use items in the array of creative effects, plus understand their determinants and then use various ways to control them, you must become familiar with your camera’s information screens. You don't need to know “everything.” Following are the most important things you should learn to access.
1) the exposure histogram (exposure graph) allowing you to see at a glance whether your upcoming image will capture all the scene’s blacks and whites, and then after the shot is taken will show if you indeed did capture them to your liking. Some cameras have “blinkies,” pulsing areas of color which show on an image any areas where shadows and highlights are “blocked” i.e. cannot show any detail. You do not want a white wedding dress to lack form and texture.
2) Can you see your current settings for Aperture, Shutter speed and ISO (sensor-sensitivity)? These three are the main ‘levers’ we use to achieve all the artistic controls, so you must know what their values are and how to change them. Manual mode (“M”) gives you control over all three.
CREATIVE EFFECTS Creative Effects are elements professional and other artistic photographers bring to their shots. They do so in order to produce photos that attract attention, are interesting, display a desired array of light values, use appropriate focusing etc.,… You can control creative elements so that your photos will reflect your personality, show what attracted you to the shot in the first place, and convey to others [and remind yourself] the elements and emotions you would like to be felt. Not “snapshots” but creative and artistic communication! To go beyond “taking snapshots.” You can develop 1 or 2 creative effects for any capture that are appropriate to the shot and which have your stamp of individuality and personality. In what follows, as with a restaurant menu, you don’t need to take everything on the menu, but you need to know what creative options are available to you and how to access and use them! The Creative Effects involve five areas: Composition, Light, Exposure, Focus and Color. We take a look at each.
COMPOSITION - involves the picture ‘frame’: you decide what is the subject of the photo, how large is the scope of what is captured what shape the frame is [portrait, landscape, square, oval]….how the included elements are distributed within the scene…what will attract a viewer to the photo, hold their interest, have emotional impact… etc. Composition is an important source of creativity and artistry when the subject is “given.” But there are many forms of photography where you can exert significant, even total control over the subject: flower or other still-life arrangements, portraits, table-top still life photos, etc.
LIGHT/LIGHTING -Thus involves the quality, intensity, and direction of light on the subject or scene. [Michael Freeman in his book “Capturing Light” - (see Bibliography)- identifies more than 50 categories of light and lighting situations!] Light can come from different directions relative to the subject or your camera, be strong or weak, sharp or diffuse, colored in various ways, and so on. Besides direct light, there are reflections (on water, windows, eyeglasses….) to include, reduce or exclude… While this light is sometimes “given” you have more control than you probably think, if you are willing and able to change it! One can add light, even a penlight, to vegetation surrounding a photo of the Milky Way, for example, or return to a scene at another time, for example at dawn etc.
C) “Low key” favors dark values, with no or few whites.
D) “Clipping” means the camera is not capturing certain light values; for example excluding some brighter whites, or blacks obscuring some shadow detail that you believe should be revealed. Remember that we are speaking here of your resultant image, not the scene itself.
E) It is often desirable when we are uncertain about exposure to "bracket exposures": besides your “best guess’ exposure. add one shot (or more) with higher exposure, another with lower.
COLOR I personally shoot everything in color (even when I expect the output to be in black and white), and set my camera so that its images are at least 24-bit colcc and in RAW so that I have complete control over color temperature and other variables in post-shot editing. But you can “correct” or creatively alter color by altering the color controls on your camera.
Well, those are examples of some basic Creative Effects. Now let’s look at the Determinants of these creative characteristics and how you can Control them.
5- What is Excellence in Photography?
Photography is not, as many think, all about properly setting your focus and zoom and such. In 2017 it is no longer primarily about traditional cameras. Rather, it’s significantly about using images for multiple purposes, such as enjoyment and sharing, as a means of learning to better perceive our world, as a means for self-expression and communication, and so on.
4) Technically good: Exposure is good (not too light or dark, given the subject), is in focus/sharp where it should be; and the Light(ing) is appropriate.
In short, the photo: Makes a Connection, Is Interesting, Distinctive, & Technically good.
Reading About DinosauersOne of my favorite favorites! She is so fascinated by what she is learning, he is just as intent on teaching her... wow, what more could you ask?
Hangman's House.... at the crossroads. Behind the fortress in Salzburg, Austria. Captured on 35mm film using a 440 mm telephoto in the late 1970s.
The Colors of Icebergs. Why “The Colors of Icebergs”? Aren’t all icebergs white? Maybe with a bit of blue mixed in?
The answer is that different icebergs can exhibit dominant components of blue, green, yellow or black.*. Color depends on whether there is contained frozen seawater (yes it can freeze in Arctic regions), or minerals from a glacier bottom or the sea bottom, or algae. or the sea bottom, or algae. In particular (or should I say “in particulate”?) an emerald green color can derive from frozen sea water, minerals on the sea bottom, and/or algae.
Jade Iceberg! : -)An amazing sight!! This 'berg broke off from the bottom of the fjord. See our essay on the color of icebergs.
The iceberg pictured in the Arctic album surfaced dramatically, perhaps 40-50 feet from our small Zodiak inflatable boat. I heard it, then turned my head and saw it, then felt the turbulence (then of course, began to photograph it). If if had been significantly larger, its wave could have capsized our little boat (into 32 F water, giving us less than 15 minutes to survive) Or, if it had come up directly beneath our inflatable, we would have almost surely met the same fate.
So it is rare to photograph a green iceberg, and even rarer to witness the birth of one. We had only a short time for photos as the sun was setting (during 23 hour days) behind mountains just to our southwest. So, a rare event to witness and to photograph.
Lesson 1: Learning to see and learning what you can see.
The great teachers and performers in photography usually agree that the biggest barrier to good photos is not the camera or lens used, not your settings like ISO and f/ stop, etc. The greatest barrier to good photos is ...not seeing... or not seeing well. More precisely, it is not seeing and not visualizing the kind of photo output you are trying to create. The "superficial looker," the 'Superficial Photographer,' is one who simply photographs objects. That building, those flowers, Aunt Martha, the waterfall, and so on. "Well, isn't that what photography is? What more is there?" - A whole lot more, it turns out.
"What are the subject's characteristics"? How can I capture what it's all about to the best of my ability? The characteristics might be color and texture in flowers. Or shape and size and grain in rock formations, patterns in clouds... Or, the glint in Aunt Martha's eyes, or the reflection of your nephew in those eyes, (neither of which which you're going to capture at 25 feet). In other words, consider not just the subject as a whole, but the subject in its detail, its "personality," its character.
A special additional case occurs when the scene involves motion: clouds, waterfalls, waves or rivulettes, or children or... whatever, things moving. Sometimes the pro feels it is better to freeze the wave or waterfall or cloud so that we can gaze at the shape and texture we never see with the naked eye. Other times, a silky flow fits the composition best... In addition, a few minutes or moments in time can make all the difference - in sporting events or even sunsets.
Now these choices of 1) inclusion and arrangement, 2) of featuring various attributes, and of 3) "stopping time" or not are usually sufficient when the photo is itself the goal of the shot. Well, in photography isn't that always the case?
No, the photo may NOT be the end purpose! Sometimes the photo is to serve as a catalyst for a greater cause - to show environmental destruction or living conditions, for example. Another possibility is to present an image that has artistic merit, where the overriding purpose is to create beauty or mystery or...whatever the photographer visualizes as art.
1) what is to be included or excluded?
2) how will the things included be arranged and what will be the backdrop?
3) what attributes give the subject is unique "personality'?: form, shape, texture, structure, color or other identifying attributes (delicacy of a flower, sturdiness of a rock formation...) and so on.
4) in dynamic situations - water, clouds, trees in wind - how will you treat motion: blur it, freeze it or record it?
To cover these four dimensions, you must look beyond the object as a whole and begin seeing these types of attributes. How might you train yourself to do this? How do you practice seeing at this 'level'?
Training in Seeing-1: Look at any scene and, without looking back, try to sketch or paint as much of the scene as you can from memory. Oh, oh! You don't remember the relative sizes or placement of things, do you?; or exactly the shape of the central subject; or the various shades of green in the trees, and so on. Aha! Neither do many other people!
What's worse, we fool ourselves into thinking that we are seeing: we glance at something and quickly name and identify it: "That, that's a rose; oh, and over there is an old barn..." "Yeah, that's Yosemite Falls all right." and so on, as though we are done, as though we really saw. The process is not helped by the fact that when we do look at something - without moving our eyes around - only a tiny portion in the center is in focus; everything else is blurred. (OK, you don't believe me; pick a spot in the room where you are and stare at it; without moving your eyes, what is in focus, and what is not?? Answer: a very small percentage of your field of view is in focus... yet, we think we "saw something."
Many great photos and ones that you like, have captured or contrasted shapes, textures, shadows, contrasts (big with little, red with yellow or green) and so on, whether we are conscious of it or not.
Practice registering what you observe - look, then look away- and when you do look away, sketch or paint or if you can't do that, make a list of what you saw. Humiliating, isn't it? But do this little exercise now and again, and you will become more and more observant, see many things you never noticed before and.... you will become a better photographer!
Training in Seeing - 2: Look at a book of photographs, or look at photos in an album, or on a photo web site. Some photos you pass over, some you may like. What's the difference? Think back on the process: what's different for the one that attracted, that interest you? You will become more aware of characteristics that matter to you, and more sensitive to your seeing.
Training in Seeing -3 What 'causes' are you interested in, including educational projects? The environment? Animal habitat? Conservation?... What sorts of photos or photo assemblies could help illustrate or stimulate in others to act on behalf of your interest or cause?
With these types of training, you'll soon be more aware of what's already there! You'll learn more about yourself and your likes and dislikes, an you'll begin to notice the "Characteristics That Count," and begin to find ways of capturing them - what kind and time of light? Which direction? Near or far? Blurred or sharp? In Color or Black & White? and so on.
In summary, at the First Level, there's the whole subject. The Second Level involves the attributes or characteristics of the subject.
X But be aware of them, perhaps your photos would enhance the subject's "story."
One more thing, there's a potential message and meaning in the connection of the "local" subject of your photo to the universal: your mountain's watershed connects with others in the range; the climate cycle which affects all living things into the future. Is there a way to connect to all that? Yes.
New Uses for your Photos and New Roles for You.... if you choose them!
What are some main goals/purposes/intents for taking photos? I suppose one answer could be "None - I really don't have or think about uses, I 'just' take photos!" And that is true of most of us at one time or another: we "just take pictures of the child's birthday party" so that the "moment" is captured and can be shared. Right? But capturing an event and sharing it is a purpose - however common and casual it may be.
Perhaps our picture-taking efforts would be better served, be more useful, give more satisfaction, if we did give some thought to aspects like the following, using the birthday example: being sure all attendees are captured...and each while displaying various emotions or playing games or eating cake, or catching their expressions as gifts are opened and so on ....it's not all about "the birthday girl or boy." The thought might creep into your mind "maybe the kids would like a calendar with the party photos, one for each month' and so on.
As another example, maybe you or your kids or a young neighbor wonder "what does a water drop look like when it hits the surface of water? ...or a balloon look like when it explodes? A humming bird with its wings "stopped"... a lightning strike during a stormy visit to the Grand Canyon, etc. All these examples fit the category "stopping fast action". But not all 'things normally unseen' are fast moving. You can also reveal very tiny things through a microscope, or very large things through a telescope, or capture rays not usually seen- infrared, x-rays, even animal activity in the dark of night.... These are all examples of what we might call the role of Explorer.
The following Table summarizes a simple grouping of Intents - things you want to do or accomplish, and the type of role you would be playing for each intent choice.
Now, having different intents does not mean that you continue to take photos the same way, just for different purposes. Rather, various intents usually modify what you wish to take and in what way. For example, if you were documenting a civic problem with, say, garbage uncollected or stored in poorly secured landfills, you might decide to emphasize or give most of your efforts to the worst cases (while revealing this bias to consumers of your images.) On the other hand, if you were "documenting" protesters carrying signs on both sides of some issue, as a documenter, you would have an obligation for true balance - taking and posting photos on each side in the same proportions as they were represented at the protest.
Well, for now we'll let the table serve as a reminder, actually a menu, of different roles and intents you might like to take on... for your next shoot, or for your photo "career." The choice (and Role) is yours!