I was blog-hopping this afternoon and I came across this photography blog. I love this woman's photography, and hope to take pictures as nice as hers someday.
It's been a while since I've visited her blog, so I scrolled down a few posts and came across this post. I thought the photos were rather nice, and so I put my thinking cap on, and asked myself, "how can I take photos like that?"
And I realized something.
The original photos were not all that impressive!
Don't get me wrong, the colours were nice and the lighting was great, but I could take any one of those photos. And when you look at a professional photographer's photos and realize you could have taken that, then USUALLY either you're doing really well, or they're just not up to par.
There are exceptions though, and this was one of those, because she didn't just take the photo and throw it up. She did two things that I'd like to draw attention to right now.
1) Put the photos together in a collage
Imagine seeing any one of those photos on their own. It's nice, sure, but kind of meaningless, until you add another photo to it, and another. Then you have a theme, and the pictures all at once bring you to a different place, as the photographer tells a story. Try to make sure the light and white balance settings on your camera are the same throughout, so that the colours work well together in the end. Unless you decide to make it all sepia or black-and-white, that is.
This works mostly if you're doing non-people photography. Try it sometime! Go to a place (any place really, a farm, a zoo, your own house even) and take pictures of the little details that your eye normal passes over when you look around. Usually it's little things. Frame it well, crop it tight, all that good stuff, and then put all of the photos together and you'll have a series of quaint little things that will make just about anyone want to come and see what it's all about.
This is such a nice thing to do if you want to appreciate a place more because, not only do you have to look at the place differently to find the lovable spots, but it also allows you to realize that there is beauty and goodness and a photo to be taken just about anywhere.
Anyway, on to technique #2...
2) Blur the non-essential parts of the photo
Did you notice when you first looked at the photos that the photographer had done this? I need to open up Photoshop Elements and figure out how to do it, but she basically took the subject of the photo, kept it in focus, and then blurred everything else. It looks like some of it was done when she took the picture, but most of it was done after-the-fact with a computer program. Which means you can do it too! You just need to know how. And once I learn how, I'll write about it. ;)
Anyway, look at the photos again, and imagine each one without the blur. Suddenly they're not as impressive, right? Well, I don't think so at least. I think what makes the entire thing impressive is the way they're arranged in a collage, and the way she blurred out everything but the subject.
In fact, she even blurred out parts of the subject now that I look at it. So why would you want to blur out parts of a photo?
It's simple really. If everything is in focus, then everything is competing for your attention, and the subject of the photo loses importance. In short, the background distracts you from what the photographer wanted you to see. And if you think about it, our minds work the same way. You focus on one thing at the a time, and everything else around it is out of focus. And if that's the way your mind works, then it makes sense that we would prefer photos that do that too. They just feel more natural.
So you can do this said blurring technique by using photo-editing software, like photoshop (still need to find out how) or you can do it in-camera, by having a very small depth-of-field. You accomplish this by have a large aperture (f4-f5.6, or larger if you prefer!) and by having your camera close to the subject.
Just a couple examples of blurring out the background in-camera (with a small depth-of-field):
Taken in my house. Notice you can't see the wall behind him, or even the napkin-holder on the table in the bottom left corner?
And here, everything but my little guy to the right is out-of-focus, causing your eye to be drawn to him rather than all the information around him.So there you have it. One little technique I picked up on the wayside by asking myself, "how can I take photos like that?"
Until next time!
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