I've said it before and I'm gonna say it again. Buying a fancy pants expensive camera will not give you instant awesome photos. The majority of questions I get when I post my photos are "what camera do you use?" I understand why I get asked that question as it's easy to assume that the camera is the reason why I have nice photos but that there is a lot more to my photography (to anyone's photography) than just the camera. It indeed helps, but, I hope that this post will show that there are many more factors than just what camera is used.
While I was in Cabo I took a few pictures with the purpose of this post. The camera I used for these pictures is the Canon EOS 40D with the EF 50mm f/1.2L lens.
I woke up one morning to a beautiful sunrise that I wanted to capture and thought this would be a good way to show you all how I think through my pictures. For the purpose of this post, I put my setting on Auto and snapped a picture. I think that I will say that this is probably how a majority of pictures will turn out when shot on Auto, a nice clear picture but really not much depth to it. Plus, I was trying to capture the sunrise and you could barely even see it in the picture.
I woke up one morning to a beautiful sunrise that I wanted to capture and thought this would be a good way to show you all how I think through my pictures. For the purpose of this post, I put my setting on Auto and snapped a picture. I think that I will say that this is probably how a majority of pictures will turn out when shot on Auto, a nice clear picture but really not much depth to it. Plus, I was trying to capture the sunrise and you could barely even see it in the picture.
For the record, I shoot all my pictures on manual, all my pictures that are on my blog are taken on the manual setting, I don't use any of the other settings on my camera. I don't think that there's anything wrong with using those settings. I just like to be in control of everything in all my shots. (funny enough, I like to be in control of everything in my life as well. Control freak much? ha!)
I flipped my setting to Manual and I knew in my head that what I wanted to capture was the pretty sun and the clouds and make the building less noticeable. Because I know my camera and it's settings well, I knew how to change them to essentially capture what I wanted to capture. I fixed both my aperture and my shutter speed to a setting that I thought would work and snapped this picture. (I have to apologize that I have no idea what my settings were, I only know it as I shoot it.)
Better right?
Well, not good enough as it just wasn't giving me what I needed. I then flipped my camera to shoot vertically because I wanted to lose even more of the building and really put the focus on the sun rise and the sky.
It's getting there...
After I took that shot, I pulled the camera away from my face and really studied the area. I noticed how the clouds really broke up into beautiful patterns even higher up. In the above photos, I really loved the shape of the palm trees and knew that I wanted to show that silhoutte against the sunrise. With this combination of things, I knew what shot I wanted to get.
Now that I had my settings correct and knew exactly what I wanted to capture, this is the shot I got.
Now that I had my settings correct and knew exactly what I wanted to capture, this is the shot I got.
Just Right.
You see how in the last shot, the focus is on the sunrise but the clouds and the palm tree really just accent it, whereas in the above pictures, the building was kind of overwhelming the picture instead of adding to it. I always keep in mind what my main focus is going to be and then what can be added to make it look better.
So there you have it, a step by step thought process of how I take my pictures. Of course when shooting landscape it's much easier to experiment like this. when I'm taking pictures of people it is different as nobody wants to sit there and study them as you try to figure out your shot. With people, I like to take into factor face angles, body angles and such as nobody likes a bad angle! I guess the thing is, I can't give you specific photography tips because there is no rhyme or reason to how I get my shots. I just get an idea in my head at the very moment that I am shooting and then I try to make it happen.
The first step that you should take is to read your manual for your camera to understand how things work. Everyone thinks that reading the manual and understanding the settings is the hardest part. Quite honestly, it is the easiest part of photography. The hardest part is setting up your shot which is something your camera can not do for you at all. But at least once you have the knowledge of your camera down, you can use it to the best of your abilities in setting up or styling your shots.
For those of you that made the request, I hope this helped a little. I know that there's nothing technical that I can teach but my point is, every person envisions things a little differently. If I had J stand next to me and take a picture of the exact same scenery, it would have come out different (and it always does, when we take pictures of the same things, the perspectives are always different, which is good!). The best thing to do is to find pictures you love and pull inspiration from them. The only way to capture images you love is to capture them how you imagine them to be. Nobody can teach you that, you just have to see it for yourself.
Captivate Me, recently had an interview with Fashion Photographer, Mikael Wardhana and I just loved this question and answer as it pretty much embodies how I feel about this topic.
The first step that you should take is to read your manual for your camera to understand how things work. Everyone thinks that reading the manual and understanding the settings is the hardest part. Quite honestly, it is the easiest part of photography. The hardest part is setting up your shot which is something your camera can not do for you at all. But at least once you have the knowledge of your camera down, you can use it to the best of your abilities in setting up or styling your shots.
For those of you that made the request, I hope this helped a little. I know that there's nothing technical that I can teach but my point is, every person envisions things a little differently. If I had J stand next to me and take a picture of the exact same scenery, it would have come out different (and it always does, when we take pictures of the same things, the perspectives are always different, which is good!). The best thing to do is to find pictures you love and pull inspiration from them. The only way to capture images you love is to capture them how you imagine them to be. Nobody can teach you that, you just have to see it for yourself.
Captivate Me, recently had an interview with Fashion Photographer, Mikael Wardhana and I just loved this question and answer as it pretty much embodies how I feel about this topic.
What is most important to you, technique or vision?
The essence of photography is hardly about the most complex techniques or about having the best equipment. It is about one’s vision and one’s expression…and technicalities that are there to back those visions up and transform them into a reality. Someone with an all mighty plastic holga camera can make the most beautiful images imaginable if he has a strong understanding on how to express himself through it.
After all, it is PHOTOgraphy not LIGHTINGgraphy or CAMERAgraphy. I’m not saying that techniques are not important, but anyone can learn the basic of photography in no time at all. Its not rocket science.
(taken from Captivate Me's interview with Mikael Wardhana, click here to read the rest)
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