Findingviews
Picture sales and an open notebook of thoughts from Orginal Robart
Creative 366 Project:
A nicely done photo a day project. A good use of Google+ too. Combining a good many of Google+’s features to create a really nice project blog.
Beautiful Winter Photography:
With Christmas almost upon Us I thought it good a idea to include soem wonderful Winter photographs
I recently took delivery of a Nikon Coolpix S3100 and thought it might be a good idea to share my reasons behind buying this camera.
I’ve decided that I want to take more photographs of everyday things I see around me and although I love my SLR, I cannot have it on me all the time. I wanted a camera small enough to easily carry around on a daily basis, and not so exepnsive that I would be too upset should I smash or lose it. Eventually a combination of size, features, cost led me to the Nikon. Also helps that I’ve had a thing for Nikons for years
The only odd thing is that as a lot of people are moving to smartphones for their camera in their pocket – I’m moving in the opposite direction from this. I’m not against smartphone cameras- I just don’t want convergence for its own sake and for me there is still a place for the pocket camera
Epic Nature:
Epic Nature collects nature photographs from all over the web. In fact as the name suggests these are “Epic” shots. Sometimes the word epic gets overused - but in fact these really are great images. The photos tend to attract a good number of comments. I’m certainly looking forward to seeing more images curated on this blog
Having a Beaker moment, originally uploaded by originalrobart.
Also known as playing with dolls.
I needed a picture for the @satscenes photography game on Twitter and remembered and old Beaker doll I had recently found in a box.
I put him up against a wall and got a fun shot.
It was a good reminder that taking something out of context and just shooting it can lead to a something that is fun or interesting.
Sometimes you don’t need a great model or vista to create something interesting, Sometimes you just need a simple toy. Never forget the power of props!
The Grand Water Cascade, originally uploaded by originalrobart.
its true that I love to play with close-ups, angles and perspective there are times when only a big, fat, wide and deep picture will due.
This is one of those occasions. This Grand Water Cascade is one of the first sights seen by all visitors to the gardens of Alnwick castle. It’s large, beautiful and deserving of being properly seen.
That means scale. Fortunately on a Summers day there are always plenty of people around it. I was blessed with a warm sunny day and meant lots of people walking and playing around the cascade. People are good things to use when you want to capture the size and scale of a thing. We all know how big a person (of any age) is and we can easily visualize how large something is when its compared to a human scale.
The Gym, originally uploaded by originalrobart.
There are times when you come up with some that has details, dark areas, shadows and a sense of place. Its a photo that has that sense of feeling real.
At the same time working with light and focus are always good. There’s a part of this photo that I think is over bright, but then it creates near silhouettes and sharp edges that think work well with the metal of bodybuilding.
Sometimes things come together in way that feels personally pleasing. Maybe not technically perfect, but without a doubt pleasing
Merry Christmas, originally uploaded by originalrobart.
This is not one of my better photos. It was taken on Christmas day to be part of @satscenes a Twitter game. Despite the compositional and lighting issues this photo does serve to help us all learn a point. When you’re learning – and we are all always learning – bad photos have value in the lessons they teach us.
The glass bauble has captured too many reflections. It suggests too much going on. That could be good – if the rest of the photo was dark and we could really delve into those details. We cannot – and that just leaves us with distracting details. Distraction is not a good thing in a photograph. We need the image to direct us and not confuse us. This should be a simple and clear image and that is now lost. It leads me to 2 conclusions.
1) Always make sure you have the right amount of detail in a photograph – neither too much or 2 little.
2) Always make sure you have the right amount of light. The right amount of light is the brightness that will let the picture tell a story.
Details and lights are everything.
Over the last few years there has been a trend towards the sale of orchids as house plants. It struck me that the beauty of the orchid is a classic photography target, that has now entered a great many homes. No need for hot houses, or treks to out of the way areas to see the fragile beauty of British orchids. They are here in our living rooms.
Time to take some photographs.
I too have orchids in the home. However photos in the home can often have rotten backgrounds. What looks good to use when we set up house rarely looks good in the background of a photograph. To get around this I set up a white reflector and some really bright pink lilies behind the orchids. This way I could fill up my viewfinder with colour or reflected light. No naff background – just something I could work with to create the right picture. If you don’t have a reflector don’t worry any bright or white cloth as a background will create an interesting effect. Try to get a colour that matches or contrasts well to your orchids. This will give the picture better balance.
Now that I had a set-up it was time to take photographs. I set up the camera for a close up, then varied low F numbers and a variety of flash angles and strengths. The important point here is that after each photograph I reviewed the picture and used to create a setting for the next. If I found it blurred I tried to steady things out with a gorillapod. I also could not help but noticing that I was getting good results by moving the camera position considerably. So a tip for taking this kind of photograph is to use a small tripod so that it can steady you when necessary but not restrict mobility so that those good angles can emerge. On saying that my 3 favourite pictures were taken at a similar angle. That though is the difference between the fun of the shoot and reflection on the finished article.
Here are 3 of the finished photographs. I hope you enjoy them and remember that some sterling photographic subjects can be found around the home.
I was recently looking for a good list of tips for a short landscape photography session for a course I was teaching and as a result came up with these. The tips are specifically not about camera functions, the members of my course owned a wide range of cameras and I needed tips that were specific to any level of camera technology.
1) Take advantage of foreground detail – something close to you can really help if you have objects of interest in it. A foreground object can lead the eye into the picture of assist in giving an idea of depth and scale.
2) Play with perspective. Lines that flow and carry your eyes through a photograph can be a big help in giving a sense of both perspective and emotional depth.
3) Generally avoid the sun, however a sun low on the horizon can help fill the sky and add emotion to a picture. This helps explain why there are so many sunset pictures.
4) Don’t worry if the light is dull when you take a photograph. This can always be improved in Photoshop providing the rest of the composition is good.
5) Using a tripod with a slow shutter speed can help you freeze a subject in your landscape whilst softening elements like clouds and moving water.
6) Watch out for the shadows of clouds. Shadows in the right place can add atmosphere. In the wrong place – they can just dull out or ‘smudge’ an image – by making it look dark or taking the emphasis off your main subject.
7) Experiment with low and high viewpoints. You can often get a better effect by looking along, up or down rather than restricting yourself to eye level.
Watch the skies – birds in the right place can really add to the atmosphere of a photograph.
9) Play with the focus when looking at a landscape. By putting different parts of the landscape in or out of focus you can gain some interesting effects.
10) Use details or features in the landscape to emphasise your main subject.