Archive for Make Better Photographs – Page 28

25 Prime Examples Of Pinhole Photography

down view

Pinhole photography is perhaps the oldest known photographic technique, using nothing more than a light-proof enclosure, a light-sensitive media, and a tiny hole instead of a lens. The examples here are being shown under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic Licence.

–
Pinhole portrait series No.2 : My son and his friends Pinhole Drainpipe Pinhole Rain above the twin mountains in the far-far distance Garden Alarm Universal Light Touch Me Vanish DInner At The Diner (part 1) Shoot By Driving Welcome to Gleeson farm fence tabakalera Blue Beach 4 Que Voy Hacer Con Este Amor "Chrissa the Mermaid" Stars As Underwater Pinhole Model Television Graveyard 2 Fire engine Television Graveyard 1 PSD Abandoned Live Where I play... Abandoned Boat

Tying The Knot: The Wax On, Wax Off of Wedding Photography

If you want to shoot weddings the best way to start is to become a second shooter, right? But is that really all it takes? You bring your camera to a wedding, stay out of the way of the pro, take  a few nice candid shots of the guests and voila, you’re a wedding photographer! Nah, that’s not the best way.

Ok, I’m not saying it can’t happen like that, but those few shots you take would have to be pretty special for someone to entrust you with their most special day and lots of their hard earned cash. Second shooting is definitely invaluable for building experience; all I’m saying is don’t rely solely on being a dictionary-definition second shooter. Instead you should first aim to be as good as the pro and then second shoot like a pro to make your images much more marketable. So how do you do this with no wedding experience?

Let’s travel back to 1984 and take a look at one of my favourite movies: The Karate Kid. Apart from having one of the best soundtracks of the 80s, it also teaches a simple but important lesson: hard work and preparation pays off.

When Daniel-san spends hour after hour, day after day waxing cars, painting fences and sanding floors he doesn’t see how it’s supposed to prepare him for the impending All Valley Karate Championship. Instead he wants to learn the glamorous rapid punches and spin kicks he sees in the dojo and thinks that copying the routines in his karate text books will turn him into a black belt.

We know, of course, that all those seemingly unrelated tasks actually disciplined Daniel-san in exactly the skills he needed; he just didn’t realise it at the time. Read More→

Go Behind-the-Scenes of a Las Vegas Pinup Shoot: by Boudoir Louisville

Ryan Armbrust visits the Neon Boneyard in Las Vegas for a classic Las Vegas themed pinup girl photo shoot. Ryan and his team flew to Vegas and booked the Neon Boneyard for a 2 hour shoot, but Vegas was experiencing sustained 40 mph winds with 60 mph gusts. With winds like this they shut the entire Boneyard down because the bigs signs could easily blow over. Luckily they were able to work out a plan to get into the Neon Boneyard before it opened at 7am to shoot before they had to catch their plane back to Louisville.

You can read more about the shoot on Boudoir Louisville’s website.

Read More→

Getting started in Boudoir: by Karen Learmonth

I love shooting boudoir. I got into it by accident several years ago. I had a client who had just changed their life. They liked my portrait work and asked if I did, or would like to do, a Boudoir shoot with them. Never having done it, I said, ‘Why not?! Sounds like fun!’ And it was. It was like doing a fantasy shoot with fashion, fun and playing with lighting like I’d never done before.

When it came time to do the viewing of the images we made, the client was silent. I was worried. And at the end of the show, she burst into tears!

My first thought was ‘Oh my God, she hates them! I’ll never do boudoir again!’ However, it turned out she had never seen herself as beautiful, until she got those portraits done. Seeing her beauty on film had an impact that could not be measured. It changed her entire body image as well as self confidence. And it made me realize how much potential we have as photographers to change people’s lives for the better. After that I changed my business, and now, 10 years later, Boudoir is one of my favorite specialties. Read More→

The Lost Art Of Pinhole Photography

A pinhole camera is a simple camera without a lens and with a single small aperture — effectively a light-proof box with a small hole in one side. Light from a scene passes through this single point and projects an inverted image on the opposite side of the box. The human eye in bright light acts similarly, as do cameras using small apertures.

A pinhole camera’s shutter is usually manually operated because of the lengthy exposure times, and consists of a flap of some light-proof material to cover and uncover the pinhole. Typical exposures range from 5 seconds to hours and sometimes days.

–Wikipedia

A fire hydrant photographed by a pinhole camera directly on photographic paper to create the negative photograph (top). The positive image was created digitally from a scan of the negative image. Photo Credit: Matthew Clemente; Used Under A Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license.

When I was a kid, my father introduced me to photography. At the time, he was lucky enough to have a close friend who shared the photographic passion that I have today. Instead of buying me an expensive film camera (which came later on in my childhood), my father showed me how to take photographs the original way. Read More→

Scenic Outlook – Get Low

Adding interest is our number one goal in making any image, especially of landscapes. The inherent challenge in shooting landscapes is that other than weather and time of day, land is static and images can become redundant. What we’re going to take a look at today is a fairly simple tip but one that is often overlooked; getting low. Vantage point can do wonders for your images and it goes beyond a simple line of sight. We can add impact with foreground elements, alter depth of field in an interesting way, and catch the sun at a completely different angle. This is an exercise I have beaten into my own head until it became second nature and has produced some valuable results.

While photographing this sunset in Maui, I climbed down these rocks almost to the edge. If I made this image where most people were standing it would have been pedestrian. Getting down low afforded me the luxury of using a filter to slow down the shutter speed and catch water pouring over the rocks.

Read More→