No matter how versed you may be with the art of photography, there is always some space for improvement. There are some days when you feel stuck, and a creative push becomes essential to reignite your creativity. Keeping this in mind, digital artist James Tralie talks about 4 simple photography tips that will help you to improve your photography. These tips will come in handy whether you’re just starting out, or you’re already quite good at photography:
1. Put Your Camera Away
This sounds a little weird, right? But, when you’re out on the field for some photography, you’re very eager to take photos. Have you ever noticed that? It’s quite natural and can happen with anyone. However, when the motive is to just take photos, the creative process gets lost. It is thus quite important that you slow the process down a bit, keep the camera away, and observe what’s happening around you. Looking through your eyes is much more effective than looking through that tiny viewfinder.
For instance, the image below was taken by Traile after he noticed how the sky was being reflected in the window behind him.
2. Look For Frames In The Wild
“Look for ways that the world around you has essentially already done your job for you and found the perfect composition.”
Observe how the elements around you fall in place. You will definitely come across certain scenarios where elements like trees, mountains, doors, windows, or just anything have shaped the scene for you. You just need to find them, and shoot to your taste.
3. Nail Your Exposure In Camera
It’s always best to get things as right as possible in camera. This takes a huge burden away from post-processing. One of the critical aspects that you can get correct in the camera itself is the exposure. Every camera comes with a tool called the histogram that can assist you in getting the exposure correct.
A histogram shows the distribution of data across the shadows (left), mid-tones (middle), and the highlights (right). By referring to the histogram, work to get an image that has an evenly distributed histogram. You can do so by balancing your exposure triangle.
4. Do Your Homework
This is essentially about planning any of your photography trips well ahead. There are many websites and mobile applications that tell you where the sun will rise and set in any part of the world. You can use them to analyze the direction of light as well. Also, don’t forget to keep an eye out for the weather. You don’t want to be disappointed with a cloudy sky, or rainfall once you reach the location.
Do you have any other simple tips to improve photography? Let us know.
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Wow. Putting the camera away got me. I also know that being too eager to snap can ruin the beauty and creativity in a picture.