Tom Clark - Digital Photography Composition For Dummies

28mm, 1/30 sec, f/3.5, 100

Figure 14-6:A forest photographed in cloudy conditions to reveal an ideal amount of detail.

Find ways to make your subject stand out when shooting in this condition. Here's how:

Shoot from a perspective that gives a clear view of your subject with no merging background elements. Head to Chapter 8 for more information on perspective.

Use a shallow depth of field to eliminate the impact of competing elements. Chapter 7 provides detail on using depth of field.

• Give closure to your image by paying attention to the edges of your frame. The elements around the edges are equally important to your message as the subject. The forest is continuous, but your photo shows one portion of it for a reason. If the edge of your frame leads viewers away from the subject, they won't feel the need to go back to it. For this reason, avoid letting lines go off the edge of your frame. Refer to Chapter 11 for more information on framing a composition.

In the forest, the most interesting light occurs just before, during, and right after sunrise and sunset. The easiest way to be ready for that light is to set up camp overnight. Doing so allows you to shoot until after sunset and not have to hike out in the dark (which can be dangerous). By camping out, you also can wake up in the morning before sunrise and be ready to shoot.

The best part of camping in the forest is that you get to shoot at night. You'll likely find that some of your most interesting images are ones that were taken in the dark. Sometimes I set up my composition while some light is still available, and then I leave the camera in place on the tripod for later.

Here are some tips to consider when shooting at night:

Test your shutter speed.With a full moon, you can get decent exposures of most scenes with a 15to 30-second shutter speed. On darker nights you may want to shoot on bulb (the camera setting that enables you to keep the shutter open for extended periods of time) and do some test shots to find out how long to leave the shutter open.

Purchase a cable release for your shutter.This cable enables you to leave the shutter open without having to touch the camera during the exposure. Not touching the camera during exposure is important so you don't introduce blurriness. When the shutter is open for a long time, every movement, including the natural shaking of your hands, will be shown as blurriness or motion.

Take advantage of the campfire.The light provided by your campfire sometimes adds an interesting quality to your nighttime images. The night's light is cool in temperature, and the fire's light is warm. (Flip to Chapter 10 for more on color temperatures in light.) In other words, the moonlight provides a bluish color to the scene, and the fire produces an orange glow on the elements that are affected by it. Color temperature is good for adding some color contrast to your composition. The trees closest to the fire will have a warm glow, and the elements farther away will remain cool and blue.

Use your flashlight to paint light into the scene.With the shutter open, shine the light on your subject or supporting elements and move it around as if you were painting with it.

In Figure 14-7,1 used a 15-second exposure to capture the sky and the stars. While the shutter was open, I used my flashlight to paint light onto the limestone in the foreground to brighten it and reveal it as the subject.

Shoot at night near a river, stream, ocean, or lake.These bodies of water can provide amazing results. The motion of the water causes a smoothing effect on your final image and causes interesting things to happen to reflections.

24mm, 75 sec, f/5, 3200

Figure 14-7:Painting with light when capturing a nighttime image in the forest.

In This Chapter

Bringing life and meaning to photographs of still objects

Styling an arrangement of flowers, fruit, or food in an image

Creating superior images of buildings and interiors

Photographing objects (rather than people) comes with particular joys V and challenges. One of the joys of photographing still-life objects and architecture is that you're working with subjects that don't move. You can concentrate solely on your composition and lighting without having to worry about directing your subject or having it become bored.

But objects also require you to get all the details just right. Good composition and good lighting always are important in photography, but they're especially important when you photograph subjects that aren't alive. Living subjects can bring more to your message through expression and body language. Objects don't have that quality, so your message relies completely on what you're photographing and how you photograph it.

In this chapter, you find information on how to create beautiful photographs of fine art and commercial still-life subjects as well as flowers both in the studio and in their natural locations. I also cover the art of architectural and interior photography, including tips for getting the perfect composition and lighting your scenes.

Still-life photography, or the portrayal of an inanimate subject matter, can be created for artistic or commercial purposes. Although the objects can be similar in the two styles, the message usually is much different.

For example, a pair of soccer cleats hanging from a rusty nail in your grandfather's shed could make a great fine-art subject. Dramatic lighting on the weathered cleats set in the rustic environment would create a sense of nostalgia. Product photography, on the other hand, wouldn't show old cleats. A new pair of cleats hanging in the locker room would be more likely to show that the cleats are used by someone on a team.

In the following sections, I provide pointers on shooting both fine art and commercial product photos.

Fine art is fun because you can show objects for what they really are, or you can fabricate their relevance in any way you choose. Either way, a fine-art photograph is your personal work, and you can say whatever you want in it. Nostalgia works particularly well in fine art because it speaks to the human condition. Things fall apart or change through time. There's something romantic about photographs that reveal this aspect of life.

Consider, for instance, the example of the old cleats from earlier in the chapter. Adding a deflated soccer ball to that scene would reinforce the idea that the footwear hadn't been used for a while. At one time the cleats and ball worked together, but now they just sit in the shed. When photographed together, however, they tell the story of what used to be — and that's their new purpose.

Such a dramatic theme requires dramatic light and a dramatic composition. Dramatic light is directional and high in contrast. (Check out Chapter 10 for more details about lighting.) A dramatic composition in the case of the cleats and soccer ball in the shed reveals the textures of the objects in the scene. By cropping in fairly tightly, you maximize the detail in the cleats, the soccer ball, and the shed to most effectively tell the specific story of those objects.

A wider crop includes more of the environment and concentrates less on the soccer-related items. This kind of composition tells more about the cleat owner's life as a whole. Maybe it shows some heavily used tools, telling viewers he was handy, and some old military medals, showing that he survived a war.