Photo a Day” or a project every day for a year. This will help you to enhance your photography skills by learning something new every day. I believe that being a photographer requires creativity and knowledge, but it is always best to have a little bit of practice too. This way you can create some unexpected and inspiring images. Success is not always about how often you win. Sometimes success can be about how much you learn and how you grow as a person.
So take the initiative and try something every day for a year. It can be a hobby or a career.”
– from Photo Daily Photography, a pedigreed resource that can be found here
Celebrate your targets.
Bird Dog Photography, a photographer based in Southern California, has achieved outstanding results by promoting a “daily challenge” for new photographers. Every morning the contest winner receives a gift card with the expenditure required to take a picture each day during the contest period. This challenge and the resulting prizes increase the new photographer’s sense of accomplishment, and have undoubtedly made a powerful impact on the new photography enthusiast. “These gifts can be used over the holidays to support local independent shops, restaurants, and event-goers.” Congratulations – you have just earned yourself a yearly thank-you!
Photographic inspiration from different time periods.
Photography exhibitions are a great way to stay connected with the past and present. Nothing better than to witness and photograph products of the past or the current trends. Take advice from the late Steve Beck, known for his innovative vision, in his book “Photography: Illustrated History and Visionary Philosophy.” Steve Beck said “Visionary photographers aren’t inventors. They are explorers of the soul. They discover what compelling life present there is to be seen.” Inspiration and suggestions from him are always appreciated.
.Photography for social media campaign
In general, I am a huge fan of the social media strategy that is characterized by content curation and social tagging. If you create Facebook, Instagram, and/or Twitter accounts that link out to other Google Docs/Spreadsheets related to your products, services etc., then you should be able to share stuff and attract links which are guaranteed to help you make your audience engagement highly targeted and amplified. Just have a look at the following examples from Kyle and Ian Photography. In case you want to try it out for yourself, you can download our free Google Spreadsheet here: 2 Different Kinds of Social Sharing Spreadsheets You Can Use for Your Website.
. Instagram introduces augmented reality.
Instagram (and yes Pinterest as well) just introduced augmented reality, and with good reason: it allows people to claim an item, take a photo inside it, upload it to a company-owned platform, and watch the friend’s image appear in front of them.
1. Think outside the box
Through these images, I want to discuss the basics of composition, one of my favourite subjects, and some interesting techniques to exploit the capabilities of your camera. I also want to show you a few composition tips that can be used not only for landscape and nature photos, but also in some portraits.
2. What are the essentials of picture composition?
You want to have one subject in your image which is clearly defined in composition and from which all the other objects in the image are reproducible. It is important that your subject stands out in three dimensions: horizontal, vertical, and diagonal. Your vertical subject should be below the horizon, your horizontal subject should be above the horizon and your diagonal subject should be to your right and to your left. There are, however, exceptions, for example, when using a portrait intentionally.
If we can create a 3D model of the area below and to the right of our subject, then all the other objects in our image will be readily apparent. The same goes for the area above and to the left of our subject. Use these 3D model points as a guide for the kind of objects or textures in your composition.
The 3D lines of our 3D subject are an addition to the 2D lines that tell us the position and size of our subject. According to this technique, all objects in a scene belong to a certain group, or group of objects, which we call the background.
In composition, the background as a group or set of objects defines what is implicit and what is explicit in the image. This geometric model does not only help us to understand how to arrange the individual objects in our scene in a particular way but also can make us better understand the implicit as well as the explicit stuff. For example, it is possible that our subject points (like in the example above) are on the horizon, which means that they implicitly belong to the background, but in the case of a vertical subject, it is also impossible to be on the horizon, therefore they belong to the foreground and they are placed at the upper right of our image.
3. What is angle of view and what does it serve for?
Sometimes, to capture a part of the scene from a certain angle that we cannot see from our current position seems a straightforward idea. This is when the use of rotation curves can make our lives easier.
