Tip #5: Pay attention to the Background

Backgrounds can either make or destroy a picture, so get in the habit of paying attention to the things that are BEHIND your subject.

1.  Remove the clutter!
If you are taking pictures indoors and have the option of moving things around, DO IT!  Take anything and everything (trash cans, clothing, pens, loose paper, remote controls, etc) that can look like clutter and push it aside.  The last thing you want is for a great picture to be ruined because some weird thing is sticking out by the subject's head.

See picture below.

2.  Use a plain background.
The easiest way to accomplish this is to use the wall or the ground as your background.  Another way to do this (though less convenient), is to purchase a solid colored cloth and hang it to the wall.  Using this strategy helps your pictures look more "clean" and professional.  Plus, since there is less for your viewer to look at, your subject becomes the center of attention.

For this picture, I positioned myself slightly higher than the subject and angled the camera so that the rug became the background.  This allowed for a plainer looking background so that the subject became the focus in the picture.  I also used a bigger aperture of 2.8, so that the rug became blurry, which further helped isolate the subject.

3.  Get creative!
When outdoors, try using moving objects such as buses to become your background.  Having a focused subject with a blurred background can lead to original, fun pictures.


For this picture, I was standing across the street and had my subject stand on an island located in the middle of the crosswalk.  I lowered the shutter to 1/40 of a second and snapped away as a bus passed behind her.

4. Angle your camera up!
Don't just take eye leveled pictures.  Get below your subject and angle the camera up to see if you can use the sky to get a picture with a better perspective.  The sky is a great tool to use especially when it is nice and blue!
See picture below.

Remember to pay attention to your background as you take pictures.  Make sure that your backgrounds are free of clutter and do not take focus away from your subject.  Also, try being creative by using objects like buses or the sky that are not normally used for backgrounds.  Those are my photography tips for backgrounds and thanks for visiting!

Tip Number 4: How to take Great Baby Pictures

Here are some tips on getting some great pictures of your baby!

1.  Snap away and delete the ones you don't like.
     Taking pictures of babies is different than taking pictures of adults.  Sounds like common sense right?  But too many people tend to take only one or two pictures of babies (like they would for adults) and wonder why their pictures were blurred or that the baby's eyes were closed.  The fact of the matter is, babies are unpredictable and they pretty much do what they want, when they want.  So as the photographer, we must adjust to them.  Patience is the key here.  Rather than taking a picture and walk away, point the camera to the baby, focus the lens, wait, and snap continuously when picture taking opportunities arise.  This does not guarantee a great shot, but at least you will have maybe ten to choose from, rather than one.

2.  Have someone attract the baby's attention immediately above or next to your lens.
     The most helpful thing a helper (mom, dad, aunt, etc) can do is to help get the baby's attention and somehow help squeeze a smile or giggle from the baby.  However, if the helper is standing to the far right, the baby will be looking up and to his far left rather than looking forward to the camera.   Unless you want a picture of the baby looking up and to the left, have your helpers attract the baby's attention towards the lens.  Doing this will increase your chances of getting a nice shot of the baby's facial expressions.

3.  Focus on the eyes and smile.
     Arguably, the most interesting parts of a baby are her eyes and smile.  So why don't we fill the frame and focus on those two things?  When taking pictures of babies, I use a big aperture (f1.8 to 2.8) and focus on either the eyes or smile because I want to bring that part of the face out.  Using such a big aperture focuses on a single point and everything else becomes somewhat less focused, which actually brings out the point of focus even more.

Notice how the focus is on the eyes and not on the baby's entire face in these two pictures.

4.  Move around!
     Babies can't move, so you should!  Many times, people stay in one spot and take a bunch of shots of the baby from the same level and angle.  The result is that you get a bunch of similar looking pictures.  So my advice is to first get low to the baby's eye level and take pictures from there.  Once you have enough of those, stand up and get some pictures of the baby looking up at you.  Then try other angles and levels like going to either the right or the left of the baby. Take pictures of the baby from a variety of angles and levels and you will get some pretty interesting shots!

5.  Take close-ups.
     Babies are small by nature, so why don't we help them appear bigger by zooming in?  Doing this will enhance the baby's features and bring focus to details.  You should not feel the need to capture the baby's entire body or face even.  Framing the shot so that only parts of the face is showing can lead to interesting shots.

6.  Use manual mode if you have a dSLR.
     I used to use aperture mode to take pictures of babies, but many of my shots were blurred because the camera sets the shutter speed, and more often than not, the shutter speed was way too slow.  I did not like using the shutter mode because it doesn't allow me to select my aperture, and as previously discussed, selecting a desired aperture is desirable!  Soooo, I've resorted to using manual mode.  I generally keep my aperture around f2.8 to f4.0 and use shutter speeds anywhere from 1/100 to 1/3200 of a second, depending on how bright the environment is.

Those are my baby picture taking tips.  Try them out and see if you are able to get better shots of your baby!


Check out the babies page on my blog for more examples
http://lusalaiphotography.blogspot.com/p/babies.html

Tip Number Three: Improve your Pictures Instantly! Using the Rule of Thirds

The Rule of Thirds is not really a "rule," but more so a guideline that helps your pictures become more interesting and balanced.  The idea emerged from painters hundreds of years ago and photographers have adopted the rule to help create a more balanced picture.  The belief is that images should never have equal parts because the equal parts tend to steal attention away from each other.  Hence, an image should always have a principle subject, and everything else in that picture exists purely to enhance that principle.  If this does not make sense, think back to your high school or college writing class because this idea is somewhat analogous to writing a persuasive essay.  You need your main argument and all the mumbo-jumbo in your paper needs to support your thesis to make it believable.  If you have two or possibly even three theses in a paper, your ideas are too scattered and your paper becomes confusing or uninteresting.  Now let's look at what the Rule of Thirds means in in photography.

Look at the image below and imagine the grid layered on top of your image.  

The Rule of Thirds is quite simple actually.  Basically, to follow the Rule of Thirds, all you need to do is to place your subject along one of the lines or place your subject where the lines intersect.  To put this more simply, all you need to do is imagine a grid on your viewfinder when taking a picture, and place your subject somewhere on the grid.  Following the Rule of Thirds is one of the easiest and simplest way to immediately enhance your photo's composition.  

I included some examples below to help make this idea more clear.

In this image, the subject's eyes are aligned with the top horizontal line (you have to imagine the grid) and her body is aligned with the right vertical line.  Compare this picture with the following picture where the Rule of Thirds is not followed, then decide for yourself.  Which picture looks more pleasing to you?

This is the exact same image, but the picture was cropped so that the subject was more or less centered in the middle of the photo.  Her body has moved closer to the middle and her eyes are slightly above the top horizontal grid line.  I don't know about you, but this picture feels cramped to me, especially because her fingertips are right next to the edge of the image.  

One more example for landscape photographers =)

The subject here is the dandelion (again, you have to imagine the lines).  The dandelion is placed where the lower horizontal and right vertical lines intersect.  Now I'm going to crop this exact picture so that the dandelion is centered.  Watch what happens.

In this picture, the dandelion is centered in the middle.  How do you think this picture compares to the first?

Now that you've seen a few examples of what the Rule of Thirds entail, try taking some pictures using the rule as a guideline and determine whether you like the results of using the rule.  Remember, the "rule" is more so a guideline and there really are no right or wrong answers.  Rules are meant to guide you and should not dictate your creativity.  So I say, use the rule to your advantage when you want, but always stick to what looks best to you!

Follow this link to more visual examples!

http://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&hl=en&source=hp&biw=1107&bih=873&q=rule+of+thirds&gbv=2&oq=rule+of+th&aq=0&aqi=g10&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=863l1852l0l3192l10l7l0l0l0l0l174l897l1.6l7l0

Tip Number Two: How to use ISO to Your Advantage

Let's say you are at a concert, museum, or possibly even at your son or daughter's grand debut and you want to take some nice pictures.  Unfortunately, the room is pretty dark and flash photography is not allowed.  You take some pictures, but the shots keep coming out blurred or out of focus.  So what can you do?  In this situation, setting your camera to a higher ISO may help you get some better shots.

The way to do this:

1.  Take your camera out and find the button that says ISO.  
2.  Press the ISO button and you should see a list of numbers come up (100, 200, 400, etc).  
3.  Scroll through the numbers and choose the ISO that best fits your lighting situation.  Generally speaking, you want to use ISO 100 to 200 when you are taking pictures outdoors and ISO 400 to 800 when you are inside or in the shade.  

Be weary of using too high an ISO:
Your camera may allow you to change your ISO to as high at 6400, but beware, because the higher your ISO, the “noisier” your pictures will be (the noise looks like grains on your images).  A picture can be worth a thousand words, so I took pictures of a candle and some pebbles in a low light situation to help you understand how changing the ISO will affect your images.  See pictures below. 

As you can see, increasing the ISO helped me take a clearer picture of the candle and pebbles.  However, increasing it to 3200 was a little too much because my picture came out quite grainy.  In this case, I would stick to using either ISO 800 or 1600.

Remember, changing the ISO can be very useful if there is not enough lighting in your environment and flash is either undesired or not allowed. However, every camera is different and some cameras handle noise better than others at higher ISOs.  I recommend that you take some images under low light with different ISOs.  Then upload the images to your computer (you may not be able to see the grain from your camera's LCD screen) and determine the highest ISO your camera can handle and avoid passing that ISO.

*Note: In low light situations, and you have a dSLR, you can also use a bigger aperture to try and get a better picture.  You can also try to use a slower shutter speed for non-moving subjects if you have a tripod.  More on those topics later.  

  

Tip Number One: Format Your Memory Card Regularly!

Have you ever scrolled through your memory card and see big question mark images and wonder what happened to your pictures?  I don't know about you, but I never formatted my memory cards when I began taking digital pictures, and I saw these question marks all the time!

Formatting a memory card clears everything on the card so that it is ready for reuse, and is as good as new.  Every time you erase pictures, whether individually or all together, remnants of your images are left behind.  After a while, these remnants build up and your card becomes corrupt and your computer is unable to read the card.  The result is that you can lose many precious memories recorded in that memory card.  Sooo, this is what you need to do often.  Some recommend at least a few times a year, but I do it every time I upload pictures to my computer.

Every camera is different.  But these are the basic steps.

Steps:

1.  Upload all your images to your computer and back up all your images.  Once you format your memory card, everything on the memory card is gone and lost forever.

2.  Format your memory card through your camera and NOT your computer!  Your computer may format the memory card in a way that is not readable to your camera.  So keep it simple.  Leave your memory card in your camera and let it do the work.  

3.  Look at the menu in your camera and erase all your images (I don't think this step is necessary, but I do it anyway).

4.  Scroll through the menu options until you see "format."  (For Canons, it's under one of the orange-brown tools tab).  Choose that option, confirm it, and you are done!  The whole process takes less than a minute.  Below are links if you want to learn more.

http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/11/memory-card-tip-reformat-often/
http://improvephotography.com/749/memory-cards-sd-cf-replaced-old-reliability/