Initially I used my camera/s on automatically, pointing and shooting and hoping the camera got what I expected.
As with most photographers, the first thing I worked on was composition, thinking about how a photo was framed.
Eventually I started digging into the rest of the camera settings and admit to finding the whole relationship between “film speed’, aperture, and shutter speed, essentially confusing.
Once you do get your head around it however you will have your own ways of describing this relationship.
Tthis is a great article, written in plain english, and with a simple yet specific set of images explaining each of the parameters.
If you are having trouble getting your head around this combination, have a read, and if you want an aide-mémoire, print out the circle image and stick it in your camera bag.
Food photography is one of those specialised photographic genres, but with over 20,000 recipes on Local, it is one that provides a lot of bang for buck.
There comes a time when we are taking photos for our story when we wish to minimise some of the components in a shot. Some components may distract from the focus of the story, some may need to be disguised for legal or taste reasons.
The Pedestrian Blur
In high traffic areas, taking photos of buildings, store-fronts and the like can be challenging becasue every shot will have pedestrians in the foreground.
What this photographer has done is simply slow the shutter speed down, enabling the still objects to remain crisp, while any moving objects become a blur. You can see the details of the settings in their EXIF data.
An alternative method is to use the depth of field to provide a focal point for an object, and conversely soften the focus on extraneous content.
In this case the background isn’t so much extraneous content, but the plan is to blur the children so they can’t be identified, while concentrating on the teacher. (The photo isn’t great but you get the idea)
This method is also great for shooting people in areas such as racetracks, where there might be a high concentration of advertising banners and billboards in all backgrounds.
Changing your shooting angle
You see this method used most commonly in shooting classrooms where you don’t want to identify the children in the class, but do have permission to present the teacher. By shooting from behind the children you can focus on the teacher but the audience sees at a glance he is in a classroom.
These are just a few tricks for focusing on what you want into a shot, while minimising elements that may be important but are necessarily ‘unfocused’ for one reason or another. If you have some of your own, let us know.
There are a number of ways to improve the focus on your subject using PS Elements.
I’m going to start with one of my own photos – a Traffic Signal Box.
B0730 – DSC02716- tsb-edmonstone by Rae Allen, on Flickr
It would be an OK image but the background is a bit hot, the walkers may be a bit distracting, and the colours are a bit washed out.
I’m going to use PS Elements to make the TSB stand out more, and in a process that is about 5 minutes work.
First I select and copy the main object. Now you know why I chose the signal box – its regular shape. Add that copy back in as a new layer.
Working on just the background, darken the image.
Still just working on the background apply a Gaussian blur.
At this stage you already have the TSB standing out, but it is time to work on the foreground.
First adjust the lighting:
Then increase the colour saturation:
The result – a photo with far more focus on the subject, and worth comparing to the original if you were using it in a story.
I should mention that a lot of the effects added to this photo could have been achieved in taking the image itself – I just didn’t think about it at the time.
While we tend to do a good job with stories as they unfold, we often fail to follow-up. What happens after the court case, the flood, the award winning?
With or without you is a Reuters story, returning to the story behind one of their high profile images from the Japanese Tsunami.
The main image is one of those great shots, but more interesting to me in this ‘revisit’ context, is the three images of Yuko Sugimoto on the highway.
These three photos show a consistent style, starting with Yuko’s own dilemma, and concluding with her son replacing the photo in her arms.
This sort of presentation style is outside our current CMS, but it would work in a blog post, and will be possible in our new Core Media CMS.
“When you’re out shooting, it’s really important to take into consideration all of the elements that are presented to you. You need to constantly ask yourself whether this thing or that thing can help you tell your story more effectively.”
Satyajit Das is one of the world’s leading experts in derivatives and risk management. He’s worked in financial markets for over 30 years, and consults to banks and investors.
In this conversation, Richard Fidler manages to take the murky financial jargon and turn quite complex ideas into a consumable piece of audio
