I love the sharp greys, the contrast and the gradients in this. Stunning!!

Great take on the use of Perspective.

Click through on the image below for more information.

Entries close 5.Nov.2010

Great spiral image.

This one reminds me of the Golden Mean and the rule of thirds.

Enjoy your week!

Theme: Black & White
Entry Fee: Free to enter
Prize: Acrylic Print; Sponsored by Photobox
Closing Date: 31st August 2010
Eligibility: 18+ & International entries accepted.
Copyright: Fair copyright terms and conditions

Winners will have their photos published on Snap Alley, and Photobox will be offering the winner of the monthly competition a 30cm x 20cm acrylic print of their winning photo. This is a fantastic prize to hang on your wall to remind you of your achievement and to show of to your friends and family.

Here’s some weekend reading for your pleasure. This week I’m focusing on posts that show and explain how photos were taken. Hopefully some good material to read and then experiment with over the weekend!

• Three great photos and how they were taken – this is a cool post on some really interesting photos and reverse engineers how they were taken. [Light Stalking]
• 10 Landscape Composition Tips: Illustrated with Pictures from Eastern Washington – takes a bunch of composition rules (including rule of thirds and negative space), and shows you how to combine them for some interesting landscape shots. I like the information about what NOT to do as well (see rule #7)
• 10 ways to take stunning portraits – This is an oldie, but a goodie. If I’m grabbing my camera to take weekend photos at a family event, I sometimes scan this one. Great to keep portrait ideas fresh.

Bill at the Beach - Laughing out Load (portrait practice - candid)

Enjoy your weekend!

Looking for inspiration or just interested in keeping up with some tips and tricks of photography, PhotographyBB is a cool, free, online magazine.

PhotographyBB Magazine - the also have a great online community!

Check out their community (forums) for more information and photographic challenges.

Good, cheap eBook reference PDFs for a variety of Photographic topics are available at the Craft & Vision website.

Most (if not all) go for USD% – making these a good reference at an affordable price.

Topics include:

• VISION IN MOTION, A Photographer’s  Introduction to Digital Video
• Ten Ways To Improve Your Craft. None of Them Involves Buying Gear.
• Chasing The Look – 10 Ways to Improve The Aesthetics of Your Photographs.
• Below The Horizon, Understanding Light at the Edges of Day

The above are just some of the titles for this collection – you should head across to the Craft & Vision website to see the full range.

Craft & Vision eBooks

If you can’t afford any fancy photo editing software, or your computer grinds to a halt when you use GIMP or other photo editors, then try these online photo editors that allow you to upload or import photos from your desktop or online storage sites.

These are very handy when you want to edit and you’re away from your normal computer.

• Avairy
• FotoFlexer
• Pixlr
• Photoshop Online (from Adobe! It has an easy-to-use iPhone app as well)
• Picnik (integrates well with Flickr)
• Splashup
• Snipshot

Personally I’ve used Picnik and Photoshop and found them to be good tools for adjusting exposure, brightness, saturation and contrast, as well as for adding basic effects such as converting to black and white, adding creative vignettes, and spot colours.

Last week I looked at some articles for taking better photos with your camera phone, and since then I’ve been looking for some inspiration photos to give me some personal creative ideas for taking some shots. I’ve included some of my favourites below, and a list of sites that you might like to visit at the bottom.

Enjoy!

Dragonfly by Kiritann

Panela no fogo by tpimentel

Her highly unusual "nice kitty" pose by izik

Entering the underworld by Sascha_2010

miami palm by mn10bikr

47-365...serpentine by lowrevolution

Sunrise On Cannock Chase by Jennie Anderson

Links for your personal inspiration:

• 10 Camera Phone photographs that rock!
• mobile phone pics Flickr Group
• Photos taken with an Apple iPhone
• Cell Phone Photography
• NY Times Lens Blog Cell Phone Photography Articles

There are a number of great articles written about taking great photos with camera phones, and I, personally, am a great believer in being able to take a good photo with just about any camera. It’s all about knowing the limitations of your equipment and working with them.

Fundamentally, I believe it comes down to three factors: light, composition and know the limitations of your equipment. This applies to all photography, it’s just that there are greater limitations with camera phone photography.

Having enough light, and having that light on the subject of your photo is a key part of this article on iPhone Photography at Applelinks (I like this article – it’s a good, practical guide).

One of the benefits of camera phone photography can be the post-shoot processing that can be done on the phone. Usually the phone software makers make it easy to tune the image after you’ve taken it. This interview with an iPhone photographer highlights this as part of their article.

Also there is the added bonus of having the camera with you. Sometimes the key part of taking a great photo is to just have your camera with you! A camera phone allows you to do this – as well as sharing it on the spot if you have internet access (either through your phone network, or wifi).

If you are able to upload it to services such as Flickr, then you may be able to take advantage of online editing software on your PC, such as Picnik, which is integrated into Flickr and makes adding effects and fine tuning exposure and colour on a PC a breeze.

Also great reading, check out DPS’s 12 Tips for Improving Camera Phone Photos.

Regarding composition, think about those limitations again, and the style of photos that they will suit. Mostcommonly, camera phone photography is said to be suited to street photography, but note a key limitation – often camera phones are NOT good with movement. So if there is motion and a blur, aim for it to be intentional, like this fantastic shot:

Using motion blur in camera phone photography

And don’t forget to practice! Take lots of photos!