SEO Tips for Photographers

This is my step by step guide for developing content, identifying competitive keywords and marketing the article via social networks. The guide has been developed for long-term use and isn’t for those expecting quick short-term gains. It’s by no means the only way to market your content but if you have any suggestions on how you would do things differently, I’d love to hear.

Your Base Platform

This article is focussed on developing content and how to best promote it but I still feel it’s important to quickly touch on your base platform. I’m not going to spend too much time discussing the ins and outs of various blogging platforms and which is better. I personally like WordPress as it’s super easy to use, can be optimised well for SEO, good availability of plugins and most importantly, it can be made to look good. If you’re after a nice looking WordPress photography theme and happy to pay $30-45~, I’d suggest Theme Forest (I’m using a theme off there for my blog). There’s a huge collection and bound to be something that appeals to everyone. Below is a couple of examples of what’s available.

WordPress and most themes now come well optimised for SEO. I’d suggest going one step further and using the All in One SEO Pack and Google XML Sitemaps plugins just to mention a couple. Google XML Sitemaps is a useful tool that compiles your sitemaps and notifies major search engines when updated. Some argue that there is less need for this plugin now that search engines have advanced but I’d still recommend it.

All in One SEO is also a useful plugin that allows you to better optimise your blog for SEO. One particular feature I like about All in One SEO is the ability to define your meta descriptions when creating a new post. For those that aren’t familiar, your meta description is the description that appears when you search for a website. Just like below

This is your sales pitch that entices people to click and view your content. Without having a pre-defined meta description this results in Google (in this case) pulling the first few words from the article and using it as your meta description. Instead I recommend using the meta description component of All in One SEO to your advantage and developing something that explains the purpose of your article in a way which entices the user into wanting to read more.

As you’re only working with a maximum of 160 characters for the description, a few points for developing a meta description that will catch the attention of viewers:

• What is the article/photo about?  Pick elements that you feel are the most interesting to the viewer.
• Use terms that create hype/interest for the user. For example “A beautiful photograph taken at X on a stunning red sunset by Alex Wise” sounds a lot more appealing than “Photograph taken at X by Alex Wise”.
• Subtly drop in the keyword you’re targeting if possible.

Both these plugins won’t bring in traffic on their own but good SEO is about combining lots of small elements and doing them well to be successful.  This brings us onto our next point, developing good content and why it’s important.

Content is King

Google and other search engines are constantly improving their search algorithm to improve the quality of results that is provided to the end-user. Over the last few years, it would be possible to create lots of pages with poorly written content and a variety of poor quality backlinks pointing to the article for a high-ranking on Google. With the new changes under the Google Panda revision, this resulted in many pages setup for this purpose feeling the ‘panda effect’ and demoted. Many were left scared by the Panda update but the fact remains, if you create and promote good quality content, you shouldn’t have much to worry about (touch wood…) So for you guys posting content directly copied from Wikipedia, it’s time to mix things up and actually develop your own unique and quality content. More on this below.

You’re probably reading this and in a similar situation to me, a small photography related business or hobby blog that gets a small stream of traffic. In a perfect world you’d love to be the top ranking for the popular photography related keywords like photography, landscape photography, wedding photography, all the keywords that the big boys in the photography world currently sit on. Competing with these big keywords is obtainable but you will have much better success with less popular keywords that still get a relatively good amount of traffic. This is where long tail keywords are your new best friend.

What are Long Tail Keywords?

Most people hope to compete with the popular keywords like wedding photographer, landscape photographer, etc. These aren’t unobtainable but due to being so competitive, you might be lucky to reach page 5 of the Google ranking and thus only receiving a tiny percent of the inbound traffic. I prefer to compete with the less popular keywords that are more specific search phrases of a popular term.

As part of the Google Adwords component of Google, publishers have available the Keyword Tool which provides figures based on how often a specific keyword is searched globally and locally per month.  This is what I used for the below diagram that displays the Google search stats for the ‘landscape photography’ keyword. The data provided is quite extensive and long and you could go into considerably more detail to find even lesser searched terms that are even less competitive. I’ve tried to only use examples that are relevant to me as it’s what I’m familiar with but for any wedding photographers reading I’d consider testing the monthly searches for variations of wedding photography in your area. For example:

• Wedding photography Victoria
• Wedding photography Melbourne
• Wedding photography South Yarra

Targeting some variation to the more well-used keywords (in this case ‘wedding photography Melbourne’) will make you more competitive and provide a different source of traffic that your competitors might be targeting.

For example, the term ‘landscape photography’ receives 165,000 searches per month. While more specific and lesser searched keywords include ‘tips for landscape photography’ and ‘beautiful landscape photography’ which receive 3,600 and 2,900 respectively. Writing meaningful content that targets these keywords within your posts will allow you to be competitive and receive a piece of that pie.

Why would you want to rank for keywords that only get a small amount of traffic per month? If you carefully target a lot of your articles for small ranking keywords you should receive a nice steady stream of traffic without being overly concerned that you will get knocked off by someone else. If competing for a popular keyword, it’s almost a constant battle to stay there especially when others are pushing thousands of $ into SEO campaigns.

Identifying long tail keywords is a good strategy but it’s also vital that you understand what your competitors are doing. Before you begin writing your content, double-check who is ranking in the top 10 for the keyword you’re targeting. There’s many paid tools out there but I find Spyfu quite good and it’s free. Using this tool you can quickly gauge the status of a competing website to see how big they are in terms of backlinks, page count and other bits. It’s important to check the status of how much backlinks and pages a site has as this is a contributing factor to what provides them with a high-ranking on Google.  While also manually looking at the website can also be quite beneficial. For example, if National Geographic occupy the first place for ‘tips for landscape photography’, I’d probably consider moving onto something else.  The reason being is that National Geographic probably receives a lot of inbound links from other websites which further boosts their search engine ranking thus making it quite difficult to compete with if you’re only a small and emerging website with a tiny amount of backlinks.

Optimising Your Photograph Postings for SEO

One of the biggest challenges for photographers is that we often post images with limited text to sit alongside the image. Whether it be because we’re lazy or just feel that our images don’t deserve any explanation which is fine but it can severely limit what Google has to work with. Whilst also limiting the likelihood people will link to your page. Instead, create good content and people will come.

Rather then just posting a photo with one sentence, try to incorporate some text explaining how you captured the image, any tips you have with capturing or processing the image and other bits. Search engine bots will love you for it and your readers will even more. But the most important thing I can suggest here is to only develop meaningful content. Do not and I much reiterate this as so many people do it, do not steal content from Wikipedia or other articles to boost your photos content. I find it quite amusing that people do this without realising that Google sees that you’re stealing content from a high authority website such as Wikipedia and instantly demotes your authority because you’re stealing from a high authority content. Plus do your viewers really care about the intimate details of a photographs location? I doubt it. If they’re curious they can google it themself. Instead why not create a short blurb about the location yourself for some additional content. As you write, try to include some keywords that you’re targeting as discussed above. It’s important to note that it is possibly to over optimise an article for a keyword thus making the exercise pointless. Instead try to keep your language natural and only include keywords when necessary.

Benefiting from Google Images

Google Images can bring in a steady stream of traffic when your images are named and titled with the relevant tags people are searching for. Unfortunately this type of traffic isn’t looked as favourably by all with some arguing that Google Images is nothing more than a good way for your images to be stolen. I’m in two minds about Google Images and have some good experiences where people have discovered my photography through searching for ‘waterfall photographs’ and clicked through to view more of my photography.

To optimise your images for Google and other image search engines it’s important to ensure the filename, title and alternative text are matched to the keywords you’re targeting. For example, I wish to be competitive for the keyword ‘Park Beach, Tasmania’ so when tourists or locals search the area, they come across my images with the hope that this will result in enquiries and print sales. When uploading an image to WordPress or any other platform it’s vital that you name your images, titles and alternative text accordingly to the keywords you’re targeting. In this instance of a new post captured at Park Beach Tasmania, I made sure the image name, title and alternative text were updated to reflect this.

If you’re not using wordpress (whyyy?!) and putting things together yourself, the image html should look something like this -

 <IMG SRC=”URL of image” ALT=”Alternative text” TITLE=”Image title”>

But you’re probably on top of this and pulling in the traffic like there’s no tomorrow… Right?

Maximising Your Use of Social Media

It’s clear that Twitter, Facebook and Google +1 are here to stay and with a much larger impact on search engine rankings than originally thought. Initially the effect which social media could have on search engine rankings was vague and many were skeptical of the benefits of social media beyond attracting a quick burst of poor quality traffic. Recently it has become apparent that Social Media is a much larger contributing factor towards your search en gine ranking than originally thought. Both Google and Bing have made some comment on the effect which social media has on your search engine ranking by saying

The social authority of the user in terms of their follower count, quality of followers and other details is calculated and thus those with high quality follower counts gain considerable weight. This also includes links shared across Facebook which are marked as ‘Everyone’ which are treated similar to a Twitter retweet and also hold considerable weight.  How do you calculate the authority of someone on Facebook when the metrics for doing so are completely different to Twitter? They don’t.   But by  links being shared across both on Facebook and Twitter can provide considerable leverage for the link and increase its legitimacy.

Interesting. The legitimacy and authority of the person or person(s) posting the content brings us onto our next point. How do you build a fan page or Twitter account with decent authority?

Building Social Media Profiles with Good Authority

Be yourself and giving something back.  It sounds simple but I see too many people start a Facebook fanpage or Twitter account and only ever promote themself with limited interaction or they start out strong and slowly lose interest. If you’re going to take up Facebook, Twitter, Google +1 or the next best thing, stick with it. Sure the first few weeks/months might be slow and feel as if you’re talking to a wall but give it time and try to network with similar minded users. Over time your followers will increase with people stumbling across your work and following you via your social networks.  It’s also interesting to note that Twitter and Facebook Fan Pages rank well in search engine rankings which provides more incentive to ensure your page is a good reflection of you and  entice people enough to hit that ‘Like’ or ‘Follow’ button.

One of the most difficult things is deciding on what content to actually post to your followers beyond your own photography. This might seem obvious but people seem still manage to do it, avoid alienating your followers with stupid open ended questions like What are you doing this weekend? What is your favourite time to shoot? It reminds me of something that would be suggested in a book on how to fail at social media. Instead treat your followers like normal people and try to ask yourself what you would expect to see from a photographer who inspired you. It wouldn’t be silly posts asking you what you’re doing this weekend. What do you get out of that? Nothing. You’d prefer to learn about their process of taking a photograph. There’s no need to over do it, just occasionally try to give back with insightful tips, before and after photos of a photograph you’ve recently edited, photographers that inspire you and whatever you feel would be valuable to your audience.

Monitoring What is Being Said About You on Social Media Networks

Managing your social media presence is vital by keeping track of who is talking about you, what is being promoted and if there is any negativity. Fortunately there’s a few tools available that are free and make this a lot more easier to manage. A couple of favourites of mine include Topsy and Google Alerts.

At the moment I have Google Alerts setup for my website and name which means I’m instantly notified when someone creates a blog article and posts my photos including my name. I like to keep track of these things and also thanks the article author for linking to my work. While I’ve also been using Topsy recently to keep tabs of who is tweeting my links.

Below gives some insight to how I have both setup and monitor any mentions:

Both tools are also useful for tracking and link building in keywords you’re competing in (i.e. landscape photography tips). Upon this keyword being mentioned on a blog, Google will instantly notify you of the blog posting. Some users suggest commenting on the blog is a good tactic for link building (even if WordPress blogs default to no follow thus having very limited SEO impact) but the opportunity to network with similar minded people is also of value.

Building Your Twitter Network

Follower Wonk

Case Study: The Tweet Effect

Recently I wrote an article on photographing waterfalls, I spent considerable time putting together photographs that explained and compared shutter speeds while also going into detail on how to best photograph waterfalls. It was a long weekend project and once I hit Publish I hoped it would at least hit the first page of Google for users searching waterfall photography. I waited a few weeks to see the impact and nothing. It was stuck on page 3 and instead, my article (admittedly, a very crappy one) I wrote in 2007 was occupying the first page.  This was surprising as I’d hoped the age of my new posting would supersede the previous post however due to links accumulated to that post over the years, it was going nowhere.

As an experiment I wanted to see the impact which promoting it quite heavily on websites such as Twitter could have for its ranking and admittedly, I was skeptical that it would have any benefit. The process started by tweeting the post myself to my loyal followers. This received a small amount of retweets but nothing major. A little agitated I contacted some larger photography websites such as DIY Photography (Udi is a great guy btw!) to ask whether they could share a retweet on my new article. Some declined but others were more than happy to help. The result? 505 tweets to this day.  But more importantly, how did it affect my rankings for this article?

As you can see I’m now occupying the second position for my article closely behind digital-photography-school. The campaign was a success and highlighted the power which Twitter and other social networks can have as a contributing factor to increasing your search engine rankings. If you’re further interested in the effect which Twitter can have on search engine rankings, there’s an interesting series of case studies over at seomoz that looks into the topic in further detail.

Wait what?!

I’d like to think this photography SEO article has hopefully got you thinking on how you can improve your website. Please be aware that it is a slow process but if you put the hard work on over time, you will be rewarded for your hard work. But just to reiterate what was discussed:

• Start by using a good base platform such as WordPress that comes optimised for SEO and has nice themes available.
• Identify content that you can actually compete in by using the Google Keyword tool to identify long tail keywords.
• Develop blog postings with content that target the keywords that you’ve identified as part of your long tail keyword research. Remmeber, it’s possible to over optimise your posts so be careful not to over do the keyword dropping.
• Make sure you name and describe your alternative text so it is relevant to the keywords your targetting to attract Google Images traffic.
• Put the time in to manage your social media profiles. Don’t be that guy that just promotes himself and never interacts with his followers. You’ll quickly lose interest as will your followers. Instead try to make an effort to follow and interact with new people via tools such as Follower Wonk to develop networks.
• Setup Google Alerts and monitor your social media presence via Topsy and Social Mention to capture what people are saying about you and to sometimes thank them personally for retweeting your articles.

Handy and Free SEO Resources

And finally here’s a collection of my favourite free SEO resources which you should find useful.

• Ahrefs - Check the backlink status of websites.
• All in One SEO Pack – This has been around for ages and is a must plugin for anyone looking to optimise their WordPress blog for SEO.
• Bing Webmaster – Similar to Google Webmaster, this tool allows you to track any problems Bing is encountering crawling your website and other useful
• Google Adwords Keyword Tool – As discussed earlier in the post, use this as a guide to estimate monthly global and local search variations for keywords.
• Google Alerts – Useful for tracking when your name/brand is mentioned with instant updates available.
• Google Webmaster – Manage any issues which Google is encountering crawling your site, see popular terms,  +1 metrics and more.
• Google XML Sitemaps - Another great WordPress plugin that manages your sitemaps and notifies the larger search engines when there has been any updates.
• Follower Wonk – Tool to find popular users on Twitter for specific interests/keywords.
• Keyword Spy - Discover what keywords your competitors are targeting.
• SEMRush – Useful tool for estimating traffic.
• Seomoz – The bible for all things SEO. Rand Fishkin is the SEO God apparently.
• Smart Passive Income – One of the better SEO related blogs going about. Pat shares some great tips from his individual experiences.
• Social Mention - Search for what is being discussed about a particular keyword. A good tool to use if you want to see who is talking about your photography or tonetwork with similar minded people.
• Spyfu – Spy on your competitors.
• Theme Forest – WordPress photography themes. I lied. These aren’t free but are well worth their money.
• Topsy – Very similar to Social Mention.

Thanks

Thanks for reading this article. Apologies if it was quite long and might have been vague in parts but if you have any feedback or questions, leave a comment and I’ll do my best to answer.

- Alex

PS. Guest Posting

I’m looking for guest posters to share photography tips on my blog. If you have a fun and interesting article idea, be sure to get in touch via the contact page.

What are Neutral Density Filters?

Most photographers (myself included) use neutral density filters when shooting seascapes. These filters normally come in a rectangle size with black/dark at the top and clear at the bottom. Photographers use these filters when there is different levels of brightness in a scene. This is common when photographing seascapes on sunset where the sky can appear slightly brighter than the surrounding foreground. If photographed without filters this can result in the sky being over exposed as the camera attempts to compensate the darker foreground. We use neutral density filters to avoid this problem by placing the darker part of the filter at the top of the frame to capture a more even and natural exposure. Most neutral density filters are expensive with a Cokin set costing roughly $150-300 and a Lee kit around $300. I was curious to how the magic cloth technique would compare to these more expensive neutral density filters.

Fast forward to December this year when I was visiting family and friends in my home town of Hobart, I gave the technique a try at Park Beach with some long exposures.

Magic Cloth Technique

The technique is appealing as it’s so simple and costs nothing. No surprises that the technique is based on using a cloth or even as Tony suggests, you can also use a sock, wallet, or cap. Really the possibilities are endless but the most important thing is finding an object which you can easily hold over the front over the camera to cover a certain part of the image. Once you’ve found a suitable object to use for the magic cloth technique, you’re now ready. The technique is best used for long exposures as this gives you greater control and flexibility over the image.

It is suggested to meter the image in your camera around 2 stops over exposed when using the technique to get the best possible exposure. Begin by starting the exposure and covering the lens with the object. Over time, gradually move the object up (towards the sky or the top of the frame). The slower you raise the cloth results in a darker grad. In simple terms this means your sky will receive less exposure and be considerably darker. If instead you raise the magic cloth faster, this will result in a less darker grad and brighter sky.

And really that’s all there is to the magic cloth technique. Experiment with the technique and you will slowly get a feel for how it works and how it might be beneficial for certain scenes. Now that I’ve tried the technique with seascapes I’d love to try with photographing waterfalls up close to avoid sea spray going all over my lens and to capture greater detail of the surrounding foliage areas.

You might also be interested in my waterfall photography guide. A thorough guide that covers waterfall photography, the ideal weather, equipment you’ll need, visual examples of how shutter speed works and other bits.

If you’re new to long exposures, my guide on daytime long exposures might also be of interest.

Hopefully this was helpful!

A photograph from my recent trip home to Tasmania for Christmas. This long exposure photograph was captured at Park Beach, Tasmania just after sunset. This is one of my favourite coastlines to photograph in the Hobart area even if it is quite limited on sunset. Unfortunately you’re limited to shooting in this direction if you wish to capture any colour in the sky, ignoring all the interesting rock formation that faces the opposite direction.

This is a 10 minute long exposure that was captured with a Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 17-40, B+W 110 and tripod.

Before and After

And for something different, this is the before and after images from Lightroom. The image is around a stop over exposed which was both good and bad. The reason for it being good is that it brought out a lot of detail in the dark area of the rocks which can easily be lost in a regular exposure due to the area having strong shadows. But on the other hand, I also lost a lot of sky straight out of camera. Fortunately the Canon 5D Mark II retains a lot of detail and I was able to save the sky.

The edit was actually quick and probably only took around 2 minutes. In Lightroom I dropped the exposure considerably which brought back the sky but darkened the rocks. Rather than keep the rocks under exposed, I used the adjustment brush with a +1.00 exposure to bring the rocks back out.  After that I adjusted the temperature of the image (cooling it) and selectively adjusting the saturation points of parts of the image until happy. Finally sharpening the image in Photoshop with the unsharpen mask.
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I’m enjoying a couple of weeks home in Hobart visiting family and friends escaping the 40 degree heat of Melbourne. Over the last few days I’ve been spending some time in St Helens, a beautiful coastal town and also my favourite part of Tasmania. This is a series of photographs captured last night around the Bay of Fires area on a lovely warm summer evening.

All images were captured with a Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 17-40, Cokin Z-Pro .9 graduated neutral density filter and a tripod.

Hope you like!

One from earlier this evening at Park Beach Tasmania on sunset.

Fingers crossed the colours are okay with this. I’m in Hobart for a few weeks and only have a laptop to edit on. How I miss my 27″ screen right now… Editing in Photoshop on a 13″ is interesting

This is a 10 minute long exposure captured with a Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 17-40 and B+W 110. Rather than use graduated neutral density filters I opted to use the ‘magic cloth technique’. I keep meaning to make a post on this soon but it’s a neat little technique that is cost effective and useful when you wish to only limit the exposure of part of the image for a small period (rather than the whole 10 minute long exposure like with actual graduated filters).  More on this soon though

Hobart

Earlier in the year (note – 3am on New Years Day) I thought it would be a great idea to apply for a job in Melbourne and move away from Hobart for a bit. I applied for a job later that day without actually thinking I’d get an interview but soon found out they wanted to hire me and I had 10 days to move over.  Find somewhere to live, move all my belongings over, no biggy? It was a rush and a mad fortnight of trying to spend time with everyone before I went. These images are all captured during this time.

Star trails – New years day

It was the first time I’d been to Mona Foma since it started a few years ago. Friends and I made an effort to get along to as much as possible which was a blast. I’m disappointed I’ll be missing it next year especially with word Girl Talk is playing.

All man on my pink chair…

I started a little project called The Travelling Camera. I’ve been lazy with it this year but it’s a project where an Olympus OM-2n film camera sent with a list of things to photograph to friends. So far three people have done the project and just waiting on a fourth. If you’re interested in participating in it next year, be sure to contact me.

Before I left I was rather keen to tag along on a trip up to the Great Lakes with Sam Shelley. It’s an amazing place and somewhere I hope to explore more when I one day move back to Tasmania.

During the 10 days, I had to quickly find somewhere to live in Melbourne. I flew over to Melbourne for the day to look at four places, all of which offering me leases. It worked out well and I was able to pick the unit I wanted most.

But it was soon time to pack up and move away.

Leaving Devonport on the Spirit of Tasmania

Melbourne

Arriving into Melbourne at 6am and being greeted by 30 degree heat.

The first few months of moving over I was rather lazy and went into tourist mode.

AFL – Watching Carlton draw against Essendon. I ended up going to 7 games throughout the year which is odd as I don’t actually have a team.

Albert Park - Where I sometimes like to go running.

Drinking possibly a little too much coffees.

Discovering a new found love in ph?.

Working those star jumps…

Long exposure of traffic entering Exhibition Street (near work).

Throughout the year I had a play with some timelapse. I’m lazy and never got around to finishing the clip but here is a selection of clips captured throughout the Melbourne CBD.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Oh… And of course a yoyo clip (much to the amusement of the guys I work with who randomly came across my Youtube channel).

Click here to view the embedded video.

Shrine of Remembrance

Living reasonably close to the city, I sometimes like to run or walk home. Taken during winter as I was leaving work.

Another photo as I made my way home from work.

Back to Hobart Briefly…

I went back to Hobart for my birthday to catch up with friends and family. Having not been taking many photographs since moving to Melbourne, I was pretty keen to have some early mornings and shoot some sunrises.

Mt Wellington from the Hobart Eastern Shore.

Overcast sunrise at South Arm, Tasmania

Playing around with reflections at Eaglehawk Neck on sunrise

Back to Melbourne

When I got back to Melbourne I was asked to photograph our IT staff for the staff intranet and phone book. It was different but fun.

A friend - I like this one.

It took me a while to start leaving the city and taking photographs. I was lucky to meet some guys who shared the same interest as me so we made a few trips throughout the year.  This series is from Marysville.

Playing around at Docklands on sunset

Cape Woolamai – I took a trip down to Cape Woolamai, Phillip Island with some friends who I also went to Marysville with. It was probably my favourite place I’ve taken photos all year.

Clouds passing above during a 13 minute exposure at Elwood Beach.

And finally, another trip back to Marysville on a cold and wet morning. Probably my second favourite set from this year and a nice set to close with.

I hope you enjoyed these photographs and thank you for all the support from people who have commented and emailed throughout the year.

- Alex

Click here to view my 2010 Retrospective.

13.30 minute exposure at f.8 - Canon 5D Mark II - Canon 17-40 - tripod - remote - Cokin Z-Pro .9 neutral density grad, B+W 110 neutral density filter

Last night I took a trip down to Elwood in hope of taking some long exposures of the already overshot old jetty. Unfortunately it was gone and replaced with an eye sore square of concrete. Where had it gone? Eroded by too many photographers digging their tripod legs into the aged wood? I kid I kid. A little disappointed I took a stroll up the beach in the 30 degree heat looking for an alternative and came across these interesting rocks. I’m not overly fond of the images but it’s always nice to explore new locations even if slightly disappointing.

One from a few months back from Marysville, Victoria.

I’ve made a few trips out to Marysville since moving over earlier this year as it’s a beautiful place especially during miserable weather. The waterfalls come alive and the hills are surrounded by fog. Perfect conditions for landscape photography.

This photograph is actually a two shot stitch as I wanted to capture the beauty of the surrounding trees while leaving some space around the foreground rocks. It leaves a lot of empty space but hopefully works okay. While I also used a Canon 5D Mark Ii, Canon 17-40 lens, circular polariser filter and tripod to capture the image.

You might be interested in a recent waterfall photography guide I published on my blog which explores the equipment needed for waterfall photography, compares shutter speeds and how these can affect your image and other bits.

Camera Size – Compare the difference in size between cameras.

Stunning timelapse of star trails in the making.

Night vision lens used by the US military.

The most powerful photos of 2011.

DIY low cost setup for making your own high speed flash trigger.

Interesting portraits of people lit by their mobile phones.

Details of strangers captured in three frames.

Using a midi controller for adjustments in Lightroom.

This fashion photography dvd looks great.

Stunning photographs captured from… Google Streetview.

The beauty of a second. Participants were asked to include footage that could only be a second long. This is the finished product. Beautiful stuff.

A glimpse into the post processing of the talented Peter Eastway.

X-Ray image of a Nikon photographer.

Using lasers to take incredible 3D macro photographs.

Rhein II by Andreas Gursky is the $4.3 million dollar photograph. Interesting.

Earth timelapse from space as captured from the NASA, ISS. Beautiful.

Rather interesting article on how Steve Jobs wanted to change the nature of photography.

You might be interested in a previous weekly digest which includes a mint tin pinhole camera, more beautiful timelapses and post processing videos.

A photo taken a couple of months ago at Cape Woolamai, Victoria. I’ve been sitting on this for a while, slightly unhappy with the processing and not completely sold by the composition. After 4 processing attempts later, here it is.

Technical Details

This is a X exposure captured at F. with a Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 17-40, remote and Manfrotto tripod.

For this shot I used the magic cloth technique (more on this in a future post). But in short, it’s a technique where you place a cloth over the top half of the frame during long exposures to act as a graduated neutral density filter. I used this technique for the first time as my filters and been packed away and were slightly dirty from sea spray. Surprisingly it worked quite well.

Post Processing

This photograph consists of two exposures with one for the sky and another for the rest of the image.

Blending exposures is helpful when you don’t nail the initial in-camera exposure. Fortunately I captured two images with one quite over exposed and suited well for the rocks as part of the foreground and another under exposed which captured the sky perfectly. Rather than attempt to use either the over or under exposed image, I combined the two elements from both shots to maximise dynamic range. Confused? You can see two images to the side which demonstrate which parts from the over exposed image were combined with the under exposed shot. I find gradually painting the over exposed with a low opacity allows for the blend to be more seamless and less obvious to the viewer which in my opinion, is the most important thing.

Photography Tips: Waterfall Photography

Waterfall photography is one of my favourite styles of photography as it combines my love of nature and long exposures.  I’m a sucker for standing waist deep in a freezing stream capturing a photo. It’s strangely relaxing especially when you have a scene all to yourself. But enough jibber, these photography tips should help you with:

• What camera settings to use for waterfall photography
• Explain and show how shutter speed can affect your photo through visual examples of different long exposures
• What equipment to use
• My personal step by step process of setting up a photograph and the things I consider in terms of composing the photograph and how I decide on what camera settings to use
• Working out ideal weather conditions for waterfall photography

Equipment

Most photography tips place too much emphasis on equipment and the need to have an expensive camera or lens. You can spend as much money as you want for waterfall photography but purchases I find essential are a tripod, circular polariser and a camera (No way really?)

Camera

An obvious one but you will need a camera that is cable of capturing shutter speeds longer than one second and preferably upwards of 15-30 seconds. All digital SLR cameras come with this functionality and most point and shoots also now provides some longer shutter speed functionality.

Circular Polariser

The circular polariser (not to be confused with the linear polariser) is a screw on filter that reduces glare and provides deeper and appealing colour tones

This isn’t crucial for waterfall photography but I personally like the effect which the filter provides and wouldn’t leave the house without it when shooting waterfalls. Whilst using a circular polariser also means you lose 2 stops (or 1-1/2 stops with some brands) which is beneficial as it allows for a longer exposure.

Below are examples of images captured with and without the circular polariser. It’s not the best example but the big difference where the glare is reduced around the key rock to the right of the frame.

Circular Polariser – No Filter

Neutral Density Filter

Using a neutral density filter is a useful tool for obtaining a longer exposure time. This is possible by placing a dark element filter over the front of the camera lens which allows you to capture an exposure time longer than if shooting without a filter.

To put this into perspective, if you were shooting without a filter and the camera gave you a base reading of 1/15 of a second, attaching a 4 stop neutral density filter would change this reading to 1 second. Again if you had a base reading of 1 second without a filter applied, attaching the 4 stop neutral density filter would result in a reading of 15 seconds. Make sense? Not really? This neutral density calculation cheat sheet might help give you an understanding of how different strength neutral density filters can affect shutter speed.

Neutral density filters aren’t crucial for waterfall photography because you will be shooting in diffused light which means you are able to easily achieve desirable exposure times without the need of filters.

Tripod

Get your feet wet

Using a tripod is essential for waterfall photography as it allows you to capture water movement whilst retaining a sharp image. Attempting to take waterfall photographs without a tripod results in blurred images. This is easily avoided by using a tripod to steady your camera and provide a sharp image.

Most tripods on the market extend to around 140-150cm which provides you with the opportunity to get a little wet (and possibly cold)

I’d suggest positioning yourself ankle to waist deep in the water to get a different angle. Most photographers are quite content on shooting from the water’s edge so this is an easy way to get something different from the norm. A word of warning – take it slow. A recent trip photographing waterfalls I was ankle-deep in water and took one step and was suddenly waist deep in water. Sometimes your tripod is a handy tool to test the depth before making an unfortunate step.

The Importance of Shutter Speed

Shutter speed is the time which the shutter within the camera remains open to capture an image.

Effectively this is the amount of light that hits the camera sensor or film which is anywhere from 1/16000 of a second or as some have demonstrated, years. Longer shutter speeds can be achieved by using a low ISO setting, shooting at a relatively high f-stop (f.16-32) or by introducing filters such as neutral density filters or circular polarisers (as soon discussed).

So what impact does shutter speed have when taking photographs of waterfalls? Quite a lot actually. To help you understand how shutter speed is helpful for waterfall photography, I’ve created a gif of three scenes that run through the various shutter speeds. The images all have one thing in common in which the water gradually moves from a rough texture to a nice smooth effect.

1/50 sec- 1/10 sec – 0.3 sec – 2.5 sec – 10 sec – 30 sec

1/25 sec- 1/10 sec – 1/4 sec – 0.6 sec – 2 sec – 10 sec – 30 sec

1/50 sec – 1/25 sec – 1/10 sec  - 1/4 sec – 0.6 sec - 1.3 sec – 5 sec – 30 sec

What shutter speed to use?

Enabling the AV mode on your camera

So what is the ideal shutter speed for shooting waterfalls? It really depends on various factors and how you want your final image to look. I’m quite fond of the shutter speed effect that is evident around the 2-5 second mark of smooth water to provide a calm image.

The shutter speed effect around the 0.3″ mark retains the roughness of the water while avoiding the smooth effect that can be seen around the 5 second and beyond exposure.

Although sometimes retaining a rough texture to the water can work well especially when the river is rough and you wish to capture this mood in your image. Personally I try to hover around the 2-10 second mark.

Why?

Any longer and you begin to introduce blur around the foliage area if there is a slight breeze on the day. For this reason I find 2-10 seconds ideal for capturing a nice smooth texture to the water while retaining sharpness to the surrounding foliage.

Camera exposure reading of 0.8" seconds at f.13

Generally my process of taking a waterfall photograph is as follows:

• Set the camera up for the photo, composing with an interesting foreground element at the front of the frame. Normally I look for a mossy rock and focus the camera on that feature while retaining the background in focus also. You can see what I’m referring to by looking at the above shutter speed comparison clips. Each image I frame the photo centering a rock towards the front of the frame. This technique is heavily inspired by the late (and amazing) landscape photographer Peter Dombrovskis. This is how I like to compose my landscape photography but don’t feel constrained to this technique. Explore different ways of composing the frame and capture something that makes you happy.
• Put the camera into Aperture Priority mode (AV)
• Set the camera to a relatively high f-stop (around f11-22)
• Fire a test shot/reading to get a base feel of what exposure times you will be working with.  For example, I dial f.13 into the camera and set the ISO to 100. This gives me an exposure time of 0.8 seconds.
• This sounds corny but I like to take in the scene and get a feel for things. Why? If there is a breeze this will affect the sharpness of surrounding foliage.If there is a slight breeze then it’s best to opt for a shutter speed that isn’t too slow (i.e. 30 seconds) but more around the 1-2 second mark.
• At this point I want to increase the shutter speed for a longer exposure. I do this by increasing the f-stop to f.16 and decreasing the ISO from 100 to 50 which now gives me a more ideal exposure time.

Why do I shoot in aperture priority and not manual after taking a base reading? Convenience. Some people almost have an arrogance about shooting in manual mode as if it’s some prerequisite to being a ‘professional’. Aperture priority works for me so why change? It’s only when I’m not happy with the test image (whether it be over or under exposed) that I sometimes change to manual and making slight changes until happy. |

But use whatever works best for you whether it be manual, shutter or aperture priority mode

Ideal Weather Conditions

Miserable weather is a great time to pick up the camera and go take some waterfall photographs.

Two images - Left is in harsh sunlight while the right is in overcast conditions (Click to enlarge)

Overcast skies offer a lovely diffused light and the rain increases the flow of water (especially after a few days of rain). For this reason winter is my favourite season for waterfall photography.

Investing in a camera coat or even taking a plastic bag to protect your camera from rain and spray isn’t such a bad idea if shooting in miserable conditions.

And that’s it!

If you found these photography tips helpful I’d be extremely grateful if you could share the post with your friends via the available tools below or consider linking to it on your blog. Be sure to check out my Photoshop and Lightroom tutorial videos. I’m constantly updating this page with new tutorials as I make them and taking requests.

PS. Don’t be afraid to contact me if you’re confused about any parts of the article. It’s always nice to hear from people and I’m more than happy to explain things in more detail. I’d also love to hear any feedback you might have on how to improve this article. Sometimes it’s easy to skim over things  so if you think this could benefit by adding things then I’d love to hear.

Oh and be sure to check your leg for leeches

- Alex

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Arriving a few hours before the sunset gave me plenty of opportunity to find a nice vantage point and setup my gear and wait… Unfortuntely there wasn’t as much swell as I’d had liked but it was enough.

This is an 8 second exposure and is shot with a Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 17-40 and Cokin Z-Pro Neutral Density filters. In case you’re wondering, the B+W 110 neutral density filter very much goes back into the bag at this point of the sunset due to limited available light rendering the filter almost useless.

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Another week of links. This week my favourite being the above landscapes captured in a 200 gallon tank. The behind the scenes shot at the end of the series is so fascinating.

On a recent trip photographing waterfalls and streams in the Yarra Valley I couldn’t resist a quick stop to capture the fog surrounding along the windy road as we made our way home. It was beautiful.

Captured with a Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 17-40 and a tripod.

The Meeting of the Waters is a beautiful short walk in the Yarra Valley, Victoria and not a corny photography title I just came up with (honest…!). This waterfall photograph is a two image stitch captured with the Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 17-40 and Hoya Circular Polariser. I was quite impressed by the stunning tree but unfortunately it didn’t fit the frame right. Instead two images were captured and later stitched in PTGui to better capture it.

Normally I loathe heavy vignette but this seems to work okay and not make me want to stab myself in the eyes.

This is a 15 second long exposure captured on ‘golden hour’ just a bit before sunset. The day time long exposure was made possible by using a B+W 110 10 stop neutral density filter which allows the camera to be stopped down significantly.  Minimal processing including a slight desaturation of the sky, curves and obviously the vignette.

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How gross is the Sigma special edition?!

Ever since moving over to Victoria in January I’ve been meaning to get out and shoot some new coastline. On Saturday I finally got around to it with a trip down to Cape Woolamai off the south eastern tip of Phillip Island.  Weather conditions were ideal with some lovely light peaking through the pinnacles lighting the scene nicely. It was a fun outing with quite a few seascape and long exposure photographs captured which I hope to share with you over the coming weeks.

This photograph was shot with a Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 17-40 and Cokin Z-Pro .9 neutral density filter.

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 How amazing is the timelapse?! Inspiring stuff.

Spent the morning scanning film for a little project I have on the go called The Travelling Camera. Admittedly it’s nothing special but it goes to show what can be obtained with a $50 camera (Olympus OM-2N).

This was captured at the delicious Market Lane Coffee not far from me.

Instagram is a neat iPhone photography application developed by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger that imitates the Kodak Instamatic and Polaroid cameras. The free app offers various filters (post processing effects), tilt shift and borders to customise your photography.  No longer are you constrained by a bulky camera and are now able to quickly take photos on the fly. I’ve been using the app for some time now and have been impressed with the continual introduction of new features and filters and the ever increasing community. The growth of the app has even seen local photography groups popping up purely dedicated to celebrating instagram and iPhone photography. A favourite of mine is the igersmelbourne group who meet up frequently and really push the capabilities of iPhone photography. Did I mention it’s free?

Follow me – alexwise 

An old favourite of mine captured in April 2008 of a small stream inland from St Helens at St Columbia Falls. As this was taken a few years ago, it was shot with my previous setup of a Canon 350D, Canon 10-22 and a tripod.  I didn’t get many keepers that day as the sun was patchy and my kit lacked a circular polariser.  But fortunately I caught a moment where the sun was diffused and created a nice evenly lit scene.

Oh the difference 30 minutes can have on a scene. Both images were captured tonight with one mid sunset and another just after sunset as ‘blue hour’ set in. I actually prefer the second myself… How about you?