10 Tips for Urban Photography
Being from New York, the hustle and bustle of inner city life (while not for everyone) does provide great areas that are so interesting to spend time in - both on a personal level but also photographically.

Photography: Little Known Ways to Avoid Problems in the Field
Photography is all about preparation. Instead of running into problems when you’re out shooting, understand some easy ways of tackling the more common problems you may run into!

Wedding Photography Agreement (Contract) Tips
You’ve seen it before. It’s not the photographer with the biggest camera or the most artistic eye that wins in the world of wedding photography. It’s the best-practiced business photographer.
Unconventional wedding photography

How to Reduce Camera Shake - 6 Techniques
In this article photographer Natalie Norton explores 6 ways you can hand hold lenses at low apertures and low shutter speeds and still avoid blurry images caused by camera shake.

Food Photography Techniques and Tips
Food photographer Jonathan Pollack shares some wonderful food photography tips (and some positively mouth watering photos.

Street Photography Revisited
“if you like street photography, take a walk down the street.”

Photography 101.4 - Exposure and Stops
In this series, we cover all the basics of camera design and use. We talk about the ‘exposure triangle’: shutter speed, aperture and ISO. We talk about focus, depth of field and sharpness, as well as how lenses work, what focal lengths mean and how they put light on the sensor. We also look at the camera itself, how it works, what all the options mean and how they affect your photos.

Infrared Photography
nfrared photography looks like nothing else. I’m sure you’ve seen some IR photos around the web, but maybe you don’t know how to achieve this special effect?

Bird Photography, Part I
It can be difficult to make a good photograph of a bird. There are practical and technical reasons for that. Birds are small, fast, and shy so it is hard to get close enough to a wild bird to take the picture.

3 articles on High Dynamic Range Photography:
http://www.point101.com/news/high-dynamic-range-photography-20.html
http://blog.23x.net/7/beginners-guide-to-hdr.html
http://techbutter.com/2008/06/02/high-dynamic-range-hdr-photography/

It always happened to me to forget something. The last “mini photo trip” had the impact on me to always check my equipment on every single and last detail.

We’ve taken with us two Nikon cameras, four lenses and one point and shoot digital camera (canon a640). We wanted to make a test. The most important test was to compare Nikon 70-300mm Vibrate Reduction lenses with Tamron AF-S 70-300mm lenses for Nikon. For this test we needed the tripod that we’ve taken with us. BUT I’ve forgot the head of the tripod. So there I was, with lot of equipment but with out that little piece I’ve need it. Mission Failed!

So check:
- batteries (back up batteries)
- tripod and the head of the tripod
- lenses
- filters
- settings of the camera (why would you shoot the first picture with the settings left from home?)
- camera and lens hoods

Step 2: Travel

Now you are prepared. The next step is to travel. Go to places where you never been before. It’s true that a good photographer can make from one scene thousands of good photos but a smart photographer will travel. Traveling will help discover the world and always have interesting and new pictures.

You can’t go to the same park and expect to always have killer photos. Change places!

Step 3: Try to Avoid the Mid of the Day

A definition of photography says: paint with the light. In photography it’s all about the light. In the mid of the day most of the time you’ll have a white sky and the objects will have no shades, these means: no story to tell (in most of the cases).

Step 4: Always Shoot a Scene from Different Angles

Don’t get satisfied with just one angle. Try more angles and different settings.

Step 5: For Snapshots on Moving Targets Try to Avoid Manual Settings

If you shoot birds, children, moving objects you should use the auto mode or pre-programmed modes. Try to avoid manual settings, because the object is moving so you will have different light, shutter speed and aperture.

Step 6: A Good Photographer Knows that Not All Photos Are Astonishing: Be Very Selective

If you want to be considered a good photographer be very selective, edit your photos and include in your portfolio only the killer photographs.

You could go in a trip and make 1000 photos where would you get only three astonishing photos and 50 OK photos. Include in your portfolio only the best ones.

The photos are from one of my trip around the country. 2 days - 600 photos.

I always recommend to buy a dslr.

Written by Tudor Mateescu.

If you want to write an unique guest post to my blog shoot me an e-mail at laurentia.fr [at] gmail.com

What’s the best way to take “great” firework photos? According to Chuck DeLaney, Dean of the New York Institute of Photography (NYI), the world’s largest photography school, it’s easy if you do a couple of simple things. “Most of all you need a steady camera, a long exposure, and medium speed ISO setting,” DeLaney explains.

First, you’ll want to take a time-exposure. If you have an SLR camera, this should be no problem. Many point-and-shoot cameras have a special Fireworks setting, but if the camera you are using doesn’t, try to “fool” the camera into keeping the shutter open. Here’s how: When you see a rocket shoot skyward, press the shutter-button. The darkness of the sky should cause your camera to keep the shutter open for a time-exposure, and you can end up with a splendid picture.
What about using a single-use “cardboard” disposable camera? NYI says, forget it! These cameras usually have a fixed shutter speed, and you can’t “fool” them into doing the right thing no matter what you do.

Second, and equally important, since you are taking a time-exposure, your camera should be on a solid, unmoving base throughout the exposure. A tripod is best. If you don’t have a tripod, try bracing your camera against some solid structure - for example, a wall, a post, or a railing. They’re not as good as a tripod, but they’re better than hand-holding your camera. And hand-holding is the road to disaster - no one likes blurry fireworks photos.

Third, to add an extra-special touch to your picture, try to include something on the ground to give a sense of location to the firework display in the sky. For example, across the bottom of your frame you might show silhouettes of the crowd, or a statue (George Washington on horseback?), or the skyline of thecity. This one trick will do more to make your fireworks pictures stand out than any other single thing you can do. “There are some special do’s and don’ts that will help digital photographers get the best results,” notes DeLaney. “We
written a special article just to address those issues.”

For lots more advice on how to take “great” fireworks pictures, and some great fireworks photos, visit http://www.nyip.com/ezine/holidays/firewksintro.html or read the other photo tips on the New York Institute of Photography (NYI) Web site at http://www.nyip.com.

Reprinted with permission from the New York Institute of Photography
Photos by Lau

In this week of “photo critique” I received more wonderful images. Let’s see them.

Portrait by FurSid

Original Image

Technical Aspects

Technically, this portrait is almost perfect. If I look carefully at the details in full view, I might say that the upper right eye is too dark and looses details. Exposure looks fine, kind of at the limit in the mustache area because of the strong contrast, which, otherwise, is good for the details and pops out the man’s expression. The main focus point is well placed on the eyes of the subject. Composition is very good.

Visual Aesthetics

The expression captured gives a very deep feeling and the sepia toning adds alot to it. Congratulations for such a pleasant portrait!

Spring time in the Mountains by Tudor

Technical Aspects

The image is well focused, with a proper DOF. However, the post processing resulted into some burned areas. Better pay attention at that. Composition is great: not just the right positioning of the flower, but also the slight radial feeling given by the grass adds to it.

Visual Aesthetics

Unlike classical spring interpretation, your’s is full of mystery. I sense that the flowers from the dark side of the picture are still “frozen” in the remains of the winter, while the other flower, the one that rises into the light, is the symbol of the spring yet to come. The vignetting looks good on this picture.

Do you want your photo to receive a critique at photoaxe.com? Send your image at laurentia.fr[at]gmail.com and next week your photo will be commented here.

“The beauty and attractiveness of Himalaya emanate not only from the beauty of the mountains but also from what surrounds it. Nepal is a country of hospitable people with picturesque villages, with an amazing diversity of cultures and traditions and also a great variety of flora and fauna.”

You can view some of the best photographs from the expo here.
Also, if you are interested, Mihai Moiceanu invites you to a new series of workshops.

The theoretic notions of photocomposition and the processing and analysis of the photographs on the computer will be combined with the photo tours around Magura-Bran area. Under Mihai Moiceanu’s guidance you will carry out landscape photographs, but also peasants or sheperds portraits, photographs of rural architecture (houses, hodai, sheepfolds) or photographs that capture rural activities (ploughing, mowing etc).

More details here.

Original Image

Original Image

Original Image

Original Image

Original Image

Original Image

Original Image

The analog technique

I called the technique that does not use a computer “the analog technique” because It is performed on the picture as It Is taken, in the analog world so to speak. This being the case, it allows the technique to be used for both digital and film cameras.
The three pictures below, Figures 1-3 are crude examples of a homemade soft focus filter. Commercial soft focus filters (such as the Cokin A-091 and A-092 filters) are available and their prices range from the very cheap to the very expensive. Whilst they are perfect if they are set to produce the exact effect you want, they are often static, meaning that their properties cannot be changed.
But let’s continue with this basic: homemade Soft focus filter:
A piece of cling film, which whilst not having the mast fantastic optical properties, will do for our purposes, was stretched across a Card frame and then a small amount of washing up liquid was smeared onto the center. The first example, fig 1, was taken without the homemade filter in front of the lens. The second shot, fig 2, was taken by smearing the washing up liquid in a circular motion. While the last photo, fig 3, was taken by smearing the liquid in straight lines across the cling film.
As you can see the effects are quite different.



Please note that when using the filter I am only creating the blurred Image. To create the composite Image manually, you would simply leave a small hole in the middle of the cling film, without any liquid on it. By varying the size or the hole, the balance between soft and hard Images can be controlled and therefore the overall effect can be adjusted. This balance is rather tricky to perfect and even more so when using house hold Items but a wide range of effects as possible.
How did the washing up liquid affect the Image entering the camera? The answer is that the filter “diffused” the light in different directions, much as a light diffuser for lighting equipment does. The liquid that was added on the cling film changed its optical properties making it react slightly differently to the incoming light. The digram below, fig 4, shows how this occurs.

With the first filtered example, the Image is softened in all directions. Take a closer look at the door handles and notice the glow surrounding them. As the diffusing liquid was smeared in a circular fashion, the light was bent in all directions.
In the second filtered Image, the diffusing liquid was smeared only in one direction, horizontally. This had the effect of bending light in the vertical direction, but largely unaffecting light in the horizontal direction. Again, look at the door handles to see the effect.
By varying things Ike tile liquid used, the amount used, smear directions and central hole diameter, you can create a wide range of filters to suit your needs. It is worth trying out this technique if only to satisfy your own curiosity. It takes only half an hour to create the filter and start taking some shots with it.

In this week of “photo critique” I received more wonderful images. Let’s see them.

Sky reflection by Guillaume Lagace

Technical Aspects

There is a good sharpness that fits the transparency of the calm water. The blue color looks very natural. Some details over the rocks are visible and the contrast is good. About the composition, the image is well equilibrated with the lines formed by the rocks and the cloud reflexion.

Visual Aesthetics

It’s nice that you captured both sky reflection + see-through water on the same picture, but here’s a tip that will always work: try using a wide lens to catch more objects in the picture (like some mountain, forest, house, bout), otherwise the picture seems like an empty scene that doesn’t tell much.

Doug Dsmil

Technical Aspects

The lighting used for this shot comes from both back and front of the model. The back one is not necessary but it gives a special radiant mood that draws attention. The shape of the female model is nicely visible under the scarf, and, also regarding the scarf, it adds to the composition. The skin has a nice tone and it looks like it has been softly retouched. The technical skills used for this shot are definitely at high level.

Visual Aesthetics

I like the curve line formed by the scarf, I like the colors and the vibrant mood created by the back light. There is one thought I have in mind about this picture: instead of the few hair that is strongly visible because of the back light, I would have asked the model to show all the hair. This would have also filled out the frame more.

Do you want your photo to receive a critique at photoaxe.com? Send your image at laurentia.fr[at]gmail.com and next week your photo will be commented here.

Looking back through Earth Shots’ first 500 photos, you can’t fail but be amazed by the sheer variety and quality of images we have featured – we have all the brilliant photographers to thank for that! We would also like to thank our loyal commenters who have helped transform Earth Shots from a plain website into a thriving community.

Curios to see the most impressive 500 pictures of nature from all over the world? Here’s a panel with these pictures. (from http://www.earthshots.org/500/)