Updated:
Got some wonderful advice in my comments and had to try it immediately! Information like what was shared here makes doing this blog all worth while! Thanks so much! Here are the re-dos:
Compare:
Taking pictures of flowers in the garden is one of my favorite things. It was a gloomy day yesterday, though, so many of them did not turn out well. Here is a sampling.
Took this one yesterday. My husband gave me the idea. What is it? Any ideas? Leave a comment. I will reveal it tomorrow :)
Updated:
You guys are much smarter than me. Here is a picture of the tree looking up, and then of the hole which I stepped inside to take the picture. It is huge - you can see my husband beside it, so the opening is almost 6 feet tall.
This is an aquaglobe. haha. And yes, they do work really well.
Using the rule of thirds here was too hard, especially with the shadow (which I wanted to keep). So I am trying a square crop to compensate. Thoughts?
ISO 400 | 1/25 | f/4.8| 72mm | No Flash
Updated:
Cropped a little more tightly.
My son and I went to a nature preserve this morning. We had never been there before, so it was fun. There was a large field where some dogs were playing and my son was chasing them. The light was so great, and I was trying desperately to get a photo of him using the sun as sidelight. I took tons, but none were satisfying to me. It seems that his cute little cheeks are always either blown out or the rest of his face is too dark. I am sure I could fix it with a reflector, but that is not practical. This was the best one I could get (see first one below). I lightened it with photoshop best I could, and I cropped it into a square since there was really just one main focus.
So, I was fooling around with some filters and decided to use a great one from Coffee Tea Photography called "attic vintage" (see second picture below). The texture I added is one I have had for years so I cannot give credit where it is due - sorry someone. Anyway, I think it lightened it up nicely and i think his jacket is kind of retro so this works well. And, it offers a "texture" picture for January.
What do you think?
ISO 220 | 1/800 | f/5.6 | 202mm
Update:
Thanks for the feedback. The texture was already pretty opaque so I erased it around his face. Better?
Balance: Placing your main subject off-centre, as with the rule of thirds, creates a more interesting photo, but it can leave a void in the scene which can make it feel empty. You should balance the 'weight' of your subject by including another object of lesser importance to fill the space.
ISO 100 | 1/80 | f/16 | 95mm
I got this as my son took a short rest between toddling up and down the front steps of our house. I tend to put him to the side of photos on a regular basis (see the unbalanced shot below). This time I put him to the side but included the porch column to balance the right side. The blue in the security sign also balances some of the color. At first I considered cropping out the sign (even though I like the color balance), but I like the statement it makes.
Unbalanced:
Update:
Based on feedback I cropped the sign and shadow out and I lightened up the shadow on is face:
