A Beginners Guide To Photography
Photography. Supposedly everyone can do it as long as they’ve got a camera. But I don’t think that’s true. Yes everyone can take a photo, but not everyone can be a photographer. Here’s a few simple tips I picked up when I started photography.
1) Lighting
Lighting is the key part of photography. If the lighting is wrong, the photo won’t turn out right. Too little light or no lighting at all makes the dark and it doesn’t look pleasing at all. However too much light causes overexposure. The easiest way I found to light the subject perfectly was to get the light to come in on a diagonal angle, that way you have a two contrasting side to your photos, light and shade.
There are multiple factors that go into lighting, it good to further your research into what its right and wrong. Once you get the hang of lighting, its fun to use the light itself as the subject with some light painting.
2) Rule of Thirds
The rule of thirds is the most important tip I picked up when I first started to take photography seriously. It’s the idea that your image is split into 3 sections either vertically or horizontally. You always want the subject of the photo to take priority of the middle section no matter what way you wish to split your photo. That way you can make sure what you want to be seen is and there nothing to missive to draw peoples eyes away from the focus point.
Photographing in groups if three is a good way to keep your image full without making it look too busy by anything else, It also helps established the your three lines. Obviously you don’t always have to take photos of only groups of three, but it provides a nice base for a photography beginner.
3) Angles, It’s All About Angles
Angles is something that comes up quite a lot in photography. By changing the angle of the camera ever so slightly, a completely new mod is set. Tilting the camera and taking the photo from a diagonal, also known as a Dutch tilt, adds more suspense that by just taking it normally. A Dutch tilt + good editing = one suspenseful photo.
Tilting the camera doesn't always make thing dramatic, it also adds more depth to the photo. It allows more of the background to show, and if the background is blurred slightly, the photo looks even better.
4) Editing Software
Editing a photo can add so much more to a photo. Photoshop isn’t the only software available to add magic to your photography. Yes it is the go to editing programme, but if everyone used the same software lots of people wouldn’t be able to create the art you do. Editing a photo doesn’t just have to be enhancing what you have, you could choose a random free app on your phone and just add a few stickers to it that fit the theme. It doesn’t make you any less of a photographer.
Photoshop is not cheap and its obvious that not everyone can afford it. I’ve found so many alternative that you can use to edit your photos.
- Motionleap — Free, App. You can pay for a pro subscription to get more features, but it’s not needed.
- Canva — Free, App. Great for adding text to photos and for adding layers. Again you can pay for a pro subscription but it isn’t needed.
- WordSwag — Free, App. This also another good one for text and also alows you to pay for a pro subscription but isn’t needed.
- Procreate Pocket — £4.99, App. This is great for any artist who wants to draw on their photos. It does cost money, but its a one time payment. There is also the normal procreate and that's a one time payment of £9.99.
