Professional Photographs

How to Take Professional 

Photographs - Without the

 

Expensive Equipment

Shaun Emerson, 

As a photographer I have had many people who've been astonished at some of the photos I have taken with a point-and-shoot camera. So to help out all of those people who are aspiring photographers, or those who just wish to take better photos, I have composed a small list of tricks that can make even the most amateur photographer's photos look like that of a professional.

Know Your Camera

First off, you're going to need a good camera, there is no way around it. You can't expect to take good photos with a cheap camera you paid fifty or sixty dollars for. And certainly don't expect that you're going to be able to do well using a cellphone camera either. Expect to spend at least $100 on a decent enough camera. Of course, the only kind of camera I will cover here, is the digital camera, as most people no longer use film cameras. The higher MP or Megapixel the camera has, the clearer, better and larger picture your camera is going to be able to take. Keep this in mind when choosing a camera. The other most important feature to look for, is the zoom. And when I say zoom, I mean optical zoom, not digital zoom. Digital zoom is worthless. Basically all it does is, once you get to the end of your optical zoom, the digital zoom will digitally "blow up" the picture and make it larger. This effect would be much better achieved afterward, using a photo editing program. The two cameras that I am most familiar with, are Kodak and Nikon. In my experience, Kodak cameras tend to take photos that have more of a cool shade to them, like blue hues, whereas Nikon cameras tend to capture more warmer colors. I don't know why this is, but I find that Kodak cameras tend to capture winter or evening scenes much better than the Nikon, as it gives the picture a "cold" feel to it. The Nikon on the other hand, is a great camera for photographing summer days or sunsets, as it gives the photo more of a lively "warm" feeling.

Get to Know Your Camera Better

Don't be afraid to play around with the different settings and experiment with your photos, you'll never know what your camera can do otherwise. Most cameras have an "auto" setting, which usually appears with an icon in the form of a green camera. Basically what this function does is automatically chooses the "best" color and lighting, based on the color and lighting of the environment around you. So if it's a dark cloudy day, your camera will try and lighten up the picture, whereas if it's a bright sunny day, it will automatically adjust the photo to be darker in order to counteract the brightness from the sun. This can be a fairly decent setting for beginners, but controlling these aspects on your own can be a lot better option. For this reason, if you can, try and make sure your camera has a manual setting option. You may not be using this all the time, as it is an option for more advanced users, but if you are serious about wanting to become a professional caliber photographer, it is a must. Many cameras have a "Scene" setting which allows you to manually choose from a list of settings based on what type of scene you are shooting. I absolutely love this feature, and not necessarily for it's intended use. My personal favorite is the "Sunset" setting, which is meant for bringing out more color in a sunset. Not only does it work with sunsets, but it also works wonderfully in taking portrait, landscape and nature photos, as it really tends to bring out the red and green hues. Most cameras have a "Portrait" setting, but I find that using the sunset setting makes much more vibrant and beautiful photos.

Contrast is the Key

One of the most important parts of taking a good photo, is making sure it has good contrast. Whether that is caused by light and shadow, or just two conflicting colors, contrast makes for a very striking photo. If you're taking a picture of something that just looks flat and boring, try moving to a different angle so the lighting is different, and there is more of a contrast between light and darkness. Contrast gives the eye more to look at, and makes the photo more interesting. It also gives more of a feeling of depth to a photo.

Lighting is Important

As I mentioned above, contrast is essential to a photograph. The time of day you choose to shoot can mean the difference between an epic photo, or an epic failure. The two best times of day to take photographs is in the morning, and in the evening, when the shadows are long. If you've ever taken a picture during the day, that just looks boring and doesn't seem to match how you see it, then perhaps you should try returning later in the day and taking the photo again. You'll be amazed at how much nicer your photo will look. Also, when taking pictures, make sure to try and keep the sun toward your back. Digital cameras run on light sensors, and shooting directly toward the sun can cause problems with the sensors and mess up your photos.

The Rule of Thirds

The rule of thirds is a rule that most photographers go by and it basically means that you try and break your photo up into thirds when you set up the scene, so that your subject isn't focused directly in the center of the shot. For example, if you're taking a landscape photo you would break it up into three horizontal sections and put the sky in the top third, the mountains or trees in the middle third and the grass or foreground in the bottom third. If you wish to add something like a person or a house to the scene, then you would break it up again into thirds. Only this time you want to make the thirds vertical, and place the house or person into the third on the right or left. It seems like it should make sense to place them in the center of the photograph, but don't make that mistake as it screams out amateur! A good thing to remember when photographing people: always put the two thirds of the photo that the person isn't in out in front of their face, rather than behind them. This helps the viewer feel comfortable, and gives them a sense of looking at what the person in the snapshot is looking at. Placing the wide space behind the person, as if the person were standing at the edge of the photo and looking out into something you can't see tends to give the viewer a sense of uneasiness. So unless the point of your picture is to make someone feel uneasy, avoid doing it.

Don't forget Depth Perception

One problem that many people have is that their photos look too flat. A good way to counter this is by using items in the foreground to help give the picture the appearance of depth. Use things like houses, trees, branches, bushes, rocks, grass, people etc. in the edges or bottom of your photo. This will give the viewer something in the foreground to work as an anchor for the pic, something that allows you to compare with the rest of the photo, and gives it a more 3 dimensional effect.

Forget about the Sunset

Too many people try and rely on the pretty colors of a sunset to make a nice photo. Unfortunately, this alone will not make a good photo. If you were already taking a photograph of the mountains or something else, and there just happens to be a sunset, all the better! A sunset makes a great addition to a photo, but a very bad subject for a photo. Unless a sunset is a spectacular "once-in-a-lifetime" sunset that you will never see again, then don't photograph it. Just pretty colors are not enough.

Don't Max Our Your Zoom

The more you zoom in on a subject, the more you risk ending up with a blurry photo. That's because the further out the lens is, the more a photo will be affected by slight movements. It's like swinging a stick with your hand. You could move the stick only a couple of inches where your hand is, but the other end of the stick will have moved a couple of feet. It's the same principle. The longer your lens is extended, the more the image will move in the event of a small wiggle or twitch. And that's not the only reason to avoid the zoom. Some things like wild animals and birds obviously need to be photographed through the zoom function, because they would run away if you get too close. Most subjects look better if you can get close to them to take the shot, rather than zooming and snapping the pic from way off. That's because zooming tends to stretch and distort the photo. Remeber, you're trying to capture what your eye sees, so the closer you can capture from, the better.

Take Lots of Pictures!

The most important advice I give people, is to take lots of photos of each subject you are photographing. If you see something that is so breathtaking that you just have to take a picture, make sure you take at least several of them. You have no idea how many once-in-a-lifetime shots I have taken only a picture or two of, and then got home and uploaded them to my computer, only to find out that my photo was blurry or fuzzy. Be sure to take plenty of shots of each subject, and don't be afraid to try taking multiple shots of it from different angles. I generally take anywhere from 30 to 100 shots of each subject I shoot, from several different angles. The most terrible and untalented photographer could end up with at least one good shot of each subject this way, even if just by accident.

Don't Forget to Edit

After you upload your photos onto your computer, be sure to go through them and pick your favorite from each set of shots. Don't show off all the multiple shots of the same subject -- this looks really stupid when you do that. Pick the best one and just go with that. Also, don't be afraid to edit or touch up your photos with a photo editing program. Many "purists" out there argue that using an editing program afterward is out of the question because it's not the original photograph if you edit it. The whole point of taking a photograph is to try and make it so people can see what you saw, and cameras don't necessarily capture the true colors that your eyes see. Plus camera's don't always even take a photo of something as it would look in real life. Let's face it, you don't normally go around seeing people with red eyes afterall. So there is no problem with making post photo corrections, just so long as you're not adding anything into the picture that wasn't there in the first place. There's nothing wrong with that either, but that would fall more into the category of graphic design or photo manipulation, not photography.

Break the Rules!

And last but not least, these are all just general guidelines. Don't be afraid to experiment and play around with different ideas and techniques. Any of these rules can be broken in order to achieve a certain effect or feel to the photo.