Digital Photography

Part 5Style and subject

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About style and subjectPhotographers have their own style, which is characteristic

to them – and so do you. Style is partly about what you are taking a picture of.

Everybody has favorite subjects – travel photos, people, animals, etc. No need to specialize, but if you know your subject, you’ll probably take better pictures of it too.

Style is also about technique: the way you shoot, the viewpoint you choose, the settings of your camera and if and how much you manipulate your pictures on the computer. This personal way of portraying your subject develops over time.

Style also offers a glimpse into how you see the world. What you see in a scene and what you capture in it is characteristic of you alone.

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Different faces of a scene

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Documentary photos

Everyone takes documentary photos. The aim: to record what we have seen. There are practical uses for such photos too: selling stuff on eBay, showing work in progress to a customer, avoiding being cheated in shops, avoiding having to copy a long text…

But photos can also be used to provoke thoughts or arouse emotions. They can convey an abstract message that is not readily apparent in the picture itself. A series of photos that revolve around a certain subject work especially well: they can show several aspects of the same thing, with the individual pictures reinforcing each other’s effect.

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Documentary series

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Taking abstract photosPhotography can be too

exact in depicting the world, which is not always what we want. Using camera and computer tricks, photos can be turned into abstract images. Techniques range from the very simple (e.g. monochrome) to quite complicated modifications.

Avoid overdoing it and try to create a consistent style that is your own.

Some ideas that can make a photo more abstract:

• over/underexposure

• out of focus picture/limited depth of field

• monochrome or selective color

• zoom burst

• geometric distortions

• color manipulation: changing saturation, inverting colors, posterization…

• edge detection filters

• …

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Abstract shots

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Taking monochrome photosMonochrome images have a certain artistic

appeal and they have a timeless appearance. Color is a key compositional element and if it’s missing, it draws attention to others, like texture or form.

Most cameras can take black and white pictures directly, but color photos are easily converted to monochrome on the computer too. The latter method provides more flexibility.

It takes practice to see what looks good in B&W, although the digital camera’s viewfinder helps there a lot. The difficulty is that you have to see differences in tone (brightness) rather than hue (color), and different colors may have similar tones in B&W. Ensuring that the subject is much darker or lighter than the background is a good tactic.

Some subjects where B&W works well:

• portraits: monochrome accentuates form; healthy skin tone and color of clothes are not important; make-up doesn’t dominate

• mixed lighting situations: you don’t have to worry about white balance, color cast is removed

• essentially mono subjects: zebra, statue, diffuse light or backlighting…

• poor lighting conditions: gray weather

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Monochrome photos

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Photographing peopleThe goal usually: capture likeness and

do not distort or exaggerate features or form. Lighting and lens choice is the key.

Lens: typically medium-length telephoto from a few meters.

Lighting: soft, but not too diffuse: some soft shadow is useful to show 3-D form.

Direct your subject, stay calm and explain what you are doing.

Review and take several shots: you’ll have to throw away a lot due to closed eyes or awkward poses.

Accessories for people photography:

• medium telephoto lens (efl around 100 mm)

• flash

• diffuser and/or reflector

• lights

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People

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Photographing wildlifeFor good wildlife shots, you have to be in

the right place at the right time. You can practise on cats and dogs and birds around your house or in zoos; that helps you learn focusing, trains your reactions and teaches you about the importance of background and the behavior of animals.

The focal length you need depends on the size of the animal and how close you want to get.

Usual problems: camouflage, background, glass panels/cage wires in zoos, timidity of animals, quick movements

Accessories for wildlife photography:

• a long telephoto zoom (the longer the better)

• a long telephoto prime lens or teleconverter

• a macro lens for close-ups of insects and other small creatures

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Wildlife photos

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Photographing buildings

It is possible to photograph buildings without a wide-angle lens, but you have to hunt for good viewpoints.

Problem: usually not enough space around the building to avoid tilting the camera up, so vertical lines tend to converge. Solutions: shoot from next building; shoot from afar with telephoto; correct convergence on the computer.

Problems indoors: too little space, lighting.

Accessories for building photography:

• a super-wide angle zoom or wide-angle converter or (semi-)fisheye lens/converter

• standard zoom lens with efl 35-200 mm to zoom in on details

• tripod (essential indoors, useful outdoors)

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Architecture

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Photographing sports

To photograph sports, you need a good vantage point, where you will be able to see when something happens. It helps if you know the sport.

The focal length you need depends on the type of sport. To freeze the action, you’ll need short shutter speeds, and in low light that means you’ll need to increase the sensitivity of the sensor. Or, you may want to show motion blur or use panning.

There are places/times when your subject is moving slower than usual, (turning racing car, basketball player at the height of his jump), use those.

Prefocusing can be useful, especially in track events.

Accessories for sport photography:

• long zoom lens

• monopod

• very long telephoto lens or telephoto converter for close-ups

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Sport photos

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Taking photos at night

All urban scenes show a different face at night and large cities can be especially interesting. Photos made up of the lights of a city pleases the eye.

Problem: obviously, low light. Usually, nice “night” photos can be taken at dusk instead of total darkness, but light will still be low. Some camera support is essential!

Cameras tend to overexpose night shots, so use exposure correction or manual exposure.

Use narrow apertures, that will make all lights appear as “stars” rather than a blob of light.

Accessories for night photography:

• tripod

• shutter release cable

• zoom lens to fit your subject

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Night scenes

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Landscape photography

Landscape shots usually call for wide-angle lenses, but telephoto lenses can be useful for isolating smaller details.

Problem: if foreground is empty, the picture looks bland, boring.

In landscape photos, the quality and quantity of light is all-important.

In different seasons, landscape show different aspects – a scene may not look its best in summer.

Accessories for landscape photography:

• wide-angle lens

• polarizing filter (makes the sky deeper blue)

• telephoto zoom

• tripod

• software for “stitching” photos to create panoramic images (e.g. http://www.autostitch.net)

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Landscape photos