CREATIVE PHOTOGRAPHY TIPS

The Photography Resource
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Creative Photography Tips
Motion Colour Lights in Motion
Click the tabs to jump down the page Zoom Effect Patterns Creative Camera Filters
If you've dabbled with image editing, you'll know that there's an endless number of creative effects that you can apply to images during editing, ie. Changing the colours, sharpening the image and changing the brightness or contrast. However, some photographers both amateur and professional, still believe the true skill of photography is applying these effects whilst actually taking the photo. If you don't use photo editing software to assist with image editing, then in-camera filtering is a good way to add creativity to your photos. Here are a few of the more common lens filters used:
Diffusion filters or Soft focus filters give a misty or frosted quality to your photo and can impart a romantic mood to scenes. They're also good when used for portraits as they can appear to soften wrinkles and blemishes on the skin, so the vainer of your travel companions will think you're an amazing photographer. These filters come in different levels of intensity, but best to stick with milder ones. Diffusion filters work best at wide apertures; too small an f/stop increases depth of field and defeats the softening effect.
Neutral filters are good for holding back bright areas of sky so you can expose correctly for darker foregrounds; they typically come in one, two, and three-stop densities.
Split-field-density filters have a graduated area of density (or colour) across the face of the filter, mostly used for shooting seascapes or skies, making the blues more vivid.
Coloured filters come in nearly every colour you could imagine, they're a great fun way to change what could be a dull image but in reality they're not that useful.
Coloured graduate filters do the same thing as above but add a tinge of colour to the sky. You often see this effect used in adverts in magazines. The best split-field filters are rectangular and slip into a frame that mounts on the camera lens so you can position the area of density.
Star filters create patterns from point light sources, such as candles, light bulbs, or sparkles on water. They typically come in four, six, and eight-point configurations.
Motion
The idea in taking photographs of most action subjects is to use a fast shutter speed that stops any hint of motion. There are times though, when intentionally changing to a slow shutter speed and exaggerating the movement is a better interpretation of the context of a photo. A greyhound frozen in mid-stride is nowhere near as expressive of action as a greyhound whose four legs are mixed up in a rhythmic blur.
One way to capture action in motion is to hold the camera steady and let the movement tell its own story across the frame. Photographing a rush hour crowd for example, being stationary and using a long exposure will turn the onslaught into a swirling array of faceless forms. As with stopping action, the actual shutter speed you use will depend on three factors: the direction of your subject, its speed, and how close it is. To start with, estimate the correct shutter speed for stopping action and then experiment with shutter speeds at least two times slower; typically speeds in the 1/30- to 1/4-second range seem to be effective.
With the technique called panning, you use a slow shutter speed and move the camera to follow your subject. The result is a relatively sharp subject surrounded by a blurred or streaked background. With a moderately slow shutter speed (1/60 or slower), focus on your subject (a skier, for example) and gently press the shutter as you pan with your subject. It does help if there's a good colour contrast between subject and background. Panning is one technique for which a point-and-shoot camera has an advantage, because you can continue to see your subject during the exposure. Whereas with a DSLR, once you press the shutter the reflex mirror will block your view.
Occasionally you may be the one in motion�trying to shoot from a moving car, for example. In these situations, capturing action (not to mention camera-shake) is near impossible, and it's often better simply to go with the flow, slow down the shutter speed, and let some blur into your photography. Colour
Colour, more than any of the other design elements, determine the emotion of a photograph. You can often establish the entire mood of a picture by emphasizing a particular colour scheme: Reds and oranges are hot, passionate and exciting, Blues and greens are cool and refreshing, the deep running's of a mountain spring or the freshness of a recently mown lawn. Yellows warm us, from the buttery glow of morning sunlight to the romantic amber of candlelight.
You can use colours to help create certain effects. With carefully thought out framing and camera angle, you can draw attention to relatively small but brightly coloured subjects against a more subdued background�an Indian woman in a colourful sari walking down a dusty path for example. The danger surrounding color is that unless you are careful in composing your photos, bright areas of color may divert the eye away from your main subject.
Vibrant contrasts, amongst bright primary colours (yellows, reds and blues), are especially effective in creating dynamic patters in your photos. Such contrasts excite the eye, making it jump from one colour to the next. In a shot of buoys in a harbour for example, by eliminating all extraneous information from the frame, the clash between colours would become the predominant design element.
More gentle combinations of pastels can create a light-hearted or romantic mood, while earthy tones offer a more natural feel.Whatever the use of colour, weather, lighting, and exposure all influence how colours are seen in photographs. Bright, sunny days are great when you want to capture your images with fluorescent brilliance, whilst overcast days produce subtle more saturated colour combinations. Exposure also affects colours. Conversely, you can subdue colours by overexposing by a half to a full stop.
Lights in Motion
Taking prolonged exposures of lights in motion is a night-photography special effect that usually appears in travel magazines and is easy to mimic. Because your camera has the ability to record paths of moving lights, it can reveal patterns and designs of light that are entirely invisible to the human eye. Unfortunately, you can use the technique only if your camera has a shutter that you can hold open or that lets you set very long exposure times of 10 seconds or longer.
An example of light streaking is the swirling trails of car headlights and taillights. It's a great way to brighten up city street night scenes, especially when you shoot from a high vantage point to reveal an elaborate pattern in the traffic, or when you include a landmark, such as London Bridge, as a focal point. One interesting aspect of this technique is that while the photograph perfectly records the glow of headlights and taillights, the cars are moving too fast to be recorded, so they disappear. Taking an exposure reading for traffic lights is all but impossible, so your best bet is simply to set a small aperture of around f/11 or smaller to give you enough depth of field, then keep the camera shutter open long enough for the lights to move through the frame.
You can use this same technique to photograph fairground rides in motion. Ferris wheels and other spinning rides are especially attractive because their colourful light displays form dynamic swirls of light. To get the complete circle of light you have to shoot at least one revolution of the ride - a good way to manage this is to select a spot on the ride, wait until it hits the twelve o'clock point and then keep the shutter open until it passes that point again.
Remember though that these are experimental techniques, so it's a good idea to shoot lots of photos so you can pick the best of the bunch when you get back. Textures
Looking at a close up photo of a distraught old barn in need of repair and you almost wince at the pain of catching a sharp splinter in your mind. Our memories of how things feel are so ingrained into our consciousness that simply the sight of them brings a vivid feeling of touch. By exploiting textures in your photography, you can bring another tactile dimension to your images.
Surface textures become most apparent when they are illuminated from an obscure light source. Angled light tends to catch the shape and show up imperfections of an object's surface creating a pattern of highlight and shadow which produces a visual texture.
The quality of light on the subject is also important. Bold textures, such as the bark of a tree or the rough surface of a door detail, are best revealed by strong, direct sidelight. Whereas smooth, more finely detailed textures such as a silk sheet, would be erased by more powerful light sources and are revealed best by a gentler light.
Framing or composition is important too, especially when you want to give the texture a leading role. By moving in close to an old wrinkled face of a Greek fisherman (for example), either physically or with a zoom lens, you focus the viewer's attention on the wrinkles and crevices. When the texture is part of a much larger scene, as in the surfaces of a coarse and barren desert, it's often better to back off and show the vast expanse. You can dramatize texture by comparing different surfaces within a single frame: A blacksmiths worn and weathered hands in the foreground against the smooth flowing flames of his furnace in the background. In revealing such contrasts, it's important to move in close and exclude everything that takes away the tactile qualities of texture in your image.
Zoom Effect
In addition to offering you the fantastic convenience of changing focal lengths rapidly between pictures, zoom lenses also enable you to create a novel special effect by changing focal lengths during an exposure. The result of this zoom effect is a reasonably crisp central subject engulfed in a radiant burst of light streaks. The effect works best with a strong colour contrast or with a brightly coloured subject set against a dark background.
Set your ISO to a relatively slow speed of around 100 or 200 and take a meter reading of your subject, with your camera exposure mode set to shutter-priority or manual mode. The zoom effect is most pronounced when you zoom through the entire focal range, so choose a relatively slow shutter speed�preferably 1/8 second or longer. To make the exposure, simply depress the shutter button with one hand and slide or twist the zoom through its focal range with the other. Coordinating both of your hands on the two controls takes some practice but the slower the shutter speed, the more time you have to unravel the logistics.
A tripod is essential for this because you're going to need both hands to operate the camera controls and because once you begin the exposure, the reflex mirror of your DSLR will be locked up hindering the view of your subject. It's simpler to compose the picture if you zoom from out from your subject, that way you know for sure what will be in the centre of your frame.
Once you're comfortable working with static objects in daylight, try something more challenging like a sports-action shot. The added dynamics of the zoom streaks will intensify the impression of speed and motion. Night shots are powerful too, as you zoom each little droplet of light becomes a tantalising trail of colour. Patterns
Whether patterns are man-made or natural, they bring a sense of visual rhythm and harmony to photographs that capture the imagination. Patterns appear whenever strong graphic elements like shapes, lines or colours repeat themselves.
Once you become aware of the power of patterns, you'll discover them almost everywhere you go. In a field of lupines, in crowds of faces, even in the zigs and zags of modern architecture. The secret to finding patterns is to explore your subjects from different angles. While you might not notice the colourful design of umbrellas as you navigate a crowded sidewalk, they become blatantly obvious from an upper-floor window or balcony. Light is another painter of pattern. Furrows in a cornfield, all but invisible on a dull, overcast day, rise into waves of highlight and shadow when lit by the bright evening sun.
Close-ups are also filled with pattern, Consider the circles of seeds in a sunflower or the intricate patterns in a butterfly's wings.
The key to emphasizing patterns is to single them out from their surroundings. By excluding everything but the pattern itself, you create the illusion that the repetition is infinite, extending beyond the photo itself. Telephoto and longer zoom lenses are perfect tools for isolating and extracting patterns by zooming in close, ridding your frame of any unwanted clutter.