Once you start looking, you’ll find photos everywhere.
Everyday items and situations will present themselves faster than you can take a picture.
You will discover that you are never short of material and decide what to take and soon you will have a variety of unique and original digital photos.
When I studied Art History, and met Monet and his obsession with light, his famous haystack paintings and his interest in changing light, it meant nothing until I went to capture the light in some tropical plants. The entire lesson suddenly came into focus and everything fell into place. Monet must have been really interested in capturing all that light. Once you take note of it, the light changes almost as you watch and now I can understand his compulsion to delete everything before it changes.
Fortunately, with a digital camera we can freeze that moment in time and have an instant record of that exact moment in time and that can be magical.
One of the best learning experiences is missing the best shot because you thought you’d get it on the way home or some other time and find that it had changed or the lighting had changed completely. I should know better, but I missed a big shot myself the other day. I saw a herd of cows congregated by the gate, all facing the same direction, the lighting perfect, the photo posed almost entirely for me, I grabbed the camera and found I was at home on the bench.
Simple Tips to Try Before You Start Taking a Picture
- Spend some time looking around you. Look up, look down, look around
- Walk away from the fabricator a certain distance and then walk back before firing
- See if there is a better shot from another angle
- Take the time to notice the things you wouldn’t have seen if you had started shooting right away
- Put yourself in the mood of your chosen location first and become aware of your surroundings
- Take a second look at things you wouldn’t normally give a second look
- Experiment where the light falls and really look to see which angle makes a better shot
- Zoom in and take a close up – generally works fine cropped, zooming out further usually won’t
Some ideas to experiment
- Rust is amazing to photograph and has such a wide range of colors and tones with such diversity.
- Mold and slime are also good starting points. Assuming you have macro on your camera, get out there and see what it can do, you’ll be amazed at how fantastic your photos can look with close up shots of some of these.
- Cobwebs can look ethereal or surreal stretched out over some rotting old iron or wood; even the old fireplace and scattered ashes can come out surprisingly well with a little editing and have you looked to see how many faces you can see inside your photos when? enlarged.
- Kitchen utensils are great shots and a few close-ups can make for some very different abstract photos.
- Foods like eggs, strawberries and vegetables can make for the most amazing photos and something as simple as a cabbage has the most exciting shape and texture and makes for interesting posters and prints.
- Consider having some of your best photographs printed on canvas to enjoy
I hope this inspires you to take another look at your world.