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Beginning Photography – Avoiding Common Mistakes
New photographers can improve their pictures by eliminating some of the more common mistakes.
Improving the Picture Composition
Eliminating a few basic composition errors will lead to better looking photographs. Once they become second nature the photographer will then have the capacity to be more creative. From discussion with staff at a photo print shop some of the more traditional problems are much less common, probably as cameras with larger screens make mistakes more visible; problems with sloping horizons or tilted verticals, or with heads and feet cut off are much less common.
The new photographer still needs to think about them and be careful about:
- Unwanted elements in the background and foreground. Look for distractions such as rubbish, and bright or colourful objects that will draw the eye from the subject; reduce the clutter. Get closer or rotate the camera to vertical format; filling the frame will eliminate many distractions.
- Shooting everything from eye-level or not moving for the best view. Changing the angle will give variety so do not shoot everything from eye-level, or face on. Bend, kneel, even lie, down or stand on a wall and shoot downwards. Step to one side to hide background distractions behind the subject.
- Being patient and waiting for the sun to come out, a person to walk out, or into, shot. Spend time to get the imagined picture - the aim is to take photographs not snapshots.
Introducing Digital Photography for Beginners
Thoughtful Practice is the Key
To be a better photographer requires knowledge and skills that come from a desire to improve through regular practice. With a little effort, good photographs are possible by anyone with any type of camera. These articles assume the reader has a camera, probably a compact, and has become interested in photography and wants better results; more than just snapshots.
Start with the camera you have
A camera is a tool; in the right hands all will produce good pictures. Modest cameras may not be suitable for all subjects or large prints but are better than most users realise. The vast majority of photographs are only ever viewed on screen so will rarely show up the camera limitations. Consider the two pictures below, one taken with a modest automatic camera and one with professional equipment . Which is which? At small sizes, they are indistinguishable. Throughout the articles pictures we will use beginner’s equipment and techniques featured in the articles.
Spot the difference: which of the pictures is the compact and which the professional camera?
Shaped by War, Pictorial Biography of Don McCullin, Photographer
In candid language Don McCullin tells how war formed him as photographer and man. He describes his personal conflicts as he photographed war and disaster.
Don MCCullin is best known for his war and disaster photography although since his retirement he has concentrated on landscape particularly around his home in Somerset. His most recent book of photographs, Southern Frontiers, explores the southern frontier of the Roman Empire. His latest work many would describe as fine art.
However in his photographic autobiography, Shaped by War, Don McCullin explains that he is not comfortable being described as an artist preferring to be simply known as a photographer.
Movingly Candid Text and Photographs
In Shaped by War Don McCullin acknowledges his lack of formal education but describes the learning he continues to achieve through his own efforts. That personal development is important to him and although perhaps uneducated he can be described as learned. The text is straightforward and centres on McCullin's career as a photographer, particularly of war, conflict and disaster.
Jane Bown's Exposures, Sixty Years of Portraits
Jane Bown has had a long career as a photographer with The Observer and built a major reputation for her portraits. She has achieved a consistent style over sixty years.
Jane Bown's distinguished photographic career spans more than sixty years. She is principally known for her portraits of people in the news. As result she has photographed most of the influential figures of the second half of the 20th and start of the 21st centuries.
Major Retrospective of Talented Portrait Photographer
Exposures is a major retrospective collection of that work and shows why Jane Bown is so well regarded. Jane Bown has a consistency of approach that gives Exposures a sense of being a single piece of work. Fortunately Bown’s perceptive eye means that the work is not repetitive and many of the images are well known, even icons of their time such as the picture of Cilla Black.
Simple Technique That Works So Well
Jane Bown established her deceptively simple approach early in her career and it has remained largely unchanged ever since. Even to the extent that she still works with black and white film and uses forty year old cameras (Olympus OM). She shoots exclusively on location and by available light.
Southern Frontiers, Photographs by Don McCullin
Don McCullin is known as a sensitive photographer of war and disaster. However since his retirement from such work he has built a reputation as a landscape photographer.
Southern Frontiers is Don McCullin's latest, very personal, book and adds to the growing reputation for his fine art black and white landscapes. It covers the southern edge of the Roman Empire in North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean. It is A Journey Across the Roman Empire taken with the traveller and historian Barnaby Rogerson who provides the supporting text.
North Africa and Eastern Mediterranean
Southern Frontiers is in two parts. The first of which covers the Levant at the eastern end of the Mediterranean and is made up of Lebanon, Syria and and Jordan. The second section features The Maghreb of North Africa which includes Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya.
Large Format Hardback
The result is a large format, and heavy, hardback which really needs reading at a table. Because of its size it is not really suitable for reading in bed or on one’s lap. It very much moves McCullin into the fine art sector of the photography market.
The format does allow the photographs to be printed large which they need to do full justice to the details. Both McCullin and Rogerson provide introductions and comments on how the works for Southern Frontiers were produced.
Rogerson provides a brief background to each country and particularly the Roman Empires role there.
Making a Good Income as a Freelance Photographer
Professional Photography Needs Businesslike Approach
To be a professional photographer means being paid for one's work. To make a worthwhile income from photography requires paying markets to be found before starting work.Above all else freelance photography is a business. If a would-be stock photographer wants to make money they have to produce what the market will pay for; not simply shoot what takes their fancy or they enjoy.
Business Research and Analysis of Photography Markets and Buyers’ Needs
The people who are making money from stock photography, whether on line or in print, do so by doing their research first. Before they do anything a photographer should research the market for the kind of work they can do. This is basic marketing and it is the starting point for any business. The writer should research:
- Who is the customer and what do image buyers need. What publications or other clients use the kind of work the photographer can do? Note “can do” not “does”.
- Do those customers use freelance photographers and do they take speculative work or only commission based on the basis of a query from the photographer?
- How much do they pay and on what basis?
- What rights do they require with regard to copyright usage or exclusivity?
- For on line photographic libraries there are other considerations around choosing keywords to optimise the work so that it appears high in search engine rankings such as on Google or Bing. Otherwise it will not found and read.
M-dash Miscellany Magazine
See Martin P Wilson's M-dash.co.uk writing site
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