Getting Close/Animals in Action

Getting Close

Wildlife Rules:

If a subject is running/flying/swimming away from you as you approach... then stop moving towards them. Give your subject some space. Plan on spending some time at the place where you're wanting to capture a subject... let them come to you.

Do your homework:

Find out where your subject is going to be, the enviornment that they are usually at, at a certain time and wait there.

Keep your distance:

This is pretty self explanatory. :)

Stalking strategies:

"stay low, move slowly and quietly" when subject is not eyeing you.
Rest every once and a while, to make sure not to move up to quickly
get ready to shoot at any time

Don't Fence them in:

wildlife will feel threatened if you close them in, so avoid it at all cost. You could end up getting trampled, hurting the wildlife, or just losing a good shot.

Vehicles make good blinds:

Use your vehicle as camaflouge!

Peanut Butter Incentitives:

Some photographers like to use bait to bring their subjects to them. This is under your personal disgretion on whether this is ethical or not.

Animals in Action

Be on site before the sun sets:

This is crucial to good photography. Make sure to be there before the sun is setting and you can get some awesome photographs.

Lower that Tripod:

Get down to eye level to provide a more intimate, at their level, kind of feel.

Shoot first, edit later:

Don't be looking at your camera while you're in the field... you may miss some amazing shots!

Sharping your focus technique:

Use manual focus to focus an image that is in motion. It is often harder to try and use auto focus in these situations because the camera is usually not quick enough to pick out the spot of focus.

Build a stage to capture action:

There are many different techniques where you can "build a stage" if you know what a subject will do... to get some great photographs.

Modifying Natural Light

Modifying Natural Light

One size fits all:

It may be a good idea to find filters that fit all lenses... that way you don't have to worry about getting a filter for each lens.

Polarizing Filters:

These filters create "greater color saturation by reducing or elimintating reflected glare" when you are shooting plants, flowers, and water. (be careful when using this filter with a wide-angle lens because the form of the lens will distort the overall coloring will using a polarizing filter.)

Split Neutral Density Filters:

So these filters are great! The book explains they are a "photographer's best friend." This filter is half clear, half darker gray so that you can, for example, darken a light sky to get the proper exposure of the land in your photograph.

Graduated Neutral Density Filters:

This is like the split neutal density filter except that sometimes, when you have a landscape where the sky and the land is not split 50/50 and you may have some trees, plants, or other objects that are more in the sky part than the land, and with a split neutral density those objects would be under exposed, or completely blacked out, therefore, the graduated neutral density filter gradually gets darker to try and avoid that.

Standard ND Filters:

These are used most often for "blurred motion" photos. It decreases the light that is captured with a very low shutter speed that is needed to blur a photo.

Color Modifiers:

These type of filters are your "color-enhancing and warming filters" to assist a photographer in the look they are going for in a photograph.

Blue/Gold Polarizing Filters:

These are used for "sunny days" to "reduce flare, bump up color saturation on land and water, and boost density and chroma of the blue sky."

Portable Reflector:

Dave brought a couple of these to class. These are round, flexible reflectors that reflect light and give you a certain look, whether it is more warming tones, cooling tones... ect.

Fill-in Flash:

Fill-in flashes are used as extra light that you may need, along with natural light, during photographing.

Designing the Picture Space

Dominance:

This section talks about the focus of compositions. In a more basic compostion, you may have on dominant feature that you are basing your photograph around. In more complex compositions, you may find dominane in more than one object. Focusing on those dominant features to create create your breathtaking photographs is a good skill to learn.

Color:

I think that a photographer's taste in the way that they choose to present color in a photograph varies between different photographers. However, the colors in a photograph are what tend to obtain the emotion, awe, and relation for people when looking at photography. Bright, brilliant photos with colors that catch the eye and are luminate in the composition create a masterpiece.

The Center of Interest:

Part of being a photographer is having the creative eye to find a focus or an element that you are wanting to shine in a photograph. When trying to place the center of interest, the center is always a good idea because that is where the eye tends to lead to. There is also the rule of thirds. This is when the "center of interst is to be placed one-third of the way from the top or bottom of the frame and one-third of the way from either side."

Colorado Trip

Kendra Timm - Senior Photos

This trip included my first real senior photo shoot. It was a great experience and I am excited for this upcoming November as I have a few other jobs already lined up. I feel like this practice is really helping my photography skills and I'm looking forward to continue it and learning along the way.

Okay, I'll fly to Colorado to take your picture

Portrait Photography Trip

Colorado

Commercial Photography

So I have never really considered commercial photography, not that I think I wouldn't like it, I just never really thought of it. The other day, through a series of googling, I was trying to find a photographer, whose gallery I had went to see years ago, in Fallon, Nevada and I came across a few photographers in that area that do commercial photography. They were honestly pretty amazing. I've been inspired. The creativity that has to come along with commercial photography is most interesting and captivating to me. I would love to be able to play around with it.

I couldn't find the website that was my favorite for commercial photography, but this one was pretty sweet as well:

http://www.olgaminkevitch.com/gallery/advertising/advertising.html