Hey all!
I thought I would write a quick post speaking about three important elements when taking images! Sometimes the rules can be bent and you can have more freedom with how they are each used, but for the majority of images, it’s best to stick to some known tips and tricks!
A N G L E S – Not Angels as I have confused these with before. Angels would be amazing on a photoshoot but not everybody believes in those! Angles however are the one thing that can make or break an image. I believe that they are one of the most important things to take into consideration when shooting, because people want to look their best, and if the angle of an image isn’t flattering, then the final image often doesn’t show the indivudual off at their best! I think angles are all about experimentation, which is something a lot of photographers don’t think about. They expect every single image they take to be perfect, which unfortunately isn’t the case – even if they’re a pro!
Some photographers vary in taking images from a high angle and shooting downwards, and others prefer to roll around on the floor shooting bottom to top! There is no right or wrong angle, and in fact, some of the weirdest angles could bring out some of the most amazing images!
E X P O S U R E – From my personal experience with photography, exposure simply related to how much light there is within an image. You can manually control the settings of a camera or stand somewhere that has a little or a lot of light. Alternatively, there is an ‘automatic’ option on the camera which can set up the right settings for you! I think that having the right exposure on an image is important, but it isn’t a life or death situation as you are able to edit your photos in post production, or you can just move around whilst on set to find the most suitable lighting for you! For example, if you were shooting some images for the theme of ‘Halloween’ you would want as little exposure as possible so that the images are darker, or if you wanted to focus on a ghost for example, you could have a higher level of exposed light within that image!
F O C U S – The final aspect I wanted to touch upon in this blog post was focus. This describes the actual image itself, whether it’s blurry or crystal clear quality. Most photographers prefer their images to be in focus with their subject matter clearly presented, but like with angles and exposure, you don’t have to ‘follow the rules’ and can indeed blur some parts of your image to give them an interesting glow or effect. One photoshoot I would love to do in the future is club photography, as there would be natural blur due to the movement of everybody dancing and jumping around (most certainly intoxicated or on some form of drugs)…and it would be interesting to see the variety of colours and textures mix together on camera. For more abstract photography, especially when dealing with portraits, some photographers like to use the method of double exposure to blur some of their subject matters; to give a ghostly effect to the images!
A lot of people believe that ‘blurry pictures’ aren’t professional when in fact, a blurry image may be 10X better than an ordinary clear image, due to the fact that it is unique, and draws more attention than a bland portrait image.
Angles, Exposure and Focus…THREE main aspects of photography that I have learnt about over time, and although there are ‘set ways’ to utilise them within your own work, it doesn’t mean you can’t go against the normality in order to have good photos!
I’ll be back next week with another post! If anybody has any suggestions/recommendations for future blog posts then let me know and I’ll definitely start brainstorming some ideas!
Take care, bye!
IsThatBrandon Photography 