Ezi Pix Blog

By Wayne G Turner

Each one of us wants to become more effective in our photography. That could be winning a competition, selling your images or just taking great photos to put on your wall. So, what is effective for one might not mean effective for another. And, the person who determines how effective is...? You! How do you increase the effectiveness of your photography? Here are a few keys that have helped my students become more effective.

1. Plan

This is just so simple to do. The old adage, "those whole fail to plan, plan to fail" is so true with photography. Happy snappers just don't get the images that are stunning and fit in the context of effective photography. Before you decide to go out and shoot make sure that you sit down, even if for just five minutes, and plan what you are going to do. What type of image are you going to shoot, where do you want to go and for how long. A simple plan will increase your effectiveness quite dramatically.

2. Make a specific time

If you are serious about your photography, whether it be for pleasure or to make a career out of it, set a specific time to go out and shoot. Tagging a shoot at the end of a busy day or rushing off a few shots before going off to work is not an effective use of your photography time. It deserves your full and undivided attention. In addition to this specify how long, an hour, two hours or even just thirty minutes. Then give it your full and undivided attention.

3. Implement something new

Effective photography means learning a new technique or method so why not try to implement something you have just learnt and see how it turns out. Treat it as a project or assignment. Better still enroll in a free online course or buy a book with assignments at the end of each chapter. Use these assignments as the basis of your photo shoot.and put into practise your new knowledge. If you are more experienced then use it to brush up on your rusty techniques.

4. Get some advice

If you have a friend who is more experienced than you or you are part of a photography club, then seek out their advice. Find out where you are lacking in skill or technique and ask them to show you how they do it. I always look to those more experienced than me for help despite being a photography teacher. Never stop learning and always be teachable.

5. Evaluate

This to me is one the most important things you can do as you learn digital photography. Look at what you are doing and then evaluate it. If you aren't too sure then get others to help. Be careful who you ask as some people will say anything so as not to offend or hurt your feelings. Positive criticism is essential to uplift your level of competence. When you are trying out new techniques, print out the image and compare it to your textbooks or course material. Whatever you do keep on learning.

Effective photography begins in the mind as you actively pursue a course of action to increase your ability and skills. Be prepared to plan, set a time and then evaluate your progress. Happy shooting!

Learn digital photography by subscribing to my FREE 10 PART PHOTOGRAPHY E-COURSE, delivered daily via e-mail - just click here:  - To learn how you can take your photography from ordinary to outstanding click here for my ebook 21 STEPS TO PERFECT PHOTOS - 

Wayne Turner studied with the New York Institute of Photography, has been teaching photography for 25 years and has written three books on photography.

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By Leo Pierson

Photography is painting with light! It's been said that photography is the one art where you don't need to go to school, nothing separates the pro from the amateur other skill a keen eye or the right moment. Give a camera to a child and they've cracked it, give the same child a keyboard and they'll get back to you in due time.

Most photographs are created using a camera , which uses a lens to focus the scene's visible wavelengths of light into a reproduction of what the human eye would see. The process of creating photographs is called photography .

The great thing about photography is its outward focus (puns and semi-puns are so hard to avoid) on the world around us, not the art itself. Moving from hobby photography to professional photography is a big jump. It's a jump not just because your ability to pay your mortgage and feed your family will now depend entirely on your talent with a camera and your skills at marketing those talents.

For me photography is about "collecting" experiences and allowing myself to be more than a fly on the wall in my subjects' lives. I don't think photography is dead, I think photography is an extremely young art form. I also look at the history of photography and see that many of its milestones have been based on the technology of the time.

Photography is going through an exciting transition period as many film photographers are beginning to explore the new capabilities made possible with digital cameras. Traditional aspects such as the fundamental techniques and lens equipment have remained the same, however others are markedly different. Photography is acquired when weather conditions, sun angle, and, when applicable, water levels are optimal to ensure that photographs will be suitable for a variety of purposes using standard photogrammetric techniques.

Natural light in photography is crucial if you want to take great portraits. Many assume this means the time of day in which she can shoot her portraits is limited. Photography is used to preserve memories of favorite times, to capture special moments, to tell stories, to send messages, and as a source of entertainment. Photography is an art of particularity, but this doesn't mean that photography must be from "outside in. If photography has too much natural accident, it will hardly carry visual dynamic. But if it has too much photographer intervention and manipulation of the subject, it will paralyze the expression of the subject's essence.

Once you've gotten your head around this and started shooting a few pictures, you might find that photography is quite fun and interesting. At first glance it would seem that unless you are a full-time adventure athlete, adventure photography is something that you will have little opportunity to apply yourself to? However, nothing could be further from the truth. When learning how to shoot action photos, there are many ways you can begin practicing and honing your skills when you are far from the mountains or wild rivers.

Some are able to select a wonderful location to shoot along with having the "artistic eye" to use the natural backdrop to obtain the best photographs possible. Pinhole photography is great fun and it can be the most serious kind of photography. There is the freedom from vying for the latest and the greatest the industry has to offer, and the freedom from the delusion that technically ever more perfect equipment is required for great photography.

Remote photography is used to learn more about things like bears' use of naturally-occurring bear rubs and how they respond to baited hair traps. Information from this work will be used to improve sampling methods and understand bear behavior. Photography is all about selection, first through the viewfinder and second when you look at the results. As long as there's selection involved, there's room for art - if the artist can pull it off. Good photography is all about seeing.

Input relating 'classical' portraiture to photography is not so easy to find. Though we may not want to take this kind of photograph, it still seems that we could learn a lot from the kind of discussion given here. Photography is also increasingly asserting itself on the auction block as an important investment. And its prices in the galleries and at the major fairs reflect its serious status. Photography is finally escaping any dependence on what is in front of a lens, but it comes at the price of its special claim on a viewer's attention as "evidence" rooted in reality. As gallery material, photographs are now essentially no different from paintings concocted entirely from an artist's imagination, except that they lack painting's manual touch and surface variation.

Underwater photography is becoming an exciting field of unexplored areas. Other photographers specialize in areas such as portrait, commercial and industrial, scientific, news, or fine arts photography. Photography is a customer service business. Whether you need family portraits, pet portraits, events coverage or complete wedding packages.

The most compelling part of digital photography is the idea of showing pictures to people wherever they are, as long as they are in front of a computer connected to the Web.

The overwhelming majority of older photographs are catalogued under the term "albumen prints" - the most common type of 19 th-century photographic print. Additional headings are assigned describing the typical cardboard mounts to which these images are attached - stereographs, cabinet card photographs, and cartes-de-viste.

Finally, If you plan on working with older photos, establish handling procedures and adhere to them whenever photographs are being used. View photographs in a clean, uncluttered area, and handle them with clean hands. Most 1860s-90s paper photographs are albumen. Even non-collectors associate horse-and-buggy and Old West images with the soft, sentimental tones that were produced by the albumen process. If only photographs are stored in a given area, 30-40% RH is best. If photographs are stored with paper, parchment, or leather materials, it may be necessary to maintain 40-50% RH to avoid placing unwanted stress on non-photographic materials.

Leo Pierson lives in Kentucky with his wife, five children and six cats. He helps people use simple technologies to save fuel. See this technology and get free information from his site at: [http://www.NoMoreFuelCosts.info]

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Three Tips for Capturing Nature Images

Based on a conversation with Nature (and other) photographers

George and Gail Hardy

Get down and dirty! Well…this isn’t really a tip, but you need to know that this is sometimes what it takes to get a great nature shot. Nature photography is an art form in itself and this is emphasised by the number of competitions that have special sections for this category. You may have taken a great shot in your backyard of a kookaburra and think this will count as a great nature shot. But…is the eye completely in focus? Can you see every feather in the lighter sections and every feather in the shadows and dark areas? Have you correctly blurred out the background to eliminate anything to distract the viewer from the main subject? And did you catch that kookaburra in mid flight, with food in its beak and chicks waiting to be fed.

If you did get that shot…then you’re already an expert. But if you missed all of that, then perhaps these three tips will help you understand what it takes to capture that perfect nature image. In our conversation George and Gail discussed birds, insects, plants and fungi. Not to mention reptiles!   

These tips should give you a good head start on what to do to ensure you don’t sink. As consumers have more and more choice about what marketing they view, when they view it and how they view it, you need to make sure you don’t miss the boat.

1. Observation

You simply cannot get the best shot without getting out there into the wild and observing what is going on with the wildlife around you. What is out there, what do they do and where do they go? There is nothing new about this step. It has always been the key to successful Nature and wildlife shots. What better way to enjoy your photography than to be in the great outdoors with the sounds and sights of nature all around you. Whether it’s birds, fungi or landscapes, this is definitely one of the most enjoyable forms of photography for those who enjoy exploring. Don’t forget to look under your feet. What is growing and what insects could you be missing if you don’t look down.

Once you fully understand the subject you are targeting, the next step is to look at the best ways to shoot them (photographically speaking). Do some further research about them before you go out, such as what are their fears and who are their predators? You may even decide that the predator is more interesting shot. Will they leave the area if you get too close or pick up on your scent?

A good way to start is to break up the season into the types of photos you want to take. Depending on where in the world you are, you can have your Fungi season, your bird season and your insect season. This is where the observation and research comes into it. You may need to do quite a bit of walking and this may include asking permission to go onto private property. Don’t be afraid to ask as you may be pleasantly surprised how many people won’t mind photographers on their land.

2. Patience

You’re going to need plenty of this! In fact (and I don’t mean to put you off), unless you are being paid to take the photos or you’re retired, you may just not have the time for nature and wildlife photography.

You may need to watch birds for a few months before you will notice them with nesting material, which indicates that they will soon have chicks to feed. Follow them and make note of their habits to find the best time and place to get your shot. This means going back to the same place day after day, week after week and watching and following them. Patience!

For fungi, it sometimes takes a little while to evolve in the morning and some of them don’t like the sun very much at all. In NSW, March is a good time of the year to start looking for the more elaborate species. When you see the ground is very wet and you start to have leeches crawling on you and sucking your blood, then you know you’re in the right spot. Here’s where you will often need to get down very low, even if it means lying in the mud, to get your shot. You may also have to return to the same site at various times of the day to find out when the lighting is at its best to make certain you get the best possible shot. Patience!

Around May is the time to look out for the eagles and that type of thing, because eagles nest earlier than most other birds in a lot of areas. Sea Eagles can be seen as far inland as Maitland to nest and they don’t only eat seafood. There’s nothin’ like a good rabbit, another bird, a snake or even a pelican, they’ll eat the lot. Fledging time of a sea eagle or a wedge tail eagle (they’re very similar) is approx 100 to 110 days from when that bird is hatched before it leaves the nest. They would be in a nest, probably a hundred foot up in the air on a tree that would be approx 8 foot in diameter and hoping Mum and Dad will come and give them a feed each afternoon. Patience!

Next up you get the smaller birds like the robins and the honey eaters. They start around September as Spring is their best nesting time, with the water birds being best around March. 

In between times, insects tend to come out when the weather is warmer, around November, which makes for good tucker for the chicks. You may be able to get some quite interesting insects in your own back yard. Make sure when you are lining up your shot that there are no man made objects in the background, such as houses, fences, power lines etc. It will not only spoil the shot, but it will not be eligible to be entered into a nature competition. Many flies and insects will actually eat each other and these make great nature shots.  Look out for caterpillars and by watching closely, you may then catch a butterfly being hatched or follow the butterfly to watch them hatching their eggs. Patience!

Also look for dam areas where there are reeds because not only do many birds lay their eggs in the water but a lot of the damsel flies and the dragon flies actually lay their eggs in the water too. Then, they turn into little nymphs which climb onto the stems and hatch out and they become the mature damsel flies and dragon flies again…so it’s just an evolution from one to the other all the way through. I think that covers the fungi, the birds and the insects. Patience!

3. Reaction

This is about preparing yourself for how you will react when you have the shot lined up and what you have to do to get yourself in the position to take the shot, without scaring the subject away.

You may need to be up to 75 to 100 feet away from the actual nest. Have your camera close, but not yourself. Use a cable release that you can extend out to up to 100 feet away from the nest. Then you hide and wait, without taking your eye off the nest, for the perfect shot. None of these birds are going to say “Hey, here I am, look at me!” You need to be ready to react in an instant because if you miss-time it, you miss the shot. It’s likely that you’ll miss more shots than you get.

Sometimes you can get closer and the birds won’t worry about you. You may need to be up a step ladder to get the right angle and you could be there for up to six hours waiting for the shot. George says that when offering Gail lunch while she is up the ladder her reaction is usually “I’m busy!” So, they’re the sort of things you have to do and put up with. You may be in a swamp getting Grieves or Reed Warblers and you’re getting into water maybe a foot to two foot deep with a hide (camouflage tent) set up, it’s 40 degrees and the mosquito’s are ‘round everywhere and you just cannot move out of the hide. Once you do and the birds see you, they’re gone! You don’t get any more shots that day. So you have to get in the hide early and you stay there, watching and ready to react.

To stop birds in flight you have to have a lot of light. If you’re using available light you have to get enough light so that you can use your lens at almost 2000^th second to stop the wings. Otherwise they’ll just be blurred and you can see parts of other images through them.

The other way is to use artificial light, such as a flash. You really need a flash that can be set to manual. If you can get within a metre or so of the nest with your camera and two flashes and set your camera on manual at around f11, 125^th second and your flashes anything from a 16^th to a 64^th power, it will stop the wings and they’ll just be frozen in time. You need to time it right and react as the birds are coming in and the wings are open and birds breaking (they’re wings are always laid back and open when they’re breaking and they’re legs are outstretched). This will allow you to see all the feathers in detail. And that’s how you do it.

I hope you’ve learned from this article, Let me remind you that there are camera clubs all over the world and they are one of the best ways to learn more practical ways to improve your photography.