EPTIntroduction
I’m actually not a great photographer. In fact, I suck at everything visual. However, I’ve met some very nice people in my line of work who have given me some tips for making photographs look really nice, and these techniques are so easy that almost anyone can learn them.
In this guide, I’ll teach some of these techniques. I’ll also show some of my own pictures as references. From time to time I’ll recommend that you so some “homework” and try to apply the techniques to your own pictures. Go ahead and post those pictures in these threads if you’re proud of them!
You don’t have to use all of these techniques in every photo, in fact, in some photos you don’t have to use them at all, just like you don’t proxy rax in every game even though you know how. They’re just options for you to consider. And as the tutorials go by, I’ll show how you can mix and match techniques to get some nifty effects.
With cameras so easily accessible now (some mobile phones are even sold on the strength of their cameras!) there’s really no reason not to pick up some simple tips. So here we go!
Part 1
A. Buying your camera
You don’t need a great camera to pick up photography. The most important part of photography is “freeing your mind”, learning to look at things differently. Some of the pictures I’m using here were taken with an old mobile phone camera. The majority are taken with a Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ2 which I believe sells for under SGD400 (sometimes under SGD300). Regardless of what camera you choose, it should have the following functions:
Digital: I can’t stress this enough. Digital cameras allow you to see what you’re going to get before you shoot it, give you instant feedback, allow you to look through your pictures easily and allow you to take as many shots as you want of a subject without worrying about running out of film – you can easily delete the crappy ones. Don’t buy a film camera when you’re trying to pick up the basics.
What you see is what you get: Make sure what you see on the display screen is exactly what you are going to get when you take the picture. You don’t want to snap a picture and then find that the resulting picture is a different shade from the one you had in mind. Some lousy cameras have this problem.
The ability to turn off the flash: Learning to use flash properly is difficult because you can’t see the effects of the flash before you take the picture. For this guide, we’ll stick to using natural lighting that you can see and plan for.
The ability for your subject not to be in the centre: Lousy cameras focus on whatever is in the centre of the display screen. Good ones allow you to focus on whatever’s in the centre by half-pressing the camera button. The camera will retain that focus (and that aperture opening) even if you move the camera so that your subject is not in the centre. You can then press the button all the way to take the picture.
B. Depth
This is the first trick I learned. You can do it with any camera, even a crappy mobile phone one.
Look at the picture below:
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![[image loading]](http://i653.photobucket.com/albums/uu255/karen668/Counterfront.jpg)
It’s a picture of a make up counter, and it’s pretty flat. But what happens if we change the angle?
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![[image loading]](http://i653.photobucket.com/albums/uu255/karen668/Counterside.jpg)
The picture instantly becomes better because it now has depth.
This is such an incredibly simple trick that you can use to make lots of pictures come alive. Some further examples:
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![[image loading]](http://i653.photobucket.com/albums/uu255/karen668/queue.jpg)
The courtyard of the Sun King’s Palace at Versailles. I wanted people to really feel what I was feeling when I was queuing, so I used depth to emphasise the length of the queue. Thinking about how you want people to feel when they see your pictures is important, and we'll go over that in more detail in future. Note also the palace itself in the background. This ensures that you don’t get half the picture filled with nothing but sky. And the stark shadows and blue sky make the weather feel hot.
![[image loading]](http://i653.photobucket.com/albums/uu255/karen668/Greatwall2-1.jpg)
A section of the Great Wall of China. Again, the use of depth emphasises the wall’s length. Notice how in both pictures, you can’t see the end of the wall or the queue, further emphasising their lengths.
![[image loading]](http://i653.photobucket.com/albums/uu255/karen668/guns.jpg)
The Musée de l'Armée in Paris. There was just no way I could have fitted all those guns into one shot (pardon the pun).
This technique works best for objects which have some texture, like the neck of a guitar.
Now you try it! Pick a long object with some texture and snap away. Supermarket displays, keyboards, graffiti-filled walls… This comes in very handy at gaming events with long rows of computers.
C. Angles
So we’ve learnt to make a picture better by taking it from an angle. However, there are an infinite number of angles to take a picture from. Most people only think about taking pictures from eye level (unless you’re a creepy Japanese upskirt stalker).
Taking a picture from a low angle generally makes it seem more imposing. Try kneeling in front of your cellmate and you’ll see what I mean. And taking a picture from a high angle makes it seems more submissive. Get your cellmate to kneel in front of you (if you can) and you’ll see what I mean.
However, there are lots of other effects you can get from changing angles.
In this picture, you see a statue inside the Sun King's Palace at Versailles.
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![[image loading]](http://i653.photobucket.com/albums/uu255/karen668/Angle1-1.jpg)
By changing the angle, the statue becomes more imposing. Its eyes seem to be looking at us and its sword is pointing straight at us.
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![[image loading]](http://i653.photobucket.com/albums/uu255/karen668/Angle2-1.jpg)
That’s it for this part. In the next part of the guide, we’ll learn about a technique called framing and how you can use it together with what we learned here.
![[image loading]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/Rivertree_thirds_md.gif)
![[image loading]](http://images.encyclopediadramatica.com/images/a/aa/FatGirlAngleShot.jpg)
