I need your help.
Please.
I've been blogging for over seven years but I am constantly humbled by the superior skills of so many other bloggers in the art of creating marvelous photos and videos for their blogs.
Every day I see on your blogs wonderful pictures of boats, and people having fun on boats, waterscapes, sunsets, knitting, fishes, ladies in bikinis, the night sky, ladies in lacrosse gear, food, seagulls, flowers, chickens, ladybugs, portaloos etc. etc. Some of you seem to have mastered the art of taking great photos from small boats like kayaks and sailing dinghies, and I see one of you is even taking photos while racing in a Laser regatta! Amazing! How do you do it?
So this month I would like you to give me some tips on photography for bloggers - especially watery bloggers.
I propose we run it like one of our regular group writing projects. Write a post on your blog about a tip on any aspect of Photography for Bloggers. Once you've posted your tip, let me know about it by emailing me a link to your post. Choose a unique title for your post that summarizes your advice please.
At the end of each week I will publish a post with links to all the new entries in the project. Then at the end of June I will publish a summary post with links to all of your tips about Photography for Bloggers, probably organized by major topics so that it will be a useful reference source for anyone interested in learning about this subject.
You could write about what equipment you use, how you select subjects, how you compose photos, lighting, all that technical stuff like aperture and exposure and focal length and depth of focus, or how you edit and manipulate the photos or videos before you publish them, what software you use, whatever. Any aspect of Photographer for Bloggers that you think would be helpful to me and other novices. I hope you will include some examples of your own photos to illustrate your posts.
If you have several tips to pass on, by all means write several posts. The more the merrier. Maybe we can break some kind of record?
I may well write some "prompt" posts during the month suggesting particular questions on which I need help in creating photographs for my blog. But, for now, just write a post telling us what single tip you think is most important for a novice wanting to get into Photography for Bloggers.
Then email me a link to your post.
I look forward to hearing from you.
13 comments:
Well, first: Make sure you have a camera with you
(or an iphone, which actually takes pictures far superior to most point and click digital cameras).
I can't wait to hear from O Docker. Is he retired yet or what?
I too am looking forward to reading some words of wisdom on this topic from O Docker. And I know that there is at least one other former pro photographer on my blogroll as well as him.
I recommend Thorstein "Stoney" Jonas Sigurbjornsson of Thorn Production. He recently sailed with us in a race and took a boat load of quality photos. It might take me a year to deploy them in my blog.
I'm planning on writing one post, maybe two on this.
I'm off the dole until the end of this month and it's looking to be a busy one, but I should be able to get at least one post written. There are a few ideas I've been wanting to write about for a while, but haven't thought them appropriate for a blog that's mainly about being crotchety and basil growing.
Excellent O Docker. Thank you in anticipation.
http://mytalkingstills.com/
You are obviously a talented photographer Anonymous/ MyTalking Stills. Are you going to write a "tip post for our group writing project?
Nice idea! I just sent you an email with the link to a post I wrote on the subject a few months ago.
Mike
www.ZeroToCruising.com
I'm no expert but here's two photo tips:
1. I usually hand diartistwoman the family digital (a Canon Powershot, I think...), put her on one of the committee boats prior to the start of racing and instruct her to "get some good ones"--especially of my competitor's sail shapes. Many of the good on-the-water pix featured on my blog are hers not mine.
2. On those occasions when I am actually pushing the button, I first try to think ahead and ask myself what sort of story (lies or otherwise) do I plan to tell with the pix. Then I take hundreds of 'em in the expectation that a very few will be worth looking at. Sort like putting 100 monkeys in front of 100 typewriters--very occasionally a sonnet serendipitously pops out.
So, there it is then. Nothing fancy; don't ask me about depth of field or "f-stops" or tripods or big impressive telly lens. I have no idea what any of those are about!
I am a follower of the Baydog Rule.
There are consequences. I accept them.
I am no photographer but the camera shop that persuaded me to buy an entry level DSLR (with interchangeable lens) rather than a point and shoot or crossover convinced me with the following 2 points (that I may have completely misunderstood.
Point and shoot variety often quote amazing pixel currently 12MP or more whereas my DLSR is only 6MP. What they explained was this figure is 12MP is Pixels per Inch or a density figure. The processing receptor in a compact is minute whereas the DLSR is comparatively massive thus a very high density on a compact when blown up to a 10" x 8" print is a far lower PPI on the print than the same image recorded on a much lower MP processor of a far larger physical size. This equates to taking an image on a 125 Instamatic to a 35mm film or even 120 mm film. The larger the film format or processor physical size the less definition you lose as you blow up the image size.
For the same reason interchangeable lenses produce the same effect. In essence 'digital' zoom is useless as it is effectively just reducing the pixel density on the processor whereas optical zoom retains the same pixel density for the larger image.
This effect can easily be seen by trying to enlarge T-man's avatar on the computer screen. When viewing the image in actual size it is tiny but the clarity perfect. If you 'enlarge' the image on your PC monitor to fill the screen - the PPI count is so low that the image is almost unrecognisable.
Thus the larger format camera or longer optical zoom makes an enormous difference if you want to enlarge a portion of the image taken but has little benefit if you are happy to publish the complete image as shot.
Well I think that is what he was trying to say!
start worring about Depth of field and f stops and you wont need to shoot 100s of images...
expectations vs reality on cell phone cameras:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/canon/expectations-vs-reality-cell-phone-pictures-5u1t
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