The Grassroots of Business Success

I remember picking up my first digital camera - it felt small and unsubstantial against my sturdy film equivalent. All battery powered and no film to load - it wasn’t real photography.

Within an hour, however, I had been converted as I could immediately see the images I was producing. No more waiting for the mailman to arrive with my photos and no more trips to the store.

I was converted. This freedom led me to purchase more memory cards so that I could take and download many more images.

I was shooting at will and would often take 200 or more images in a session. This was Ok because I could discard what I didn’t want and try again. There was no film to pay for - the only cost was the batteries and they could simply be recharged.

I now realise that there was another cost. With all this constant snapping I was losing my skills as a photographer. Sure, I could see a scene, shoot it and make appropriate adjustments on the camera before shooting again. But I stopped thinking “before” I pressed the shutter release.

Digital had cost my skill. Or almost.

I gradually realised that I no longer viewed the scene before I put the camera to my eye. I didn’t see the components in their entirity and I didn’t compose as accurately as I should. I forgot to look for lamposts coming out of people’s heads and didn’t get the groups to all look at the camera at the same time. I relied on repeating a shot to get it perfect and when I downloaded my images I could have easily have discarded 90% or more of them.

This wasn’t what I wanted in photography and the digital medium, which was such a great advance in photography, had been taken and manhandled by me. I was becoming a bad photographer.

But now I have reformed. I still take shots that I am not proud of and I still discard a good proportion of my images. But I think more than I used to in order to harness the digital medium rather than ignore it.

Now I shoot less. And by doing so I put more thought into each image. I look for the right light, the right expression, the right patterns and the right timing. I look around the viwefinder to see what is there and try, where possible, to get an image that needs little or no manipulation after download.

I ask myself a series of questions: why am I taking this shot? what do I hope to achieve? what needs to be added or taken away to make the image better? where is the light coming from, where does it fall and what quality does it have? what adjustments do I need to make before taking the picture - how can I harness the power of my camera in order to get it right first time?

I have seen an improvement in my work. I am no expert and there are plenty of people with far greater skill than I. But now I enjoy the picture taking process even more than I used to. I can capture all the benefits that digital has to offer but with the constant thought that it was I who was the photographer and it was I that observed, composed and created the picture.

Now more of my images please me. That is all I ever wanted.

Eric Hartman is a keen photographer and owner of the photography resource site http://www.theshutter.co.uk and weblog http://photographyonline.blogspot.com

Time flies. The clock keeps ticking, and without fail, the sun religiously rises and falls day in and day out. We witness the seasons passing as the years systematically march on. Out with the old and in with the new. Forever, we are leaving one passage of life and entering another―it’s non-stop. Is this a good thing? For digital art and photography it is!

Digital artists have made their inroads into the art world and are gaining acceptance! For proof, look at what the universities are teaching art students now! Today’s artists can digitally manipulate their oil paintings and quickly reformat their artwork from their own computers. Not bad!

Mixed media is now the norm! Mixing more than one medium per piece is commonplace. Using more than one software to accomplish one layout has also become commonplace. The trend to mix mediums will continue to increase as artists continue to learn new technology.

Enhanced photography and digital photography will continue to gain in popularity because it works! Visual communication continues to rely on photographs, but this time digital photographs! NO MORE LAB DELAYS EITHER! If you are contemplating learning software and learning how to shoot digitally, you might as well jump in. Digital art and photography are not about to go away. (revised 2/14/2006)

Debbie Jensen, Graphic Designer and Photographer http://www.debjensendesigns.com

What does one need to do to get the perfect close-up of a wild flower? Set up a tripod, clip on camera, then snap, snap it’s in the bag, camera, chip.. whatever? Maybe… but consider a few unexpected impediments first. Finding the perfect clump of subjects (mostly the easy part), stopping(screeching to a halt) suddenly (sometimes interesting along a busy highway)…parking and gathering up the necessary gear (easy) - then my least favourite part, lugging everything over hill and dale. Tripod, camera bag with several lenses which never seem to get any lighter and then fun, fun, fun…It seems, seemed a short distance across three fences to where the wild, gorgeous yellow number (nothing exotic - a simple daisy but a beauty!), nods in the gentle breeze..but…

Have you ever tried to climb over a fence with tripod in hand and weighty camera bag over shoulder? “Just pass them through the fence and follow”, you say! In theory perfect but as is often the case when I’m out ready to shoot I have tripod ready, camera clipped in, slung over right shoulder legs extended, spread ready to go (the fact that I look like a giraffe with ungainly neck protrusions goes unnoticed) and my camera bag is old, slightly smelly and large!. So, how do I climb through the first fence, let alone the second or third in pursuit of the perfect daisy without a lot of folding of legs pushing and shoving, and unclipping of my precious digital genius first? Simple answer - I don’t, I try to get through regardless. Result? The air rapidly turns blue around my head and expletives neither original nor inventive start erupting unbidden from my person. And then the final indignity as at least one part of my favourite jumper gets snagged by an ever vigilant barb! My alternative solutions: throw the gear over and hope for the best, find a gate (how many miles to the nearest?), or simply leave it all in the SUV…barring the digital genius and one’s favourite 1:1 lens of course!

My final decision? Leave tripod and bag in the SUV, take the necessary, and hope that the ravages of the previous night haven’t wrought havoc with traditionally rock steady hands. So then leaping like a gazelle over fences one, two and three, I stride toward the perfect clump of yellow. It’s late in the season, so all the white daisies are pretty much done - rich, golden yellow it is.

Selecting the perfect specimen is next. I needs to decide what I’m trying to say in the pic. Perfection with clarity - nature’s form, sublime in its attention to detail or organic soft colour merging into more colour with shadowy bits - a bit of both perhaps. The magic of digital, the freedom of digital - the ability to try everything because one can! I love it. It’s a revelation, a deepening of the creative urge to explore new realms without cost… or end sometimes.

Sure, one can always argue that it leads to lack of direction, lack of planning but one can also argue in return that it extends one’s vision, increases one’s output and ability to see the world from different perspectives. I relish the challenge!

Back to the world of yellow! Perfection… mmmm. Unable to settle on which of the perfect choices is THE perfect choice I decide to shoot anyway, putting pen to paper or rather index finger to shutter button in order to get the creative juices flowing. As always seems to happen, I relax into it and my mind opens up to the possibilities: depth of field, front edge of a petal in focus back edge out and vice versa but mostly my mind is consumed by warm yellow. Kneeling on the ground head down intensely focused - the butt in the air angle would not be an attractive sight for any passing observer but I don’t need to worry about such considerations as this mild obsession most often leads to splendid isolation.

A bit of advice - bracket everything (1 either side in stops or thirds if you have the choice), shoot at the highest resolution you can achieve with whichever model of digital genius you possess and take at least half a dozen shots per chosen angle. Give yourself the best chance of capturing the one you really wanted - the perfect image, beautiful enough to grace your wall, a wall anywhere. One feels such an idiot when one has to declare it didn’t quite happen because of trigger finger meanness! Digital genius is defined by trigger finger generosity or put another way - repetition is the basis of professionalism. Whatever it takes I say. Get the shot! The satisfaction is immense.

More advice - check the first few images carefully on the preview screen just to make sure everything is working as it should. Don’t end up taking twenty splendid black and white shots of a gorgeous yellow daisy - do the greyscale thing in Photoshop! Slow down, check the first few brackets. Check that the ISO is set to 100 not to 1600 from last night’s fun and that all the exposure compensation overrides are back to normal (or leave the settings at 1600 over by two if weird and whacky is what you’re after). Little things but in my twenty years as a photographer these little things become mortifyingly large things if ignored!

So perfection captured, 0 and 1’s secured in the land of Flash wizardry it’s back across the three fences leaping not quite so enthusiastically now, the gazelle’s knees are a little creaky from kneeling on the damp ground - back to the ever patient, ever reliable SUV. Gear stowed, key in the ignition, we’re off …A glow of anticipation washes over me!

But never forget the first things to do on your return? Download and backup! Forget at your peril. DOWNLOAD AND BACKUP just in case you didn’t get it the first time.

Copyright 2005 Patrick Heathcock

Sometime commercial photographer London, fulltime flower art photographer and web designer living in the southern semisphere, soaking up the sun. Visit www.aflowergallery.com to view the yellow daisy and more!

If you think that all you need to do is just push the shutter button on your digital camera and great pictures magically appear; or the more features and options available in the digital camera, the better the digital photos … then prepare to be disappointed. With these thoughts, you’ll get mediocre to average digital photos, and maybe once in awhile a lucky good photographic shot.

The truth is that great photos don’t happen by using great cameras, it’s you. You create great pictures. With a digital camera, you can make your own digital images look professional with a few basic skills and a willingness to do some digital photo retouching now and then.

Here are seven easy tips to help you take better photographs.

1. Set Your Tones

When shooting nature or wildlife photographs, try changing your white balance setting from auto to cloudy. This adjustment is like putting a mild warming filter on your digital camera. It increases the reds and yellows, resulting in richer and warmer pictures.

2. Polarizing Filter

A polarizing filter is the one filter every photographer should have for landscapes and general outdoor photography. Polarized shots reduce glare and unwanted reflections. The results are richer and more saturated colors in your photos. If your digital camera can’t accommodate filters, a neat trick is to take a pair of quality sunglasses, and use them as your polarizing filter. Place the sunglasses as close to the camera lens as possible, check their position in the LCD viewfinder to make sure you don’t have the rims in the shot, and get some color-rich digital images.

3. Outdoor Portraits

Set your camera settings to “flash on” mode. This lets the camera expose for the background first, then adds just enough flash to illuminate your portrait subject. The result is a professional looking picture where everything in the composition looks good without the need for digital photo retouching.

4. Macro Mode

Take better close-up and personal digital shots of the small things in your surroundings. On regular or auto digital camera settings, the minimum distance to take decent photos is about 3 feet. If you activate the close up mode on your digital camera you’ll be able to get within a foot of your selected object. Begin to explore your world in finer detail, you’ll be rewarded with clear images unlike anything you’ve ever photographed before.

5. Horizon Line

Many times it’s hard to hold the digital camera level when using the LCD screen for viewing, which then results in uneven or crooked images. A great way to square up a photo is to look at nature’s horizontal lines and use them as guides. Sometimes you can use the line where the sky meets the ocean, other times you can use a strip of land as your level. This is especially important when you’re thinking of enlarging your digital photographs, as the bigger the digital image, the more off balance the image will appear.

6. Digital Camera Memory Card Awareness

Always make sure you set aside a budget for additional digital camera memory cards. The nice thing with digital is that you can take several digital shots of the same scene, making little adjustments with tones, polarizing filters, flash, macro mode, etc. Then delete those digital photos that aren’t quite right. You’ll need the memory card space to store the extra shots until you review them.

If you have a 3 megapixel camera, get at least a 256 megabyte card, a 512 megabyte memory card if you own a 4 megapixel model, and 1 gigabyte for 6 megapixel models.

7. High Resolution All the Time

Select the highest resolution possible when taking digital photos. High resolution digital images give you more freedom to edit, crop and/or manipulate the image in any way you want without losing the quality. It’s easy to reduce the size of the digital photo once you’ve transferred it to your computer. It’s not advisable to enlarge the digital photo because you can’t add the depth of pixel color back into the digitized image. Unless you’re only taking photographs to e-mail to friends, you’ll want to have a high resolution image to edit and print.

For any of these tips, the best advice is to practice them. You’ll become familiar with the new techniques and along the way, learn more about your digital camera’s capabilities and settings. Those great photographs that you’ll want to share and display are just a few practice steps away.

About the Author…

Laura Slade publishes the digital photo website http://www.digital-photo-tutor.com

A resource center for ideas and information on digital photo sharing, digital photo printing, digital photo projects, and the basics of caring for and using your digital photo equipment.