How To Photograph Dragonflies

40

A Guest Contribution by Steve Berardi from PhotoNaturalist.

Pennant

Dragonflies are among the most photogenic insects. They usually have bright contrasting colors that make them really stand out in their natural environment, and their large size makes them easy to photograph with a standard telephoto lens.

However, there are a few difficulties with photographing them too: they get scared easily and sometimes it seems like they just never land somewhere and take a break so you can photograph them!

So, here are a few things to keep in mind when photographing these amazing insects:

1. Look for them near ponds and streams

Most dragonflies hang out very close to bodies of fresh water: lakes, ponds, and streams. So, when you’re scouting out places to photograph them, make sure it’s a place where you can walk

15 Fantastic Freckle Photos

19

You can put this image collection down into the slightly silly category but I just spent a fun hour looking at portraits that feature people with freckles.

A young stranger: Quebec Rainbow gathering 2009: Gäya 7 years old

I’m not sure why I ended up on this quest – perhaps it’s some subconscious therapeutic activity from growing up as the red headed kid with freckles – but I love some of these shots.

While the freckles in many of these shots have been highlighted a little with some post production – hopefully they provide some of you fellow freckle faced photographers with some inspiration :-)

Click the images to be taken to the photographers Flickr page to learn more about them and the images …

Light Painting Part Two – Photoshop

Light Painting Part Two – Photoshop

Part two Light Painting - easy, step by step tutorial on how to combine multiple exposures of light painting in Photoshop to make one final masterpiece.

13

"1956 Le France Pumper"

In Part One of  the Light Painting Tutorial I went over how to do the photography part: equipment, camera settings, set up, lighting, potential pitfalls, and step by step instruction on how to do light painting shots.  In this article Part Two, we’re going to take a look at how to combine multiple exposures in Photoshop.

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN IN THIS TUTORIAL

  • how to create one big layered file of all your images
  • what layer settings to use to “turn the lights on” with each added image
  • how to get rid of any unwanted areas of each image
  • how to easily “dim the lights” on any shots that were too bright
  • saving your final combined image as a masterpiece

Combining images in Photoshop is surprisingly

What the Mona Lisa Can Teach You About Taking Great Portraits

111

Mona-Lisa

When it comes to famous images the Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci is one of the most recognized in the world.

When I visited the Lourve in Paris a couple of years ago I was stunned by the crowds of people gathering around this small image, pushing and shoving to get close and to take a picture of it (I got some great shots of the crowd).

The Mona Lisa has been at the center of much debate and speculation over the years but why is it an image that intrigues people so much and what can we learn from it as photographers today?

While we live in a different time (the Mona Lisa was painted in the 1500′s) and use different technology – is there something in this famous image that we can be inspired by as image makers today?

Lessons from the Mona Lisa for Photographers

Today I want to explore some of the different aspect of the Mona Lisa and point out some things that Leonardo did in painting this image that I think we could take away as portrait photographers today.

Tell Us What You Want Out of a dPS Redesign

42

It has been a couple of years since we did a complete overhaul of the design of dPS so over the coming months we’ve commissioned a team of designers and developers to give our site a once over – and we’d LOVE your feedback!

So now is your chance to tell us what features and design elements you’d love to see on the newly designed dPS.

Is there something missing that you’d like to see added? Is there a feature on another site that you’d love to see here?

You’re welcome to give feedback upon the blog area, the forum area or even our social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest etc).

Feel free to tell us what you honestly think (as long as you’re constructive that is) – we’ll keep this post open for comment for a day or two before …

Page 3 of 57312345...102030...Last »

What’s Your Preference?

Daily Digest

Each day we send out a quick email to thousands of DPS readers to notify them of updates. This email is just short excerpt of the first few lines of our latest post with a link if you want to read it all. You can unsubscribe from this this service at any time.

This service is provided by a third party (Feedburner) and you can subscribe to it by leaving your email address in the following field and confirming your subscription when you get an email asking you to do so.

Enter your email address for
Daily Updates:

Weekly Summary

For those wanting a weekly summary of what happens on this site this free email newsletter is probably your best option. It includes a summary of the tips posted to the site each week. This newsletter is subscribed to by over 25000 readers (many who also subscribe to the other options above) - come join the community!

To subscribe to this weekly newsletter simply add your email address to the following field and then follow the confirmation prompts. You will be able to unsubscribe at any time.

Enter your email address for
Free Weekly Newsletter: