Photo by Johnny Blood

A Quick Tip for Today – Simplify Your Images

Many images suffer as a result of there being too much detail included in the shot and end up being cluttered and with too many points of interest.

Next time you are about to hit the shutter – scan your potential image and ask yourself if there is an alternative framing that you could use that could remove some of the distractions and increase the impact of your main subject?

In many circumstances simply using a tighter cropping or shooting from a different angle will help achieve this.

Here are a few more ‘simple’ or ‘minimalistic’ shots. Take some of your own and drop by our forums to show us what you take.

I’ve received quite a few requests from new readers asking how they can track Digital Photography School via their personalized iGoogle page recently.

If you’d like to add DPS to yours simply click the following button and you’ll see our latest posts listed each time you log into your Google page.

Of course there are other methods of staying in touch with DPS that we’ve outlined on our subscription page.

Photo by onkel_wart

Today we’re going to continue our Breaking the Rules of Photography series by suggesting you experiment with a high ISO.

Don’t know what ISO is? Read this introduction to ISO before reading on.

While not really a ‘rule’ of photography – it is generally accepted in most photographic tutorials that you should avoid noise in your images at all costs by choosing the lowest ISO possible for the light situation that you’re shooting in. This will leave you with shots that are as smooth, clean and sharp as possible for the lighting conditions that you’re in.

While this is a recommended practice in most shooting circumstances – there are times where ramping up your ISO setting to it’s maximum can create some interesting effects.

Grainy or noisy

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We passed 5,500 members this week in the forums! So the questions are flowing, and we’re getting a chance to see new pictures from lots of members, so if you haven’t already done so, drop by the forums and say hi. Now on to this week’s highlights.

Assignments

This week the Strangers assignment finished and we were blown away by the quality of the shots. This week we had three entries that really stood out. The winner, however, was tad2106 for his picture called “The walk” which features a family on the beach. We couldn’t help but be drawn in by the girl looking back at the camera as she walks with her family. Our first honourable mention went to sybren for Man on a Bench. The sharpness, composition and lovely black & white made it an excellent shot.

Our final honourable mention goes to Susan though. Susan’s self-portrait of a stranger in her own skin was touching, and the story needs to be read as well. A short excerpt from her post: “There is nothing more likely to wipe the smile off my face than to find that the skin I have woken up in is so utterly different from the skin in which I went to sleep – my body has literally morphed into that of a stranger over night.”

We also announced the newest assignment this week, and it is Seeing Double. Items that are a pair are the topic of choice, and people are being very creative, so go out and take a shot of something that has you seeing double! In order to be eligible for the mini-contest, you need to include “Assignment:Seeing Double” somewhere in your post, and the picture must have been taken between 16-30 August 2007. Next week’s assignment will be Breaking the Rules, so if you need some inspiration, make sure to check out the posts on the blog about the topic.

Weekly Poll

This week’s poll asked forum member if they preferred taking pictures of people or places. The result’s are in, and more people liked taking pictures of places than people.

Peeperita preferred places because “they are so much easier than people….i can be shy, nervous about the shot, anxious about the set up time, and completely freaked about asking permission…..people move and change expression…..places just stand there patiently smiling while i think out the shot……

Of course, plenty of people still preferred taking pictures of people.

So Sime chimed in and said “If this question were asked a month ago, it would have been places, but for the last few weeks it has become people. I have just purchased a long lens which is great for candids. Nothing beats a picture of someone that “tells a story” through their eyes or the way they look / their surroundings.. People for me.

Stop by the forums and vote on our newest poll and tell us whether or not you have a photographic inspiration.

Photo by CARNIVAL OF LIGHT

Beautifully sharp and detailed images are something we all aspire for in the majority of our shots – I know I do.

However purposely leaving your main subject (or even your whole shot) out of focus can also create stunningly dreamy images also.

There are two main strategies if you’re wanting to explore purposely ‘unfocused’ images:

1. You might choose to focus on a seemingly unimportant element of the scene (do this by choosing a wide aperture which will give a narrow depth of field and focus on something in front of or behind your main subject).

2. The other option is to make your full image out of focus but choosing to focus well beyond or in front of your main subject. Again, a wide aperture will help here and you will probably need to switch your camera to manual focusing mode or it will attempt to find something to focus upon.

This second option will take a little experimentation. Get things too unfocused and you’ll end up with a completely unrecognizable subject – the key is to have enough focus for it to be recognizable but out of focus enough to create a wonderful dreamy mood.

Below are two more examples of unfocused images for a little inspiration.

This post belongs to our series on Breaking Rules of Photography.