One Brief Moment

As budding photographers and hobbyists, we are looking for the secrets of the professionals. In photography there are no secrets; perhaps they are obvious facts that have been overlooked or too obvious to be noticed. There are some things which only experience can teach you. Nevertheless, here’s a collection of 11 such things which remain mostly overlooked and are the real and only secrets if there are any of professionals.

via Photographer’s Secrets — 11 Unintented Secrets Of Professional Photographers.

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If you’ve ever taken a photograph and felt like it was “floating” or missing an element that connected the subject to the environment around it, you might be forgetting to anchor your photography. Anchoring, completing, connecting, sitting and a dozen other words to describe it simply mean to show the connection of a subject and it’s supporting limbs or structure to the rest of the photograph.

It’s why you’ve always heard to never cut off a person at the ankles in a photograph. When you show the ground they’re standing on, you anchor them to the environment and give them the visual support they need in an image. Here are a few to watch out for and think about the next time you’re framing up a subject.

via Anchoring Your Photography.

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What makes a photograph good or bad? What attributes to making great photographs? Well, it is not just one thing which makes the photograph awesome; it is in fact a whole lot of rules, factors and skills practiced and implemented by the photographer to make the great photograph happen. A perfect blend of the photographer’s expression and the photography concepts at play contribute to the greatness of the photograph. While stumbling through interesting photographs on Flickr and picking the good ones for the blog posts, I have come across the following factors that make the photographs worthy of appreciation.

via Making Great Pictures — 10 Factors That Make A Photograph “Great”.

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Take a look at your DSLR camera strap. If you are using the strap that came with your camera, you might notice a little piece of plastic or rubber on one side of the strap. Have you ever wondered what that was for? (If the answer is “No” then it might still be sitting your camera box!)

That device serves a simple purpose that I’d guess 95% of DSLR photographers never consider. Its sole purpose is to cover the eyepiece on your camera and most photographers have never used it, though it can be useful. Even without using that actual device, covering your eyepiece, when your face is not already covering it, can be helpful to gaining proper exposure.

via Cover Your Eyepiece.

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Headshots are simply photographic shots that focus on your face and shoulders. Sometimes a headshot includes only the face and the neck. Those that include the shoulders too are called ”three quarter shots”. Ideally, a headshot is taken to minimize one’s flaws and to enhance one’s features. This is particularly true for glamorous headshots meant for actors, singers and models. But there are some headshots that are not quite dramatic viz. passport sized photographs, mug shots those taken after an arrest and those intended for corporate individuals. These headshots do not need specialized lighting and the expression of the subject’s face is usually neutral. Headshots can be colored or back and white.

via Headshots 101 — How To Photograph Headshots.

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Street photography is a fantastic idea in theory, but when I first took a crack at taking pictures on the streets of Downtown Seattle, I got nothing. I walked around for an hour, spotting great photo ops, holding my camera tight against my chest, waiting for someone to either yell at me for taking their picture or steal my camera. It took a couple of years to get up the nerve to start taking pictures and now I always take my camera into the city. Here are 10 tips that helped me get over my street photography shyness.

via Street Photography for the Novice.

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Search engine optimization or SEO for short is the process of optimizing the websites for better ranking and relevancy in search results. SEO is critical to the very existence of your online identity in form of portfolio sites or as the provider of photo-related services over the internet. SEO gives you an opportunity to attract potential customers and get projects online. Learn more about Search Engine Optimization here.

SEO may sound a bit scary and technical, but done correctly it helps in optimizing the website for the services offered by you and thus driving traffic to your website. One of the most important pillars of SEO is the keywords. The optimization of the website depends heavily on the keywords. Keywords are the words which best describe your website in light of search string or query used by the users to search for your website. For instance, if you are a photographer, photography and photographer are the keywords for your website. The keywords bridge the gap between what user is searching for and what he gets in the search results. And is therefore crucial to the optimization of the websites.

via Search Engine Optimization For Photographers — 15 Killer SEO Tips For Photographers.

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Creativity is prone to staleness. Even though the adage “Practice make the man perfect” holds true for artists, there are times, you can call them as serious fallbacks, when you as a photographer cannot discover new ideas and your mind goes blank. Step back! Its time to refuel your creativity and here are 14 killer ideas to rejuvenate the photographer in you.

via Overcoming Photographers Block — 14 Killer Ideas To Overcome The Photographer’s Block.

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