One Brief Moment

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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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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While maintaining the micro-stocks on stock photography websites is a good option for selling the photographs online, there are scores of other options as well. For instance creating web galleries and portfolio websites or offering the images to be used for crafting amazing photo-gifts cards, mugs, t-shirts, teddy bears, etc or perhaps registering with the websites which offer business and marketing tools to professional photographers. These options which weigh more on the fronts of flexibility and freedom of posting / uploading the images unlike the rules, restrictions and rejections of the stock photography websites.

With the emergence of online businesses, a number of companies and websites have emerged over last 5-10 years which offer promotional and marketing tools even for photographers. Here are some of the websites designed especially for helping the photographers boost their sales online.

via Make Money With Photography — 15 Websites For Selling Photos Online.

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Pricing photography is often one of the greatest hurdles for people looking to break into the profession, bringing beads of sweat to the forehead just thinking about it. It’s especially nerve-wracking when you’re faced with a client demanding to know why they have to pay that much for your services. And chances are if you’ve just adopted the prices you’ve seen some other photographers in your area charge, without taking the time to actually calculate and understand what you charge what you do, then you’re going to be in some hot water to explain your worth.

You need to not only know the worth of the services you are providing, but you need to know how to articulate what you’re worth and why you’re worth it. Photography is an amazing creative outlet and career, but don’t doubt for a second that it’s a business. You’ve got to wear a lot of hats in this industry. Make sure you’re equally versed in the business practices as in the visual principles. When you can negotiate and state your worth with confidence and how you arrived there, you give your client confidence as well. Here are a few things I find critical when I find myself in the position of negotiating my worth.

via How Much to Charge for Your Photography: Negotiating Your Worth.

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One of the photography composition techniques for drawing the viewer’s attention is perhaps simplicity. Instead of including the entire scene with conflicting subjects, try minimalism, the art of framing the subject that stands out distinct in its own space. This is where negative space comes into the picture.

Negative space is the free / empty space around the subject of an image, perhaps occupied by smooth, blurred or soothing background which does not compete with the subject. This space can be creatively used for emphasizing the aesthetics of the subject. The negative space is used by artists; be it photographers, painters or designers to balance the composition and to present the frame in such a way that the viewer’s interest is drawn towards the center of interest. The inclusion of negative space in the photographs provides a place for your eyes to rest. It is as important as the positive space, the space occupied by the subject and the frame arrangement of elements itself.

via Negative Space — How To Creatively Use Negative Space In Photography.

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You might be one of those photographers who decide to convert a photo to black and white in post production. Trying if it ‘works’ for a photo you took without thinking about black and white at the time. Nothing wrong with that, but have you ever tried to go out and shoot specifically with a black and white photo in mind? It’s worth doing so and I’d like to give you some tips for when you do.

via Tips for Black and White Photography.

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CHARLES DOBBS PHOTOGRAPHY

I received an e-mail this morning that my photo “Mental Filament” had been sold to some wonderful person out there in the world. This is a first time sale for this photo and I have always liked the title and treatment I gave to it. Sometimes when you are deep in thought, you just want the “Mental Filament” or light to turn on.

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I think this is a valuable piece of information to pass along to both newcomers to photography and the more experienced crowd…Perhaps the best piece of advice I can provide which will immediately improve one’s photography and cause it to stand out from the countless other photos on the web, is to act unusual while taking the photos.

via How to Take Photos that Stand Out from the Crowd.

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Light is an essential element of photography. The art of photography itself rests on the understanding and making the most of the available light. The lights affect the way the camera interprets and portrays the subject or the scene. Before using the lights for capturing the required effects and details, one should have a sound knowledge of the various features of lights. Check out the article on lighting and it’s features here. Let’s look at the various aspects of lights and technique of using the lights efficiently.

via Natural Lighting — 10 Tips To Make The Most Of The Available Lights.

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Silhouette photography is one style of generating creative results. The silhouette photography paves way for creativity using the light; by efficiently reversing the theory of exposure. A silhouette is a view of an object or scene consisting of the outline and a featureless interior, with the silhouetted object usually being black. The silhouetted effect is produced by throwing light from the background instead of lighting the subject from the foreground. Here are 35 captivating examples of silhouette photography, to serve as an inspiration for capturing beautiful, awesome, interesting and unique silhouettes.

via Silhouette Photography — 35 Captivating Examples Of Silhouette Photography.

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