Taking Decent Photographs, -or- McNally's Not-so-Secret Photographic Secret

Aug 30 19:17 UTC 2004

A lot of people have told me that I take pretty photos.  I personally
think that this most likely happens because I point my camera at pretty
things, but a surprising number of people seem to believe there's more
to it than that so I thought I ought to share my meager photographic
wisdom with you and let you know how easy it really is.

In the hands of a skilled person photography can be both highly technical
and a real art form.  I find, though, that many people don't want to
spend time mastering the technology and they don't want to master an
art form just to have good-looking vacation prints.  I've got great news
for those people -- you don't have to.  Follow just a few simple rules
and you'll be able to take photos at my level or probably better with
a relatively inexpensive and easy-to-operate camera.

Rule #1:  You have a camera, so use it!

By which I mean:  you have bothered to bring with you (wherever you
happen to be) a device which is solely intended to take photographs.
You must have intended to take some pictures, so do so.  Take a picture
of anything which looks remotely interesting.  Don't be afraid of
wasting film, especially if you're shooting with a digital camera..
It may seem like a hassle to stop and pull over every time you want
to take a picture on your road trip or to pull the camera out of your
backpack every time you see something cool on your hike but you won't
come back with any good pictures if you're saving your camera waiting
for a UFO to land or for bigfoot to show up.

Rule #2:  If something is worth one photo, it's worth half a dozen.

To the extent that I have a secret, this is it.  If I like the look of
something and think it might make a good photograph I don't just take
one picture of it.  A professional photographer doesn't go out on a
National Geographic shoot, point his camera at a subject, and take just
one exposure.  So why should I (with far less skill) expect to do well
with just one try?  If I think something is going to be a good photo I
usually shoot half a dozen shots at least.  As a general rule for every
fifteen to twenty shots that I bring home I'll put one of them up on
my web site to share with other people.  To get that one shot I'll try
different angles and different zoom levels.  If I'm feeling fancy I'll try
different f-stops to try and get different field depths.  And because I
am often sloppy when it comes to metering I let the camera do the work for
me by making liberal use of my camera's exposure bracketing -- especially
if you have a digital camera, LEARN TO USE YOUR BRACKETING FEATURE.
Also, if you have a digital camera, use the review feature to look at
the shots you have taken and keep trying until you get a result you are
happy with.

Rule #3:  Pay attention to the composition of your picture.

You don't have to be a great artist to benefit from a little thought
about composition.  So before you take a picture, try to imagine what
it will look like in its final form.  After a while you'll get beyond
the most obvious beginner mistakes and stop taking pictures of disembodied
heads floating in front of scenic landscapes, but everyone can and
should take things a step further with just a little bit of thought.
This part does take a little bit of practice and it requires learning
from your mistakes.  There are no hard-and-fast rules, but here are a 
couple of very basic suggestions you can find in any beginning photography
book.

  a)  Empty space is (usually) not very interesting, so unless you have
      some effect you are consciously trying to achieve, try to fill the
      frame with your subject.

  b)  Most pictures look better if the subject isn't in the dead center.
      many books for beginning photographers recommend using the rule of
      thirds.  Imagine your viewfinder is divided into thirds along each
      side, creating a grid of nine rectangles:

           +----+----+----+
           |    |    |    |
           +----O----O----+
           |    | XX |    |
           +----O----O----+
           |    |    |    |
           +----+----+----+

      the simple version of the rule of thirds advises that rather than
      center your subject where the "XX" is, instead place your subject
      on one of the intersections marked above with an "O" in the grid.

  c)  Pay attention to light and shadow.  Shadows often look much more
      noticable in photographs than they do in real life.  For relatively
      close subjects you can often eliminate or lessen shadows, especially
      on people's faces, by using your flash even if there is enough light
      to take an exposure without the flash (this is called a "fill-in"
      flash, and virtually every camera with an automatic flash has a 
      feature to force the flash off or on.)  Conversely, sometimes flash
      can create undesirable shadows and you have to force the camera not
      to flash.  

response 2 of 39:

Aug 30 19:59 UTC 2004

My theory was that putting people into shots tends to improve them - you get
a better sense of scale.

response 4 of 39:

Aug 30 20:59 UTC 2004

Also, pay attention to the background.  I've seen quite a few otherwise
good pictures ruined by a distracting background (and I've taken some
like that, myself.)  The background will be more noticable in the photo
than it is to the naked eye.  The classic example of this is the
snapshot of someone who appears to have a tree growing out of their head. ;>

If your camera allows you enough control, you can usually reduce the
depth of field to blur a distracting background and force objects in the
foreground to stand out more.

response 6 of 39:

Aug 30 21:31 UTC 2004

re #4
You mean like GW's dog taking a squat behind the President on the White House
lawn?

response 8 of 39:

Aug 30 22:08 UTC 2004

How do I do that on a Kodak DC-215?

response 10 of 39:

Aug 30 22:31 UTC 2004

Ah, my camera doesnt do that. 

response 12 of 39:

Aug 30 23:09 UTC 2004

  Pity.  There's a lot that you can do if you have manual control over
  your camera's aperture or shutter speed. 

  For example, here's a simple trick using shutter speed.  You know
  those pictures you see of streams and/or waterfalls where the water
  is blurred and wispy while everything else is in clear sharp focus?
  That's a very easy effect to achieve.  You'll need a tripod or something
  similar to stabilize your camera and either a timer or a cable remote
  because to get this effect you need to manually set your shutter
  speed to about 1/4 to 1/2 second.  At that slow of a shutter speed you
  won't be able to hold the camera still enough to prevent the picture
  from blurring and even the force from pushing the shutter button with
  your finger will cause enough motion to blur, hence the requirement
  for the timer or cable remote.

  A similar effect using slow shutter speed can create intentional blurring
  to show motion if you're photographing a sporting event or wildlife.
  The relatively stable background will be in sharp focus while the moving
  subject will be blurred as its motion carries it partway through the 
  picture during the interval when the shutter is open.

  Manual control over your aperture and shutter give you all kinds of 
  very simple tricks like these, using only the features built into a
  reasonably good camera.  No investment in fancy lenses and filters
  required..

response 14 of 39:

Aug 31 00:48 UTC 2004

re #11:  I have the Olympus C-2020 Zoom, a 3-year-old 2 megapixel camera
         that isn't even made anymore.  Before that I used an old Pentax
         SLR body that weighed a ton; I'm much happier with digital but
         it's about time for me to look for something with more lens
         flexibility.  I miss too many good bear, eagle, and whale shots
         for lack of lens power.

response 16 of 39:

Aug 31 02:57 UTC 2004

re# 7

The apperture is totally independent of the shutter. The shutter 
is usually the cloth or metal curtain you see when you open up the 
back of the camera. Even on a leaf shutter lenses, the shutter is 
a seperate thing.

In film photography one of the rules for tricky exposures, is to
expose for the shadows and develope for the highlights. It's just
the opposite in digital (since there is less tonal range). The
blown out highlights in digital are almost impossible to recover,
so center weight or slightly under exposed would be your best bet,
you can always mess around with the curve later in Photoshop.

response 18 of 39:

Aug 31 17:09 UTC 2004

Cool ascii pictures.

response 20 of 39:

Aug 31 18:23 UTC 2004

I'm really happy with it.  Being able to use any of the EOS-series
lenses is really nice.

One thing a few people I've shown it to have commented on is the
inability to use the LCD as a viewfinder for framing a shot.  That's a
natural consequence of the SLR design, of course, but it may throw
people who have used point-and-shoot digital cameras a lot.  The optical
viewfinder is excellent, though, and it has digital readouts of the
F-stop and shutter speed at the bottom.

response 22 of 39:

Aug 31 19:51 UTC 2004

  I almost never use the LCD as a viewfinder except
  (a) in macro-mode shots where the parallax problem is severe, and
  (b) when I'm taking something at an odd angle or bracing the camera
      against something so that it's difficult to see through the 
      viewfinder.

  I'm close to convincing myself to upgrade to a nice digital SLR but
  so far I've been waiting for them to take a price plunge.

response 24 of 39:

Aug 31 21:40 UTC 2004

I'll use the LCD to check light levels and how the shot might turn out,
especially when the camera is bitching about needing the flash turned on. 
But since it's easy to crop in the computer, really precise framing isn't that
important anymore.

Tip:  Make sure your shot is level - look for a straight line in the
background.