2010 Senior Portraits San Antonio

Composition and cropping are very basic digital photography tools that you can use hand-in-hand to produce stunning results. First you use composition to arrange the main elements of your photo in a pleasing manner. Then you use cropping to fine-tune the image by removing unwanted elements and further adjusting the composition. With practice, you can refine your shots to look as good as you imagined them when you pushed the shutter button.

First, let?s take a look at the most basic rule of composition, the rule of thirds: Imagine your viewfinder having a grid on it that looks like a tic-tac-toe game. Then arrange the elements of your shot so that the main element is not in the centre square. This is the rule of thirds in a nutshell and a good starting point for basic composition.

Next, let?s consider leading lines: If there is an element in your shot like a fence or roadway, consider using this element to lead your viewer?s eye into the photograph. These kinds of elements work well when arranged on a diagonal to run from lower left to upper right, or lower right to upper left. You could also shoot from the centre of a roadway, and let it take up the whole bottom, tapering towards the upper centre?this breaks (or at least bends) the rule of thirds, but we will talk about that next.

Now, you know that rules are made to be broken, so let?s take a look at how to break the rule of thirds. The first thing to remember is to trust your eye and your instincts: if it looks good dead centre, shoot it that way. Certain types of shots lend themselves to centre composition. For example: shots of calm water that perfectly reflect the landscape above?quite often the reflection is just as compelling as the landscape, so why not give them equal billing?

Note: If there are any distracting elements in your shot?that you just cannot compose out?try to keep them towards the outside of your shot. This will allow you to remove them with post-shot cropping.

Another thing to keep in mind when composing your shots is variety?the more raw material you have to work with, the better. Compose your shots in several different ways: with your main subject in the lower third; in the upper third; left of centre; right of centre; with the camera tipped on its end etc. Digital photography is great in this respect: you can shoot as many photos as you want at virtually no extra cost, so why not take advantage?

Now, cropping: Once you have your digital photos home and are looking at them on your computer screen, take a look at each shot and ask yourself ?is there anything in this shot that doesn?t need to be there? If the answer is yes?and it quite often is?crop it out. If you have managed to keep distracting elements towards the outside of your shot (as recommended earlier in this article,) it is a simple matter of cutting away a bit on the outside of the image to get the shot you want.

It is also a good idea to take a closer look at the overall composition at this point: Is the image composed just the way you would like it? Is the image focused enough on your main subject? If not, don?t be afraid to crop it down a bit more. The beauty of working with digital image files is that you can experiment, if you don?t like what you get, you can start over and try again.

With today?s digital cameras sporting more and more megapixels of resolution, there?s no reason to be afraid of cropping, cropping, cropping. So compose with care and variety, then crop till you get that masterpiece you imagined when you pushed the shutter button.

With the acceptable image quality and the other advantages of digital photography the majority of professional news photographers have begun capturing their images with digital cameras. Digital photography has also been adopted by many amateur snapshot photographers, who take advantage of the convenience of the form when sending images by email, placing them on the World Wide Web, or displaying them in digital picture frames.

Also, one big advantage of digital photography is the instant review of pictures, with no wait for the film to be developed: if there’s a problem with a picture, the photographer can immediately correct the problem and take another picture (up to hundreds of photographs on the same media device). Digital cameras have also been integrated into many cell phones. The photographer is able to color-balance and manipulate the image in ways that traditional darkroom science cannot offer, although film users can utilize the same technology with a film scanner. But digital cameras also tend to be much more sensitive to moisture and extreme cold. For this reason, photographers who work in remote areas, such as those who work for National Geographic overwhelmingly favor film SLR cameras. Many digital cameras can deliver only JPEG files.

Another format that may be encountered is RAW, which contain unprocessed image data straight from the camera’s image sensor. Compact digital cameras usually include zoom lens and flashes that cannot be changed, but digital single-lens reflex camera (digital SLR or DSLR), operates on the same optical and mechanical principles as a film single-lens reflex camera, and offers the possibility to change lenses. Recent manufacturers such as Nikon and Canon have promoted the adoption of digital Single-lens reflex cameras (dSLRs) by photojournalists. Lenses in digital photography can be Telephoto lenses, Wide-angle lenss or Normal lenss, used for landscapes, portraits and close-ups (macros). Digital anti-shake tools (also called Image Stabilisation) allow taking sharp hand-held pictures where previously a tripod was required. Digital SRLs work also with RAW images containing unprocessed image data straight from the camera?s image sensor. Since the data isn?t processed on the camera the photographer will do so on the computer in order to get it into more usable formats like TIFF or JPEG. This method offers flexibility of the results regarding exposure, lighting, white balance, contrast, colours and saturation as well as greater creative control of the image.

From Canon, good compact cameras the Powershot A series, such as A520, A620, A700 and others, main difference between them being their megapixel image resolution and optical zoom. Canon PowerShot S3 IS is a type of camera that moves a step forward from compact to dSLR. As for the SLR?s and dSRLs, Canon comes with the Rebels: Digital Rebel XT, Canon EOS 200D, and Canon EOS 30D. Nikon is considered to be as good as Canon but sometimes cheaper: Nikon D40, Nikon D200, and Nikon D70. Other notable cameras are Olympus E-330, Fuji FinePix S9100, FujiFilm Finepix E900, Sony Cybershot DSC-W100, HP Photosmart R967 and many many others. Choosing a digital camera can be very difficult and the techniques are in constant progress so that these cameras get better and better, more and more powerful but still smaller, therefore some of them received the name ?pocket camera?.

Macro digital photography has to be one of the most underrated and under-practiced aspects of digital photography. The fact is that it?s just not “close-ups”. Macro digital photography is o much more. Taking digital photography of macro, particularly abstract, is an incredibly stimulating art form. One of the reasons why macro digital photography is so good because the objective is to get as much detail as you can. And the subject is not often distinguishable. You can turn a basic household item into a brightly colored world filled with shapes, lines and form. It allows the mind to take a break from categorizing everything and lets the imagination just enjoy the art form.

In macro digital photography, it?s very important to understand that you will be working with less light. What tends to happen is that you have less light on a smaller surface than you do a larger surface. This can lead to the need, in your digital macro photography, to adjust our F Stop to compensate for less light. And not only that, but in digital photography macro but your lens so you can get the important sections of your macro subject and focus on a shallow depth of field.

Composition is everything in Macro digital photography. Due to the fact that you are working with an absence of defining elements you find yourself working with the tone, texture, shape and light of the subject. To capture your lines, shapes, tones and texture well, make sure you have the right exposure. This means that in all aspects of your digital macro photography you’ll need to get the right macro lenses. If you don?t have macro lenses and you wish to practice, I suggest grabbing a magnifying glass and seeing what things look like up close. Keep in mind that this is not an effective long term photographic tool, but it does open your mind when you first start macro digital photography.

One tip I can give you for successful macro digital photography is to take “portions” of subjects up close. Find a point in your macro digital photography that shows flowing lines, symmetry and a loving gentleness that you normally would not find at normal distance. For example take the centre of a flower, such as a daisy. You will notice that the centre of the daisy comes alive with a softness and fascination that can only be obtained by macro digital photography.

To practice your digital macro photography, take your magnifying glass and really look up close at sections of subjects that have lots of detail up close. You can choose the grain of wood, clothing material, flowers and even colored objects such as semi precious stones. You?ll find that subjects with very, very small fine detail are the best digital photography macro subjects. So get practicing!

By Amy Renfrey