A well-chosen picture explains the content of your article for a blog, magazine, or newsletter at once. A photograph can show something in a single image that otherwise would need a lot of words.
Sometimes it is better to crop a photo to get the focus on the desired part. In this article, I give you 10 tips to crop pictures the right way.
Cropping is considered making changes to a picture. When you use photographs that somebody else made, make sure you have permission for these changes.
One of the ideas in the article 20 Ideas on how to make money after retirement is to sell your digital pictures. Can you start selling pictures online just like that? What are the options you have? And equally important, what are possible problems you can encounter? I’ll elaborate on these in this article.
You don’t have to be a professional photographer nowadays to sell your pictures. Although it helps if you know what you are doing and if you maintain a quality standard in composition, use of colour and format.
The quality of the printers is improving fast. Nowadays a lot of colour printers have more than four cartridges, making sure all the tones are printed.
Yet, the extra cartridges are grey or black, never a colour, which means there are still colours you see on the screen that can’t be printed on paper.
Taking pictures and printing them on your colour printer can be disappointing. Sometimes the result is NOT what you expected. I’ll give you the reasons for that disappointing result and if you can improve the colour quality of your precious photographs.
Taking pictures is narrowing your view in a good sense. Looking through the square hole makes you focus on composition, colour and details of what you see. It’s all about making choices.
When I was 12 years old I got a camera from my granddad. It was an Agfa, that I know for sure. But I am not sure anymore whether it was a Click or a Clack.
All these years I was convinced it was a Clack-II, but googling pictures of it made me wonder. The image in my memory resembles more of the Click-II.
A viewpoint, point of view, standpoint, or outlook. All expressions you can use in either literal sense or as a matter of speech. Here I mean of course your point of view with a camera at hand. What is a viewpoint in photography?
Usually, you will hardly think about where you stand when you take a picture. There’s a party or some other important event, or you’re on vacation and you want to capture those moments.
Still, it is useful to be aware of your point of view every now and then. Anything that expands your toolbox of possibilities improves your photography.
During my education at two art academies in the Netherlands, I was trained to look at the composition of paintings and sculptures. That was a big advantage for me when I started making taking pictures.
Painters often had a conception of composition that depended on their time. The Renaissance had a balanced, calm structure of the works. In the Baroque, the dynamic composition was usually applied.
What is composition in photography? The usual rule of thumb is the rule of thirds. It’s a great rule to start with, but in this article, I will explain some other possibilities for composition you can use.
Years ago I discovered the app Hipstamatic for my smartphone. It was love at first sight. I even have to admit I once bought another iPhone to have more pixels and speed.
As an artist, I love abstract art. Taking pictures with abstract results enhances that love and using the Hipstamatic app for those pictures doubles the fun.
In this article on how to create abstract photos, the focus is on the app Hipstamatic. In the meantime, I also explain how you can make your pictures more abstract without the app.
Most people see the world in colour and although it’s also great to take pictures in black and white, colour can add a layer of inspiration and difficulty.
When we use colour in photography in a conscious way, we can guide the emotions of the viewer. Colour can create a dramatic atmosphere or a quiet one. Colour can also evoke approval or dislike.
In this article, I describe some of Itten’s colour contrasts applied in photography and I supplement it with a couple of other ways of using colour.
There has been a period in my life I didn’t take any pictures at all, making me regret that later, because I don’t have any pictures of my son aged 6 to 9. The reason was that I wasn’t inspired anymore and didn’t feel up to the effort of taking the camera and shooting.
Nowadays I have found several ways to get inspired and to develop my creativity. And to stay inspired because, in the end, it’s all about keeping on going and pushing ourselves forward. Don’t settle for a result too soon.
I will share my tips on how to stay inspired in photography with you in this article and I hope you will add tips of your own at the end of this article.