How to Photograph Children

Photographing children can sometimes be a challenging task, since children typically do not like posing for the camera (especially when they are too busy doing something they like). Everything happens way too fast, making it extremely difficult for the photographer to capture the moment. Because of that, many of us end up with blurry and out-of-focus photographs and wonder how we can improve our photography skills to get better results. After learning much about child photography, taking pictures of my two boys and doing some work on the field, I decided to write an article and provide tips and pointers on how you can successfully photograph children.

Powerful child portraits are much different than “look at the camera and smile” pictures. A true portrait will reflect a child’s personality, energy and uniqueness that every one of the bundle of joys have.

Malika Catching Rain

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Understanding Shutter Speed – A Beginner’s Guide

Shutter Speed is one of the three pillars of photography, the other two being ISO and Aperture. Shutter speed is where the other side of the magic happens – it is responsible for creating dramatic effects by either freezing action or blurring motion. In this article, I will try to explain everything I know about shutter speed in very simple language.

Dolphin - 1/1600 Shutter Speed

Dolphin - 1/1600 Shutter Speed

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Understanding Aperture – A Beginner’s Guide

Aperture is one of the three pillars of photography, the other two being ISO and Shutter Speed. Without a doubt, it is the most talked about subject, because aperture either adds a dimension to a photograph by blurring the background, or magically brings everything in focus. In this article, I will try to explain everything I know about aperture in very simple language.

American Robin

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What is Bokeh?

Bokeh, also known as “Boke” is one of the most popular subjects in photography. The reason why it is so popular, is because Bokeh makes photographs visually appealing, forcing us to focus our attention on a particular area of the image. The word comes from Japanese language, which literally translates as “blur”.

Bokeh

Bokeh

1) What is Bokeh?

Basically, bokeh is the quality of out-of-focus or “blurry” parts of the image rendered by a camera lens – it is NOT the blur itself or the amount of blur in the foreground or the background of a subject. The blur that you are so used to seeing in photography that separates a subject from the background is the result of shallow “depth of field” and is generally simply called “background blur”. The quality and feel of the background/foreground blur and reflected points of light, however, is what photographers call Bokeh. Confused yet? Take a look at the following image:

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Understanding ISO – A Beginner’s Guide

It is challenging to take good pictures without a good understanding of how ISO works and what it does. Camera ISO is one of the three pillars of photography (the other two being Aperture and Shutter Speed) and every photographer should thoroughly understand it, to get the most out of their equipment. Since this article is for beginners in photography, I will try to explain ISO as simple as I can.

Before we go any further, you should first understand how DSLR cameras work.

1) What is ISO?

In very basic terms, ISO is the level of sensitivity of your camera to available light. The lower the ISO number, the less sensitive it is to the light, while a higher ISO number increases the sensitivity of your camera. The component within your camera that can change sensitivity is called “image sensor” or simply “sensor”. It is the most important (and most expensive) part of a camera and it is responsible for gathering light and transforming it into an image. With increased sensitivity, your camera sensor can capture images in low-light environments without having to use a flash. But higher sensitivity comes at an expense – it adds grain or “noise” to the pictures.

Take a look at the following picture (click to open a larger version):

ISO 200 and ISO 3200 Comparison

ISO 200 and ISO 3200 Comparison

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How to remove EXIF Data

Now that I explained you what EXIF Data is and showed you how you can view EXIF on JPEG files, I will now show you how to remove EXIF Data completely or partially from JPEG files.

1) EXIF Data and XMP Data explained

There are multiple reasons why you might want to remove EXIF fully or partially from files:
a) You are posting an image to a low-bandwidth site and need to keep the file sizes to a minimum
b) You want to protect your work and photographic style
c) You want to remove unnecessary junk from JPEG files to keep the file smaller, yet need to retain important EXIF Data such as shutter speed, aperture and ISO.

I personally use the last reason to keep my files a little smaller and to make sure that unnecessary junk does not get written into my JPEG files.

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How to Photograph the Moon

If you own a DSLR or a point and shoot with an optical zoom, I’m sure that every once in a while you see a beautiful moon and you think about taking a picture of it, especially when the moon is full and beautiful. There are other times when you spot a news announcement about a Lunar Eclipse and you think about capturing the moment, but do not know how to do it right. Or you want to capture the moon together with a foreground object such as a house or a lone tree, but the picture is not coming out right because the moon is much smaller and looks like a white blob. If you had any of these situations or simply want to find out how to take a picture of the moon with a digital camera, then this guide is for you.

Waning Gibbous

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How to Photograph Textures

Texture Photography can sometimes be challenging, since composition, light and depth work differently than in, for example, landscape photography. In texture photography, it’s all about patterns, colors and depth, and every single detail of a texture plays a significant role in the overall perception of the photograph. The combination of these intricate details, interesting patterns, vibrant colors and a good depth – all contribute to a beautiful texture.

Texture Photography

Water and Stone Texture

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How to Take Good Pictures

One of the questions that I continuously get from some of my friends and blog readers that just got into photography is “How can I take good pictures with what I have, without spending too much money on new cameras and lenses?”. Ever since DSLRs became more affordable and people started buying entry-level DSLRs, there has been a great interest in photography from the general public. One big obstacle everybody runs against at one point or another, is the fact that when most professional photographers show the equipment they used to make great-looking images, it creates an impression that only expensive gear can produce great photographs. What happens from there, really boils down to the wallet and how serious a person wants to get into photography – some start buying expensive gear and thinking it will help them to take good pictures and improve their photography, while others hold off and just keep their DSLRs as “point and shoots”, realizing that they can’t do any better with what they have.

If you do not have a DSLR camera yet and need some help on purchasing it, I recommend reading my article on how to buy a DSLR camera.

Double Rainbow

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How to use a Polarizing Filter

A polarizing filter is one of the most essential tools in a landscape photographer’s bag. It is typically the first filter landscape photographers buy to instantly improve their pictures and and add vividness and contrast to them. If you do not already have a polarizing filter, I highly recommend getting one for your landscape photography.

A lot of people ask me how I get the sky in my images to be so blue. While I must admit that there are many variables involved in making the sky look natural, a polarizing filter can actually make the sky look more dramatic, once you learn how to use it properly. Basically, a polarizer can reduce reflections from objects such as water and glass and can be used to darken the sky and bring out the clouds, making the scene look much more vivid. It can also help reduce haze. For all normal lenses that have a filter thread in the front, you can get a circular polarizing filter, also known as a “circular polarizer”. A circular polarizer is very easy to use and once you attach it on the front of your lens, all you need to do is rotate it clockwise or counter-clockwise to get a different amount of polarization. Polarizing filters work by blocking certain light waves from entering the lens. Rotating a polarizer allows certain types of light waves to pass through, while blocking other ranges of light waves. Thus, you could turn a sky from light blue to very dark blue or increase/decrease reflections by simply rotating the filter.

Arches National Park

Arches National Park (shot with a circular polarizer)

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