Category: Photography Tips & Tricks

Tips for shooting a children’s birthday party

By John Watson
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As a father of two, I’ve shot my share of birthdays. My own kids’, sure, but also plenty of others on the never ending “birthday circuit.” You parents know what I’m talking about… My kids have more friends and have been invited to more birthday parties in six years than I’ve ever been to in my entire life. When I’m shooting a birthday, for myself or someone else, 90% of the photos are candid. I’ll do one or two posed group shots but candids are the truest way to capture the excitement and emotion of children at play.

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A solution for perfect group photos

By John Watson
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Microsoft Research Group ShotNext Saturday I’m going to be doing about 30 group portraits with two to three poses each. And if you’ve ever taken a group photograph, you know how frustrating it can be trying to get everyone looking the same way at the same time, not blinking, or generally not looking goofy.

If the group is paying attention it might only take two or three shots to get everyone synchronized. Fortunately for me, this is a dance studio so I’m not going to be dealing with inebriated party-goers. On the other hand, many of them are children. So what happens after the shoot when I find one or two photos where I didn’t notice someone blinking?

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Learning composition: foreground, middleground, background

By John Watson
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In traditional landscape photography (or cityscape or seascape), photographers combine wide angle lenses with small apertures to achieve sharpness throughout an entire scene from the foreground to the background. This is in direct contrast to, say, portrait photography where the background is intentionally blurred. When looking at a photograph, the eye naturally goes to foreground elements and wants to rest on whatever is in focus. That works out perfectly for portraits where you usually want the focus on the eyes of your subject. The blurred background and in-focus foreground are strong compositional elements that focus attention where you want it. But in a photograph with everything in focus, you can’t rely on a single focus point to hold the viewer’s attention.

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Learning composition: Leading the eye

By John Watson
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Photo Friday is a weekly photography competition where everyone votes and the six entries with the most votes are chosen as “Noteworthy.” I’ve written about leading the eye into a scene before but I thought last week’s competition, The Road, illustrated the point very nicely. Of the six noteworthy photos, five of them were landscape photographs that used a road as a strong compositional element to lead the eye through the photo to other interesting elements in the scene. Four of those used an uncluttered, s-curve type road. People seem to have a natural attraction to meandering curves in a scene.

Here are the photos:

The Open Road
Final solitude (before the beginning)
The road
Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore…
Road to heaven

And the sixth? A great photo that got through on sheer power of personality: Euphoria.

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The amazing Bogen Super Clamp

By John Watson
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Bogen Super ClampThe Bogen Super Clamp (Bogen Imaging) is a neat little piece of hardware. This simple looking device can attach itself solidly to almost any object with a width between 0.5 and 2.1 inches (1.3-5.3 cm). That includes shelves, tripod legs, light stands, doors, poles, fences, tree branches—or in my case, the neck of my daughter’s two-wheeled scooter. That’s right, Photodoto’s new unofficial slogan is, “Doing nutty stuff with expensive camera equipment so you don’t have to.”

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Psst! Want to know a secret? The best photographers make bad photographs, too.

By John Watson
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Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop. — Ansel Adams

Not all of the time, of course. And as you get better, your ratio of good to bad shots goes up. But no matter how good you get, you will still make a lot of bad photographs. The secret, the reason some photographers never seem to take a bad photograph, is simple: they only show the good ones. Self-editing is a simple concept but it takes discipline to do it. Many people, myself included, become attached to photographs as soon as the shutter is pressed. There was a time when I was saving every single photograph I took, even the ones that were out of focus. I look back on those now and wonder what I was thinking. Most of them have no value to me now.

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Shooting a live event: an exercise in positioning and timing

By John Watson
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I attended the Aloha Expo in Sante Fe Springs, California. Great food, music, entertainment—and events like these are fantastic photo opportunities. Shooting a live performance outdoors can be a lot of fun. Here are some tips to help you get the best photos possible.

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10 more ways to tell if you’re a photographer

By John Watson
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Expanding on the original post, here are 10 more ways to tell if you’re a photographer:

  • One of your primary criteria when buying a new cell phone is how good the camera is.
  • You love the smell of fixer in the morning.
  • You’ve made more than 50 shots of a single subject.
  • When you can’t find a model, you make self portraits.
  • You’ve endured a little loneliness for the sake of a photograph.
  • There’s a photo that inspires you to try and make one just as moving.
  • Tourists ask you to take their picture.
  • You were insufferable for the two weeks it took to get your camera back from repair.
  • You seem to find great photo opportunities whenever you leave your camera at home.
  • The garbage needs taking out, the house is a mess, and your car is filthy… but the glass on your favorite lens doesn’t have a speck of dust on it.

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Quick photography hack: Softening your built-in flash

By John Watson
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An external flash unit with an adjustable head is a great addition to any photography kit. With it you can bounce the light off the ceiling or a wall nearby or even use it off the camera to soften and change the light and reduce red eye. But compact camera owners are usually stuck with the built-in flash which is fixed in position next to the lens. Here’s a quick tip to help soften that built-in flash: try holding a piece of semi-transparent paper or white plastic (like from a milk jug) in front of the flash. It will act as a makeshift diffuser and help soften the light hitting your subject.

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