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John Watson is the original founder of Photodoto. If you're interested in what John has been up to, you can browse his personal blog.

How to find out who is blogging your photos

By John Watson
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One of the facts of life on the internet is that if you put something online, publicly, that is in the least bit interesting, someone is eventually going to link to it. This rule applies to everything, including photographs. [If that bothers you, well, you have one option: don’t put your photos online in a public location.] It would be nice if everyone who linked to one of your photographs told you about it, but that doesn’t happen too often. So, how do you know when someone links to one of your photos? Read on to find out.

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How do you get good portrait lighting indoors?

By John Watson
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Lighting is obviously an essential element of photography. Making photos, after all, is about catching those stray photons that bounce off of the world in a creative way.

Getting good lighting can be tough in any situation but indoor lighting can be especially tricky. Normal indoor light levels are fine for eyeballs but are usually pretty low for a camera. So what’s an indoor shutterbug to do?

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Learning composition: simplify, simplify, simplify

By John Watson
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What’s really important is to simplify. The work of most photographers would be improved immensely if they could do one thing: get rid of the extraneous. If you strive for simplicity, you are more likely to reach the viewer. — William Albert Allard, National Geographic

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
— Albert Einstein, Smart Guy

Like a cluttered room in a house or an overstuffed closet, a photo with too much random stuff can make it difficult for a viewer to find the subject. How many times have you taken a photograph of something only to have something else completely unrelated (and unwanted) in the frame like a car or a telephone pole? This isn’t to say that all photos should be minimalist affairs with a single subject and a plain background ala Apple Macintosh ads. But you should strive to only include elements in a photo that add something to it rather than serve as distractions. One way to do this is to simplify your compositions.

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Abstract photography: something a little different

By John Watson
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Many of you probably bought a camera with the intention of documenting something. Documenting the world around us is common among photographers—and wonderful! please keep it up!—whether it is a beautiful landscape, a family portrait, or a hectic street scene.

But there’s another kind of photography full of blurry lines, swirling colors, and indefinite forms that I encourage everyone to try your hand at.

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Kodak knows how old you are

By John Watson
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I don’t normally cover news items but I thought this one was particularly interesting. Kodak has a patent on a technology that can determine a person’s age by measuring the red-eye in a photograph. Finally, a use for red-eye other than making people look like demons. Just think, in the future, instead of asking people how old they are, businesses of all kinds may just flash you in the face with a camera. A possible use outlined in Kodak’s patent is to be able to sell people age-appropriate advertising with their photo prints. [via DailyTech]

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Did you know? Cameras are made for right-handed people.

By John Watson
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Right-handed people like myself may have never even thought about what it’s like for a left-handed person to use a camera. But look around. When was the last time you saw a camera with the shutter button on the left? Most of the controls are on the right side. Think about what it would be like. Imagine cradling the camera and lens with the other hand. It’s awkward just to think about it. And yet, for left-handed folks, it’s a fact of life.

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Clearing up depth of field

By John Watson
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There seems to be a lot of confusion among beginners and experienced photographers alike about what “depth of field” really is. Most people seem to know it has something to do with focus. But beyond that, it seems like a bit of a magical beast. Like most photography concepts, this one is pretty simple to understand. Read on and we’ll demystify this important subject.

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Book review: How to Use Flickr, The Digital Photography Revolution by Richard Giles

By John Watson
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How to Use FlickrFrom the outside, Flickr may appear to be a simple photo-sharing site. But new members are often quickly overwhelmed by the vastness of it and there are hundreds of features and hidden gems that are sometimes only discovered after weeks or months of poking around. Flickr itself doesn’t have much in the way of a user manual, preferring instead to let people learn how to use the service by providing an elegant and self-explaining user interface and through group discussions. Attempting to bridge the gap, How to Use Flickr by Richard Giles is both a reference and a how-to guide for using Flickr. It’s also something of a tour-guide, explaining Flickr’s origins and revealing, through interviews and stories, a bit about Flickr’s diverse culture.

Disclosure: I am mentioned in this book several times and it features my Flickr Toys collection but I don’t make any money from its sale and I bought my own review copy.

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10 ways to tell if you’re a photographer

By John Watson
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Does this sound like anyone you know?

  • 1 GB of memory lasts most people a month but barely lasts you the afternoon.
  • You know what aperture-priority means.
  • You delete more photos in a week than most people make all year.
  • You need just one more lens.
  • You’ve crawled on the ground to get a shot of something rusty.
  • Your camera equipment is worth more than your car.
  • No one else brings a camera to an event if they know you’re coming.
  • Your family doesn’t recognize you without a camera covering your face.
  • You have thousands of pictures and you’re not in any of them.
  • You’ve been up before dawn or out in the freezing cold or even done something semi-dangerous… all for a photograph.

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Make a pinhole camera for Worldwide Pinhole Photography day

By John Watson
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Trying your hand at pinhole photography is easy and can be a lot of fun. Pinhole cameras pre-date autofocus and megapixels. They hearken back to a simpler time when a camera was literally just a box with film in the back. Photos made with pinhole cameras exude a fuzzy, low-fi charm that’s hard to resist. That said, it’s not for everyone, but I hope you’ll give it a try. If you’re anything like me, you’ll feel a little magic happening when you see that first photo. It’s sort of like stepping back in time. Have I convinced you? Do you have 30 minutes to spare? Read on to find out how to get started.

… Continue reading Make a pinhole camera for Worldwide Pinhole Photography day

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