How to make Travel Photos, while being at home?

Do you want to go on a journey?

But one without all the problems like a jetlag?

But also one in which you still have the travel "feeling"?

Well, than you're at the right blog!

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We're photographers, right?

If I go to another country, I take many photos.

And I bet you do that too.

I guess that must be something in the human nature,

to want to have something to remember them to their fun on their vacation.

All people, not only the photographer-like-ones, take photos when they're on a vacation.

Well, unless they're staying in a all-in hotel and don't do anything except for eating ice cream. 

Those who aren't photographer-like-ones usually only take pictures at places or with people they think are worth to be remembered (most of the time these places are worth to remembered).

This is something they do so when they are back home, 

they will think about that wonderful day and feel the vacation-vibe.

But there is something else many people take with them to remember their vacation except for photos and thoughts.

Something very simple, yet so attractive to buy that I had to buy a extra suitcase to store it.

Souvenirs.
You know, those little plastic things that you put on a shelf but never look at?
Well, dust them of 'cause we're going to use these things to take Travel Photos!

How to make beautiful Travel Pictures of dusty plastic souvenirs.

Before we will start at all, you have to do some preparation:

1. Get your camera (and lens etc.)
2. Get some souvenirs 
3. Get some tissues to dust the souvenirs of
4. Get some water (if you get thirsty, this is better than coke)

Okay, have you got everything ready?

Than let's get started!

What to do?

I'm going to divide this post in two parts:

• How to set up the scene.
• How to photograph it.

And both will be in this post, so prepare for some pretty lengthy stuff.

How to set up the scene.

This is the most fun part of the post.

Think about the vacantion where you got the souvenirs from.

Think about the vibe back there.

About the sounds, the smells.

Do you already feel like you are back at your vacation spot?

That's excatly what I thought!

Now, what souvenir reminds you the most of that vibe?

Of the smells and sounds.

Okay, picture the scene back there.

Where could you fit in the souvenir.

Like where did you see it, for example:

• A shell at the beach
• Chinese lions in front of a temple
• A stone in the mountains (odd example, I know.)
• A mini Eifel tower in Paris
• A mini tower of Pisa, in Pisa of course

So, you've got an idea?

Good, get yourself a big sheet of cardboard.

Set up your scene and your ready to go.

Now you've got the "components" of the scene, it's time to create the vibe.

Ask yourself: "What's missing".

What made that moment unforgetable?

Was it the smell?

The temprature?

The sounds?

Or maybe a combination of all?

So the thing is: "How to you capture a sound or a smell (or both) in a picture?"

I will give you a example:

A few years ago, I was in china. When I entered a (random) temple there were a few thing I still remember today. It was crowded, hot and smokey. So how I'm going to capture this in a picture using a couple of porcelain Chinese dragon-lion-like-things, a roll of tape, cardboard, sand and post production. First: (I don't know for sure) there was a moongate, like the door of a Hobbit hole. Make this out of the roll of tape, and make the walls out of taped paper. Then put it on a sheet of paper coverd in small grain sand. Put the lions in front of it. And when you take the photo, hold a green sheet of paper behind the doors to make the post prodution easier. Play with the lighting to give it a midday look.

Isn't that a good example?
I already mentioned "taking a photo" so here we go to the second part of the post:

How to photograph it. 

This is a quite important part.

Since the picture must reflect the vibe there,

it musn't look to tiny-sized.

So try to keep your aperture value as high as possible.

And your ISO as low as possible (I always try this, just esthetics....)

As mentioned earlier, you should play with the lighting to imitate the time of the day.

Also play with the colour of it, by holding a coloured sheet of paper in front of the lamp.

Or take the picture using real daylight, at the right time of the day.

For my this is a problem , because in the Netherlands we still have a bit of snow.

And always those darn clouds.

Make sure there isn't any shadow on the scene, because that would look very unreal.

Like there was some kind of giant there.

Oh, that's also a great idea:

A photo series about some kind of pet or object in a miniture scene.

I will post something about that later.
Well, this piece is quite short isn't?
Let us continue to the next part (Bonus!):

How to do the post production.

So, what do we have?

We have a photo of a empty scene without a background.

It looks like it was taken there, and then.

Okay, I had three points which I clearly remembered from there:

1. It was hot
2. It was smokey
3. It was crowded

In the photo I already coverd point one, the hot point.

Just by making it look like it was taken at a hot time of the day.

You could make this even better bij adding a slight heat distortion effect.

But then I had point two and three left.

So, how to solve these?

Well, that's where post production comes in!

To make it look smokey, just add a layer of smoke.

Add a new layer and paint some smoke one it.

You can "copy" a photo of smoke.

Somebody else would explain a way to do this better, but if you want just search google.

For the crowded point, you will have to paste in some people.

If you've got some miniature people, you could put these in the scene since that's easier.

If you've got some miniature soldiers, like my dad, you can put these in too.

You can, later on, just change the look of them.

And finally the background.

The actual temple.

Just delete the green screen so you've got a transparant area in your picture.

Then make a layer with (only) the temple.

And for the sky, just make another layer with a photo of a sky.

You'll just have to make all the exposures fit and you're ready!

But remember:

The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearence of things, but their inward significance. 

What Aristotel was trying to say, is that you shouldn't capture what you see, but what you feel in a picture. Make the picture tell what you felt, not what you saw.

Mel

P.S.

Please comment, so I know what to improve.

I ain't got no program to edit the photos right now.
Next week the photos of this and next week will come at the same time.
Stay tuned!

How to photograph: candles!

Think about a sunset.

And a cake.

And add some cosiness to both.

Now combine these two (or three, it’s what you like!), what do you get now?

Exactly, a burning candle!

·         The colour of the light which a burning candle emits looks just like that of sunset.

·         You put a candle on cake, something what I immediately thought about.

·         And when all the lights are down and the only light is coming from a candle it feels either cosy or romantic.

This said, I’m going to divide this post in two parts:

·       How to take photos with the light of a candle (the subject of this particular post)

·       How to take photos of a candle (the subject of a post which I’ll post later this year)

Well, have a great time reading.

I hope you’ll learn something from it.

I didn't have candles, or knew where to buy them. I'm very sorry....

How to take photos with the light of a candle as light.

Attention: it must be as dark as possible in the room whilst you are taking candle light photos.

While this actually seems pretty logical, I forgot to dim the lights while taking the first photo a year or so ago.

Ad some extra candles

A candle doesn’t emit that much light, so I advise you to put some extra candles nearby.

If your “main” candle is on the right of the subject than put the other candles on the right too.

If you don’t, you’ll get almost no shadows.

Which is one of the things what makes candle light photography so beautiful, the shadow.

You see, you cannot accomplish the same shadows without a candle.

I think that candle light shadows are the best for two reasons:

·       They are very visible (They are very dark!)

·       They have/show a nice contrast between them and the sunset colour of the candle light

In my opinion, the only way to accomplish this is by putting in some extra candles.

No flash!

Okay, I said earlier that one of the beauties of candle light photography is the …… candle light.

So why would you ruin this by adding in some rather cold and sometimes ugly flash light.

If you’re a “master” of flash photography than I’m sure you could make some pretty photos with a flash.

Those won’t even look cold I suppose.

But for those of you who haven’t got some type of expansive flashes, please don’t use the flash of your camera!

If you insist on using the flash, you can hold a brown/orange sheet of paper in front of it so the light will be a bit “warmer”

Quite nice isn't it!

Make sure you “see” the candle!

Candle light is beautiful, as I told you already.

But it is even nicer when you include the candle in the photo.

I know that you could make some beautiful photos without including the candle.

At least candle light pictures are a lot more beautiful when it’s clear that a candle is used to light the photo.

There are other ways to do this except for just plainly showing it.

But that’s where your creativity comes in!

Just take a photo, and look at it.

Do you think it’s necessary to include the candle?

Than include it!

If you think it can stay out of the picture than keep it out!

A pretty good compromise is to keep the candles in the background.

As some beautiful bokeh.

This is (simply said) done by setting the aperture to a low value, so the background will be blurred.

This way you also can add like a halo around an object or person.

But than a halo made from distant candles, quite funny I think!

Some lawn near my place, kinda cool I think!

Keep the white balance in mind!

The light is beautiful, but it has a very specific colour.

If you don’t mind the white balance, than it will just look … well …. ugly!

So set your white balance on auto, or just experiment.

Some technical stuff.

So you’ve got the composition?

You’ve got enough light?

Well then head to the technical part!

There are a few things to remember when making candle light photos:

·       Iso

·       Aperture (bokeh)

·       White balance

·       Shutter speed

Set the Iso as low as possible.

For some of you it will feel unnatural, because it’s a rather dark scene.

But I think you should always keep the Iso as low as possible, since high Iso values produce lots of noise.

Then the aperture.

It’s nice to have some bokeh from the candles, if it fits in the composition.

But most of the time you want to show the environment.

Candles have an aura you know.

They represent and are surrounded by romantics but also by cosiness.

It’s nice to show this.

And that’s why you’ll mostly have a large aperture when you make candle light photos.

To show the “aura”

I told you already about the white balance.

Oh yeah, shutter speed.

Since there isn’t so much light coming in, you’ll need a slow shutter speed and a tripod to make good photos.

So make sure the shutter speed is set on a low value.

Remember:

“Keep the aura in mind, do the technical stuff and make decisions. That’s what makes a great candle light photo!”

Mel

P.S.

The next post is about how to take pictures of photos, so subscribe to the mail list to be notified!

Into the void!

Worth of nothingness!

Okay, let's try a simple experiment:

• First, pick a jar of something
• Second, remove the something
• Third, stick your hand in
• What do you feel?

Okay, you can answer two things: nothing or glass.

I won't say anything about the "glass" answer, but rather about the "nothing".

It's frustrating to feel nothing, isn't it?

Just like in my previous article, in photography it's conversely!

It can be very nice to look at some "negative space".

This means that in the photo there is some emptiness.

It "calms" down the picture, so it's the opposite of a aperture used for landscapes.

It makes you too calm down, maybe. (^_^)

Now, nothingness in photography, doesn't always mean litrally "nothing" or "empty".
It can also be a big white, or whatever colored space.
Even a great blurred space can be negative space.
Negative space is especcialy usefull if you are going to type something in this space.
It can also make your eye focus on the subject, which I belive is very important.

Look, your eye is drawn to the subject, not he surroundings.
So again, you can't achieve this effect with some fancy software.
Now, actually you can, but a gonna explain that later on.
It's done by just leaving things out of the photo.
This isn't difficult at all, but you can crate some nice photos with it!

So my tip:

"Not doing things is sometimes the best, just like not photographing some things. Just leave it out of the compositition, and your composition will be nicer! So: if you want a great photo, make a photo of one thing, not of many. Let the eye focus on one, let there be one too. It's the easiest to do it this way."

Mobile Tips

Your mobile phone is especially suited for this! 

Because your can reach spots with your phone, you can't with a camera.

Articles made for mobile phones will come, I promise!

Mel

PS

Sorry for the bad photos, my camera has a problem.

This are some older, bad, photos.

The art of focus!

You can't see everything!

Well, techniccaly you can. But that isn't important.

What matters is that if you show everything, it becomes a mess. 

A bit busy, sometimes that's good, but mostly it isn't.

If you wan't to show something to somebody, you point it out, don't you?

But if you wan't to show something to somebody over the internet, what do you do than?

I know the answer, I think!

You would open it in whatever photo-editing software you want and encircle it!

Now, you can't do that if you wan't a nice photo.

Ofcourse it looks creative and very modern, sometimes, but it isn't the classic way to do it.

You noticed I did something elso to focus your eye on the subject?

Did you? I know you did!

You saw that the background wasn't clear at all, heu!

You saw it was blurred!

That's how you focus someones eye, the classical way.

Now, you can accomplish this by focussing on the subject.

Autofocus or manual focus, it doesn't matter as long as the focus is on the subject.

The further you zoom in, the more blurred the background will be.

But that isn't the only way, again, to do it!

You can also change the f-stop.

If you choose a low f-stop number, the background will get very blurred.

If you choose a high f-stop number, everything will be clear. Great for landscapes!

With the change of the f-stop comes a couple of side effects, but I will explain how to fix those later on.

So:

"If you want to make a great photo, don't show the audience everything. Focus on one let there be many, as I said previous week. Only if it is on purpose, show a lot. I will tell you about that later on! Just focus on the subject and blur the rest. I know it is simple, but it wil make your photos (I think) a lot nicer! Please subscribe and let me know you're there."

Mobile Tips

If you're using a mobile phone to make the picture, than it's for most people the same as with a camera. But for those who can't set the f-stop/f-value: "you can focus on the object, and go close to accomplish the same effect. Also, if you can't set where you wanna focus: "go close and make your picture, I think that will work to"".

Mel

PS

Share this please, subscribe and comment please. I would really apriciate that! Sorry that I don't know how to write apriciate!

To repeat or not repeat....

Let's face it!

We all hate to do chores because these are so monotonous.

If something is monotonous, than you have to repeat something over and over again.

It's not very amusing to do that, but in photography it sort of is.

I don't mean it's amusing to take the exact same photo over and over again.

Neither to mount your lens on your camera over and over again.

To repeat something is never amusing.

The way it's used in photography, is by repeating an element in your photo.

For example a ordinary photo of the lamps in my house.

You see the lamp three times, which isn't very much.

Although it isn't very much, it makes the composition a bit nicer.

If there was only one lamp in the photo, then it wouldn't look this nice or creative.

I know this isn't the best photo of the world, but I think it is a good example of repition!

So here's my tip:

"If it's possible, search for repetition in the landscape or whatever you want to take a photo of.   But it can make or break a composition. So you have to focus on one of the objects which are in the picure because otherwise the viewer doesn't know were to look at. After all, there a so     many the same things in the photo. "

 Focus on one, let there be many!

Mel

PS

If it is to short or not enough in depth information, please comment so I know what to work on. Even if that's everything!

The First rule: The rule of thirds!

The First rule: The rule of thirds!

Photography is as much an art as it is a science so there are some rules.

Now, those rules are not made to be followed precise, but more as a guideline.

It's based on the principle of the golden ratio developed in the classical ages and the Renaissance.

It's mean't to express what's appealing to the human eye. Not only the human one by the way.

This is the reason it's embedded into many flowers and plants.

In the twentieth century, many artists and architects used the golden ratio. 

Especcialy in the form of the golden rectangles.

I think you're asking yourself right now: "what has the golden ratio to do with the rule of thirds?"

Well the rule of thirds is inspired and based on the golden ratio.

With help of this principle of the golden ratio, artists designed a grid.

Later on this was changed to the rule of thirds, wich is just a grid made up of nine squares or rectangles.

The use of this "thing" is to make pictures more intresting. 

But also to make sure that the horizon isn't the biggest part of the picture.

The main subject has to be on one of the intersections of the lines, to grab the viewers intrest.

If you're taking a picture, you haven't always got the grid to use.

This isn't much of a problem, because you don't have to place it exactly on the intersection.

Remeber: photography is also an art, not only a science.

It looks also nice when the horizon is on one of the two horizontal lines. 

This will make sure that it is level, or as I like to say: the water doesn't leak out of the picture.

If you're taking a picture of a landscape, I recomend you use the sky as the upper two thirds of the picture.

approxiametly the position of the lines!

Mobile tips!

If you're taking a picture with a phone, it's just the same.
If possible, set a grid on your phones camera interface.


This isn't the hard part yet of photograpy. Or the nicest!
But use it in your advantage!

Mel

Rules are there to be broken, so don't follow them blindly. Think!

Mel

PS

Sorry for the weird lines on the picture, I'm going to install something better than "paint"

Like photoshop or the Gimp.