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Thursday, February 5, 2009

Not so Secret Digital Photography Tricks

By Russell Roberds

Have you ever desired to improve your photo taking skill, yet did not know where to to start? Well, what if I told you that in just a few minutes, you could be using some fantastic digital photography tricks that will take your photos from okay to incredible!

If you are anything like me, you have thrown away a lot of time and some cases a lot of money taking photographs, that are, well, not that great. After several years (too many to reveal), I finally decided to do something about it. I read a couple of books, magazines and took a couple of classes to advance my digital photography skills. What I learned is that there are a tremendous amount of digital photography tricks that are so easy, I picked them up in nothing flat and discovered sensational results.

I will not pledge that you will be a superstar from these digital photography tricks, but you will identify results from your very first picture.

1. Fill the frame: One of the most basic digital photography tricks to grasp, but harder to put into practice. When you shoot a picture, how small is your subject in the view finder? When I look at old pictures I took, the subject invariably seemed to be tiny. Well, by filling the frame you highlight the object better. Also, whenever the subject takes up most or the entire frame, you are "removing" objects from the picture that might have appeared beside or around the subject. By getting rid of the "clutter", the viewer then focuses more on your subject. The practice that I now put to work is if you conclude you are close enough, your not. If you conclude you are too close, then you are probably the perfect distance, so take the picture.

2. Would you repeat that?: An easy to grasp digital photography trick is repetition. Repeating arrangements, colors or textures make fabulous photos! You can find many repeating patterns in nature. One way to enhance a pattern picture is to find a pattern and then an object that defies the pattern, like a carton full of red apples with one yellow one. The odd man out pulls the viewer's eye into the picture and moreover composes a contradiction.

3. One of the digital photography tricks used in many pictures is reflection: The earth is chock-full of reflective objects and faces; water, glass, chrome, waxed cars and mirrors to mention a few. They alter our natural awareness by twisting the original. Whenever you take a photo of the reflection rather than the original, it will engage increased interest to your photo.

4. Last yet not the least of the digital photography tricks is to construct a frame within the frame. I am not saying a photo frame, I am talking about generating a frame encompassing your principal object using objects in the area around your subject. One idea is to locate yourself on one side of a door frame and your subject on the opposite side. Shoot the photo so that the door frame is around the edges of the view finder. The picture will pull the viewers eye to the interior of the frame and to your subject. It may also construct extra depth in the photo.

These are a few of the simple techniques that skillful photographers put to use to attain those awesome photos in magazines, books and on the web. My desire is that you will employ these digital photography tricks to enhance your picture taking talent. Happy shooting and say cheese (make mine white American)

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