Take a subject and make it art

A good portion of our pictures are good enough for our memories, but they really aren't art.

How can we change our very good pictures into photographic works of art?

One thing I like to urge my students is simply to look for another view. Change your position, change your perspective, change your lens. Play with focus tricks, make certain lighting issues stand out. Get close, get low, zoom out, pan over ...

Suppose you like birds. Ducks and geese tend to make pretty good subjects since they don't get scared and usually don't move too quickly.

In this pic, I was limited where I could move, so I zoomed in.

By zooming in tighter, I'm able to isolate the geese from the park surroundings. This also accentuates the colours in the water. Still a picture of a group of birds, but it's closer to art than a snapshot is.

Next, I play with some lighting effects.

 

I moved my position, got to a place where I could see the sun reflecting off the pond's little chops. Paid off by getting a photo of these geese in a lovely setting.

Next, I place myself where I wanted to be for one part of the photo and then WAITED for the other part I wanted to come into my area. Turned out fairly nice. Still a picture of waterfowl, but it evokes a feeling of abstract art.

So, what really makes a picture turn into a piece of photographic art? Hard to say. Also, it's different for each person. But, it's safe to say that we will rarely ever simply snap a shot that could be seen as art if we don't do a little something extra ourselves. 

Train your eye by looking at things in different ways. Train your eye by visualizing what end result you want and then use your camera and technical knowledge to make that visualization become an image file on your memory card.

More Tricks - Panorama

One of the great things about shooting digital is all the after the fact edits we can do with image processing software. We used to spend hours in the darkroom making end results that really hardly hold a candle to what even the simplest of image processing programs can do.

Which program should you buy? Again, my answer will be: It depends on you. I have four from four different companies. I like them all and each one has a special thing in it that the other three don't.

Here's what I did in about 3 1/2 minutes with one. Making a panorama.

Take these three (or more) pics:

Stitch them together, crop out the artifacts the program left over, and you end up with this:

 

It's best if you use a tripod. Also, make sure you have enough overlap in each image. Most programs that are capable of panorama need about 1/5th to 1/3rd of the image to overlap. And, even with the most careful tripod use and exacting lining up of overlaps, you will still have some raw image artifacts to crop out. The next issue may be finding somewhere capable of printing the large image. Or, you can just use them in digital form, as a desktop or part of a slideshow.

Again, practice around your home town before trying it on vacation. Then, you'll be familiar and comfortable with the process.

Moon Phase Calculator

Based on all the interest in my Moon (Earth's natural satellite) pic post, I thought I would share with you some tools I use to get Moon and night sky shots.

A Moon phase calculator.

Sky & Telescope's interactive sky chart. (registration required)

Astronomy viewing conditions from Accuweather

Pics from tonight's storm

Shoot the moon!

Taken tonight from outside my backdoor.

Many photographers have an aversion to astrophotography because they think it's hard. Some of it is. I have minutes long exposures of star fields taken with a tracking set up piggy backed on my telescope. Lots of work goes into that. Before, during, and after the exposure.

But some subjects are surprisingly easy to image. Take the Moon, Earth's satellite. Long exposures with sophisticated tracking mounts are not needed. Just a good telephoto lens. 300mm will do nicely. 500mm does very well. If you have a shorter lens (like the 200mm this pic was done with), you can crop in the finishing program (ACDSee, Photoshop, etc...). 

Shoot in RAW, to maximize the image file. The exposure is the really easy part. Set your camera for full manual. For a full Moon, use the Sunny 16 Rule. The Moon is, after all, a subject lit by direct sunlight (think about that). So at an ISO of 400, the starting exposure would be 1/400th at f/16. Bracket up and down a couple of stops. For not quite full Moons, adjust your exposure for more light. This photo was 1/200th at f/8. I used a monopod to help steady.

Don't take my word for it, go try it yourself!