Category: Photography Page 14 of 24

We’ve all got those friends who dabble in photography – the ones whose services are often called upon for taking the big group shots, or for capturing extra photos at weddings, christenings, and bar mitzvahs.

Amateur photographers can be incredibly talented, and after all, you’ve got to be an amateur before you can be a professional, right? Lots of people end up hiring amateurs for everything from family portraits, to newborn photo sessions.

While there’s nothing wrong with asking a photography-savvy friend to do a family portrait session, professionals can offer certain things that amateurs just may not be able to.

Here are a few reasons why hiring a professional photographer for your family photo shoot might be the right choice.

You know you’ll get what you want

When you’re paying a professional photographer, they’re working for you – you don’t have to worry about taking up too much of their time, requesting changes of location or style, or wanting to experiment with lots of different compositions or poses.

With a friend, you can easily start to feel that you’re being too demanding, or making the shoot inconvenient for them. That can be true even if your friend is more than willing to offer their time and services.

Now, of course one must always be kind and respectful of a photographer’s time, whether that photographer is a pro or not. However, since hiring a photographer often includes a set number of hours, it’s generally easier to set limits.

A pro will use more sophisticated camera equipment, letting them capture a wider variety of shots

Unless your amateur friend is also a collector of expensive, advanced camera equipment, it’s almost certain that a pro will have better photographic equipment.

It may not seem like it, but light meters, remote flashes, lighting umbrellas, and special lenses can make a world of difference when it comes to portraits. Lenses, in particular, can allow your photographer to capture different formats, like wide-angle and panorama shots. These can add an element of uniqueness to your portrait session.

Not only can a pro take better shots, they can edit them more effectively, too

Your photographer’s work doesn’t end once your session is complete and you and your family have headed back home.

On the contrary, now your photographer must go through the challenging work of culling through the hundreds of images he or she took to find the best ones.

Then those images have to go through an editing process – and if you’ve ever worked in a photo editing program before, you know how time-consuming editing photographs can be.

Professionals are great at directing their subjects, including children

Perhaps one of the most overlooked reasons that hiring a professional photographer can be a smart move for your family photo shoot is that pros know how to direct people.

Think about the last time you tried to get your entire family to sit still together, while dressed nicely and looking happy. It’s not that easy. Pros, on the other hand, are used to getting everyone’s attention, telling them what to do next, and keeping the session moving along. They’re also good at helping everyone get comfortable in front of the camera.

If you’ve got very young children or babies, you may want to consider searching for a photographer who specializes in working with kids.

As any parent knows all too well, getting a child to smile or laugh, especially in front of a camera isn’t always easy. A great child photographer will know how to draw your child out and get the best possible images.

When thinking about doing a family portrait session, it can really pay off to hire a professional, rather than rely on a friend or family member. It may cost more up front, but what you get in return will be more than worth it.

Once you’ve got your portraits, naturally you’ll want to display them. Get some ideas on how by reading our post “6 Fun Ways to Integrate Family Photos into Your Home Decor.”

Beatrice Bisais

Bea is Nixplay’s Social Media Manager. She enjoys drinking coffee, reading about wars, and writing stories. Send her a message at beatrice.bisais@nixplay.com.

Landscape photography can be a tricky thing to master. Unlike portraits, there’s often not a clear point of focus that you can train your lens on. Much is left to the photographer’s discretion, which can be freeing, but also challenging.

To help you develop your own landscape photography, here are a few tips from the pros.

Try to shoot during the golden hours

The golden hours – the hour just after sunrise and the hour just before sunrise – are coveted among all kinds of photographers (filmmakers too), but landscape photographers in particular take their best shots during these times of day.

It requires a good deal of planning, of course, to be on location just after sunrise, so make sure you map out where you want to shoot the day before. If you can catch this magical time, your photos will be suffused with a warm, golden light that can make even the most mundane landscape look almost otherworldly.

Keep an eye on the weather

It goes without saying that the weather has a huge effect on outdoor photography. And we’re not just talking about rain or snow.

Sunny days can be good if you want a lot of light and you know how to keep your photos from being overexposed. However, remember that high noon is rarely a good time to shoot, as subjects – even inanimate ones – tend to look best when the light is hitting them from the side, rather than directly above.

Slightly overcast days can also make for great outdoor photography days. A softer light can give your photos a moody quality, perfect for shooting remote or barren locations.

Scope out your position beforehand

While it’s certainly possible to get a great landscape photo just by showing up at a beautiful spot and taking out your camera, you’re a lot more likely to get a high-quality photo if you scope the area out beforehand.

Take some time to walk around the area you want to shoot, keeping an eye out for the best perspectives. Often, it’s tempting to simply stop at the designated “photo spots” or lookouts and shoot from there. But remember – that’s the exact same photograph that everyone else is taking.

To keep your images unique, look for views off the beaten path and find the ones that speak to you.

Incorporate a focal point

Even though landscape photos can work without a specific focal point, in general it’s a good rule to include one. Focal points help give your viewers a place to fasten their eye, which generally means that they’ll keep looking at your photo for longer.

A focal point could be anything in landscape photography – a flower, a rock or outcropping, an animal, a person, or a building. Make sure you think about where you place that focal point, using the Rule of Thirds to create the best composition.

Maximize your depth of field

Maximizing your depth of field means that your entire shot, back to front, will be in focus. This is the standard approach for landscape photographs, because it’s generally most pleasing to the eye.

To do this, you want to choose a small aperture and focus about one-third into the shot. This will ensure you get a sharp focus throughout the entire picture.

Use a tripod

Using a tripod is a good idea no matter what kind of photo you’re taking, but especially in landscape photos, which can necessitate slower shutter speeds and therefore suffer from even the most microscopic of shakes.

If you shoot outside often, you may want to invest in a lightweight tripod. That’ll make a big difference when you’re lugging your equipment up trails and along beaches.

Shooting landscape photographs requires some different techniques than portraits or action photography. But with a little practice, you can begin taking beautiful landscape photos, too. Then make sure to share them with friends and famliy via your Nixplay WiFi Cloud Frame.

Beatrice Bisais

Bea is Nixplay’s Social Media Manager. She enjoys drinking coffee, reading about wars, and writing stories. Send her a message at beatrice.bisais@nixplay.com.

For whatever reason, when many of us travel, we find ourselves automatically taking standard, posed – dare we say boring – photographs.

Even those of us who are fairly adventurous with our day-to-day snapshots can fall into the trap of taking images that do little more than offer proof that “We were there.”

That’s an important part of taking travel photos, of course – deep down, we all want to be able to prove to ourselves that we took that exciting trip.

But if you’re someone who likes sharing your photos with friends and family, whether through social media, during family get-togethers, or on your Nixplay WiFi Cloud digital frame, then you may want to liven things up a little bit.

These tips will help you take those vacation photos to another, more exciting, level.

Skip the poses – most of the time.

Now, there are some landmarks that just beg for posed pictures of you and your family. The Taj Mahal, the Eiffel Tower, the Grand Canyon, Stonehenge – there’s nothing wrong with gathering your travel companions together and getting a shot of all of you smiling at the camera in front of these iconic locations. In fact, if you don’t do that, you’ll likely end up wishing you had!

But during the rest of your trip, consider focusing more on capturing the natural, candid moments that occur. Doing this will not only make for more interesting photos. It will also let you better capture how the trip actually felt, and how you spent your days.

Include people in your shots.

While photos of beautiful scenery have a certain appeal, they’re not a very interesting way to illustrate your recent vacation.

Shots that include people, on the other hand, give your viewers a place to anchor their eyes – especially if they’re people from your group. So instead of taking a picture just of that waterfall, try taking a candid shot of your son or daughter looking at the waterfall, or pointing out one of its incredible features.

Of course, you don’t have to take photos of only the people in your group. Including images of local people will give your photos a real sense of place.

Take decent selfies.

However you may feel about selfies, they’ve become a quintessential way to document the places we go.

When it comes to travel selfies, a good rule of thumb is to try to include as much background as possible. After all, you’re in a new, beautiful place – why not let it shine through in your selfies, as well as in the other photos you take?

An effective way to accomplish this is to place yourself off to the side, so that the setting you’re in is still visible. Some people opt for placing themselves low in the frame, but that usually doesn’t capture very flattering images.

Include identifying markers – signs, landmarks, etc. – to remind yourself of where you took the photo.

While you can always turn on the geotagging feature on your smartphone camera so you know where you took each photo, a less technological approach is to include something in the picture that will remind you of where you were and what you were doing.

Did you catch an amazing sunrise while drinking coffee at a charming beach cafe? Try including your coffee mug, or the cafe’s awning, in your shot so you remember which sunrise you were looking at.

Did you see a gorgeous vista while driving on the Blue Ridge Parkway? Make sure you include that rustic mile marker sign, or that highly distinguishable mountain peak in your photo, too.

Taking great travel photographs is an art, and we don’t always get it right. The good news? You can always go back and make your photos a bit better with some subtle photo editing. Read our post “How to Make Your Smartphone Photos Look (Almost) Professional” for tips!

Beatrice Bisais

Bea is Nixplay’s Social Media Manager. She enjoys drinking coffee, reading about wars, and writing stories. Send her a message at beatrice.bisais@nixplay.com.

If you’re an amateur photographer, or even an intermediate photographer, chances are you’ve debated whether or not to spend your hard-earned money on a fancy piece of photography equipment.

There’s so much equipment out there, of so many different kinds, that photography can quickly become an expensive hobby.

But it doesn’t necessarily have to be that way. If you really want to up your photography game without breaking the bank, it makes sense to invest in a few select pieces of simple equipment.

Tripod

The tripod is a must for anyone who wants to take more than the occasional snapshot. Why? Because a tripod is the only way you’ll be able to get clear images if you need to use a slower shutter speed.

Like any piece of photography equipment, tripods can get pretty pricey – up to $1,000 for carbon-fiber legs and unsurpassed ergonomics – but you can also pay just $20 for a tripod that’ll do the trick. All it really has to do is hold your camera still, after all.

External flash

Even though you may not need it terribly often, an external flash is a good investment for beginning photographers.

External flashes allow you to position the device where it will create the softest, most attractive lighting – which is often a different spot from where your camera is.

You can find external flashes for as little as $100.

Lenses

A great lens is one of the quickest and easiest ways to drastically improve your photography. In fact, we might go so far as to call it a must-buy.

The first lens you may want to buy, if you’re not ready to spend a huge amount, is a prime lens. These lenses offer a fixed focal length – or, in other words, they don’t zoom. While this is slightly less convenient than a lens that can zoom to various lengths, prime lenses offer distinctly better visual clarity than zoom lenses do.

Another good starter lens is a wide-angle to telephoto lens. There’s a bit of a learning curve to wide-angle lenses, as they can be difficult to use, but they are a wonderful tool for emphasizing depth in your images.

You can get a decent wide-angle lens for about $130.

A white background

If you’re taking photos of small items, food, or products – for a blog or an Etsy listing, for example – you absolutely need a white background.

You can either buy a white sweep, which is a piece of curved, seamless, white material made especially for photography, or you can create one out of items from around the house. A roll of white paper, the thinnest white mat board from a frame store, or even a sheet of white plastic table cover will work.

When you light your background properly, you’ll get the illusion of a shadow-free background. This will immediately give your photos more sharpness and clarity.

Lens cleaning equipment

A spray cleaner and microfiber cloths to clean your lenses are a must. They’re cheap, easy to find, and they’ll ensure that you don’t have any specks on your lens that will distort your image.

Another piece of cleaning equipment that’s worth getting is a Sensor Gel Stick, which is a little device that lets you safely pick up any dust that lands on your camera’s sensor.

Remote shutter release

These simple and inexpensive remotes let you snap photos remotely, so you can be where you need to be while shooting – even if that’s not behind the camera. You may want to get two – they’re very inexpensive, but also very easy to lose.

With these few pieces of equipment, you should be able to take your photography to the next level relatively easily. For more digital photography tips, check out our post “The 9 Greatest Websites for Learning Digital Photography.”

Beatrice Bisais

Bea is Nixplay’s Social Media Manager. She enjoys drinking coffee, reading about wars, and writing stories. Send her a message at beatrice.bisais@nixplay.com.