Announcer: Adorama TV presents Digital Photography One on One, where we answer your questions.
Here's your host, Mark Wallace.
Mark Wallace: Hi, everybody. Welcome to this week's episode of Digital Photography One
on One. I'm Mark Wallace.
Well, this week we have a question from Amanda in Culver City, California, and Amanda asks...
[music begins]
Mark: "I'm brand new to photography. Can you give me some tips for becoming a better photographer?"
[music ends]
Mark: Well, Amanda, the worst-kept secret about photography is: the way to get better
is to practice, practice, practice. A lot of people say that; we've seen it in a lot
of our interviews. In fact, I think every single person we've interviewed on our other
show, How'd They Do That? -- those professional photographers all say the same thing: you
need to practice to become a better photographer.
Now, that sounds all good and fun, but what do you practice? What do you do? Well, I'm
going to give you three things that you can practice to become a better photographer,
and these are all basic elements of composition. So let's start with the first one. It's called
Pattern. Then we'll go to the second one, and that is called Unusual Point of View,
and then we'll wind up talking about something called the Rule of Thirds.
So let's start with the first, and that's Pattern. Now, Pattern is exactly what it sounds
like: it's repeating things. So, we have a shot here. This is actually a tree that I
took a picture of. It's a palm tree here in Phoenix. So, when you get really close you
see this repeating pattern. So if you look closely around you, you'll see that you can
find pattern almost anywhere.
The next shot here is actually -- this is a tabletop. When you zoom in on that, you
get a nice pattern. And then, even, you can be walking along some bricks on a road, and
you can see that you've got some nice pattern. The more you look, the more you'll see pattern
everywhere.
There are a couple of rules to this. You can break the rules later on, but originally what
you want to do is you want to fill the frame with just the pattern. For example, on this
shot here of the tabletop, we don't want to show the entire table, even though it's got
a nice pattern to it. We really want to zoom in and fill the frame with just the tabletop.
Same with the bricks here, and you'll get some terrific shots.
All right, let's talk about the next thing. It's called Unusual Point of View. Now, this
doesn't mean it's crazy point of view; it just means looking at something from a point
of view that's not normal.
For example, here is a plant. So normally you see the whole plant, but I took my camera,
I got a lot closer to just one of the leaves, and then shot that plant with the sun coming
from behind, and I got this really interesting shot. Now notice, this also has pattern to
it, so sometimes you can mix different elements of composition -- almost always, actually
-- to get really interesting shots.
So here's another shot that you're probably very familiar with. It's the old trusty Eiffel
Tower. This is the way we normally see it. This is normal point of view, and here's another
look at that from an unusual point of view. So instead of looking at the entire thing,
we're just looking from the bottom. I've twisted my camera a little bit to give it a little
bit more interest. And so, this is the Eiffel Tower from an unusual point of view.
Or it could just be an everyday thing like a cup of coffee. Well, we normally see the
entire table and our coffee and all that kind of stuff. Well, one day I was out and I had
a delicious cup of coffee, and so I got very close. So that's also an unusual point of
view because normally we don't see just a cup of coffee. So getting close is a great
way to get Unusual Point of View.
Well, the third thing we're going to talk about is something called the Rule of Thirds.
This is something that you'll see over and over and over again in photographs all over
the place. In fact, once you know about it, it's hard not to see it. So let's talk about
what it is.
So if we take a look at a picture like our cup of coffee here, and we break that up into
thirds -- I'll put a little grid over that -- you can see that we have our area of interest
-- in other words, the coffee -- is on the top left intersection of where those thirds
unite. And so that's what you want to do -- is you want to loosely break up your image into
thirds, and then place your subject on one of those intersections.
So let's take another look at a shot. This is a shot of a lady I took somewhere in Italy.
I can't remember where. But if we look closely -- again, I'll put the grid lines up here
-- you can see that the picture is divided into thirds. And it doesn't have to be exactly
on the thirds, but it can be roughly. So, on the right-hand side we have this nice window,
and it's right at the intersection of the thirds. And on the left-hand side, on the
other side, we have the lady walking her dog. She's not exactly at the intersection, but
that's OK. You don't have to put it exactly; it just has to be near. And so that breaks
up the image very, very nicely.
Also, if you look closely you can see that this image also has... pattern! So, we've
got a lot of pattern in this -- in the window, on the bricks, on the floor, so there's a
lot of that stuff mixed up.
So now that you know about those three things, we're going to actually go out to the park
and we're going to shoot some stuff. We're going to just sort of see what we see. And
the nice thing is: you can take these three things and go just about anywhere and practice
looking for them, and once you start seeing them, your pictures will improve dramatically.
So we're going to go to the park, and take some shots.
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Mark: Well, here I am at a park. This is just a city park here in Tempe, Arizona, and the
nice thing about this is you can do this just about anywhere with just about any camera.
So I'm using a Panasonic Lumix point-and-shoot camera. You can do this with an iPhone, you
can do it with an SLR, you can do it with a $20,000 camera -- it doesn't matter. The
point is to practice your composition, so remember, we're looking for Unusual Point
of View, patterns, and we want to apply the Rule of Thirds.
So the first thing I want to do is, we've got these big fronds here, and so I want to
take a shot. We've got this really strong sun, and it looks great when it's shining
through this. So I'm going to first take a picture of this guy right here. So I'll get
really close here, focus my shot, and...
[shutter sound effect]
Mark: ...whammo, I've got that. I really like that. Now, the next thing I'm going to do
is, right down here, we've got some nice pattern, so I'm going to make sure I get close enough
here to fill the frame.
[shutter sound effect]
Mark: All right, I've got it. Now we're going to go look at some other things around the
park. It's going to be really fun, so let's get going.
[scene change]
Mark: Now, the point is, with photography, you don't want to miss the little things.
So, right down here in the parking lot is a piece of trash, which most people would
overlook, but this has some great texture. It's got some great pattern, so I'm going
to fill the frame, look at this from an unusual point of view. Once my camera focuses...
[shutter sound effect]
Mark: ...I'll take the shot, and take a look at this piece of trash, which I've turned
into a piece of art!
[scene change]
Mark: All right, well, I've been looking around and I found this little grill right here,
so I'm actually going to step out onto it. Now, the nice thing about this -- it's got
really strong pattern, and pattern, a lot of times -- especially stuff like this that
doesn't have a lot of color -- will actually look a lot better in black and white.
So, on my Lumix here, it has a black and white mode, so I'm going to set my camera to black
and white mode, and then take some shots of this. It also has a little grid on the back
of my camera, so I can use that to line this up on my Rule of Thirds. There we go. I really
like that. And just for an alternative I'll put one at a little crooked angle.
And we're going to continue our quest for more Pattern, Unusual Point of View, and apply
the Rule of Thirds. So, let's go!
[footsteps]
Mark: Woohoo.
[scene change]
Mark: Well, we have just an ordinary tree here, and we're going to try to capture that
by using some Unusual Point of View. I like the texture of this tree, so I can get really
close with my camera here, and once that focuses I've got some really interesting stuff.
[shutter sound effect]
Mark: And then I also have this sort of weird shape, so what I'm going to do is I'm going
to twist and turn my camera and try to see the...
[shutter sound effect]
Mark: ...best way to capture that. And because we have this unusual point of view, we have
a lot of options, and we have some shots that really look great.
[scene change]
Mark: Well, I was looking around, and I saw this outhouse at the park here, and what do
you know? Lots of pattern on this wall. So once again, I've got my Lumix here. I'm going
to use my grid on the back of the camera to help line things up. I've got it set to black
and white mode.
[shutter sound effect]
Mark: Oh, I love that. All right, I'm going to keep going.
[scene change]
Mark: I want to capture this lake here, and I do that using the Rule of Thirds. So, I've
turned on that little grid on my camera that shows me where the Rule of Thirds lies -- it's
just this little grid here -- and I'm going to take my camera and get it as low to the
water as I can, and then I'm going to place the water right at the lower third there.
[shutter sound effect]
Mark: Take a shot. Then I'm going to do it again with the water line at the upper third.
[shutter sound effect]
Mark: And we got that shot. Now, if it's not perfect, don't worry. You can always fix it
in post-production using Photoshop Elements or Picasa or something like that to make sure
everything's level and right at the thirds. And it doesn't have to be exactly on the thirds;
you just sort of want to break your picture up into three segments.
So that's the shot I just got of the lake.
[scene change]
Mark: Well, here's another everyday, ordinary object. It's just a picnic table, but the
top of this has some great pattern. So I'll just take my camera, focus it, line it up
on the top here...
[shutter sound effect]
Mark: ...take the shot, and once again, we have a winner!
[scene change]
Mark: Well, Amanda, one of the points of practice is to figure out what works and what doesn't
work. So behind me I have this tree that I think will work great for applying the Rule
of Thirds. So I'm going to try to take this shot, so I'm lining it up with my camera here.
[shutter sound effect]
Mark: I'll take the shot. Well, when I look at it, it actually -- it's not a very good
picture, because the tree is very dark, the background is very bright. It just doesn't
look very good, and that's OK. That's what practice is all about -- figuring out what
works and what doesn't work.
Now, I've learned something from this, and that is: if I do want to take this shot, I
need to come to the park at a different time of the day when the sun is on the other side
of the tree, so everything's illuminated correctly.
Well, that shot didn't work out for us, but I had a lot of shots that did work out, so
here's some shots that I took at the park today.
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Mark: Well, thanks for the question, Amanda. We had lots of fun out there at the park.
Remember, you need to practice, practice, practice to become a better photographer,
and for more tips and things to try out, just visit the Adorama Learning Center. There are
all kinds of articles and videos of different things that you can try with your new digital
camera.
Well, thanks for joining us this week. Remember, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel so
you don't miss a single episode, so please do that, and I'll see you again next week.
[outro music begins]
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Center, where you'll find photography tips and techniques, links to the gear used in
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