Welcome my name is Marcin Lewandowski
and in this episode of the Viewfinder
I will talk a little bit about enjoying
shooting with whatever camera you
might already have and looking past
the hardware.
Our working title for this
episode was along the lines of "poor
camera challenge" but the more I thought
about it, the less it made sense in
context to what I want to say.
The main point I want to make
about the subject will be
partially illustrated by the
examples, I will create with my little Lo
no pro camera, which actually broke down,
being no pro and I had to use my mobile
phone instead. In fairness even the simplest
cameras of today, surpass anything from
not that long ago. Just to give you a
little bit of perspective:
after switching to digital around 12 years ago,
my first DSLR was a 6MP Nikon D70s
and I had no problems delivering
good quality photographs even when
shooting assignment. So where am I going
with all of this you might ask?
Well even though you need a camera as a tool to
capture images they're much more
important considerations, as whatever
camera you might have on you should do the
job just fine, especially photography is
just your hobby or something you do
sporadically. In a mini series of videos
I will look at the basics that helped to
create interesting photographs starting
with one of the most important
techniques composition.
It's a key element to building an interesting
photograph the camera allows us to
choose a fraction of what we see and
keep it,
cropping out all the visual distractions,
filtering out all the unwanted elements.
It's like putting up frame around
something we like.
A very good exercise
in structure is to get into a habit of
framing images with a rectangle created
by our fingers.
This allows to see photographically
whenever we spot something
interesting and practice without having
a camera around.
I always do this when something catches
my eye this way I can add it to my
visual vocabulary, many of these images
will stay imprinted in my head and next
I grab my camera I have more reference
points for framing. Two very important
devices to remember about when learning
about composition are the rule of thirds
and the golden ratio, naturally both of
them expand beyond framing and they
exist to be broken but they certainly
help to create balanced photographs
that are easier to read.
Basically the rule of thirds is cutting
our frame into nine equal pieces with
two vertical and two horizontal lines,
just like the grid in most camera
viewfinders. If we want to focus the
viewers attention or anything within our
frame we theoretically need to place it
on one of the dividing lines or one of
their intersections.
A very similar rule
applies when using simplification of the
golden ratio in a form of a phi grid which
also splits our image into nine pieces
but in a slightly different way
I'm sure that you've already heard about it,
but one thing I might suggest to you is
to try to re-frame and re-crop images
that you already have. In Lightroom
develop panel go to the crop tool
(keyboard shortcut “R”) and have a look
at your photograph with grid
aforementioned rules.
By pressing “O”
you can cycle through different views.
You can also change fibonacci grid
direction when in the golden ratio mode
by pressing Shift+”O”.
I hope you found todays episode interesting
and if you would like me to talk more
about composition, be it basics
or more advanced techniques,
please let us know in the comments below.
Don't forget to subscribe to our channel
and check out the Adorama Learning
Center for some more tips and tutorials.
This was Marcin Lewandowski for
Adorama TV. See you next time.