Composition slides from MYT class 1
I got the slides posted, finally, from our first class. Take a look to refresh your memory about what we went over. For those who couldn’t make class 1, please look it over before class 2.
Which picture(s) did you like, and why did you like them?
[Further Reading]
A Basic Look at the Basics of Exposure
Shooting an Event
Slides posted from last week’s MYT Photography class below:
I included 3 different types of events as examples:
1) overnight group event (slide 2 and on)
2) smaller group evening event (slide 79 and on)
3) large event like Gracepoint Live (slide 91 and on)
Also there’s pointers on how to shoot classroom settings (slide 59 on) as well as how to deal with common obstruction difficulties such as a pillar being in the way.
Some of the pictures I used in the slides are from the Official White House Photostream (found site via Kevan’s post). Its very interesting to find out all the exposure information (shutter speed, aperture, ISO setting) for each picture, the lens choice and focal length, whether flash was used, etc. (See slides from Exposure class). From what I can tell, this White House official photographer only uses prime lens (prime = non-zoom) such as 24mm, 35mm, 50mm, 135mm with a very large maximum aperture. To find out all this info, click on the “More properties” link when you get to flickr. You can learn a lot by seeing how this photographer (Pete Souza) composes his pictures, what he decides to leave in, and how he deals with objects that are in the way, etc. Highly instructive!
Further reading:
11 Tips for Better Candid Photography
Composition Examples
I’m posting the slides I used last Friday for our Photography MYT class. In these slides are many professional photographs so that you can see how the pros do it. They just so it so well as you’ll see.
The topic was composition, which is essentially the art of arranging all the stuff that’s in your picture. I didn’t cover all the composition principles, but there are many in there.
There’s over 100 slides, so as you go through them, tell me if you can, which slide or picture did you like, and why did you like it? What drew you to it?
Further reading:
5 Elements of Composition in Photography
5 More Elements of Composition in Photography
MYT Slides Posted
I’m posting the slides I used last Friday for my students in the Photography MYT (Multiply Your Talents) class.
The main topic I talked about was exposure. Exposure is the total amount of light collected onto your camera’s sensor in order to create that picture. An over-exposed picture is a situation where too much light is collected, and an under-exposed picture is a situation where too little light is collected. (In time, we may have our own preferences as to liking a slightly over-exposed or under-exposed picture for a given subject, but in general the leeway is no more than a couple of stops before the photo is neither usable nor simply pleasing to look at.)
In this first example, the photo is under-exposed. The people are in shadow and you can’t really tell what colors are what. Note that the background is not under-exposed however. The exposure settings used were: 1/125s (shutter speed), f/7.1 (aperture), ISO unrecorded (unfortunately). This exposure is clearly not sufficient for the picture.
1/125s, f/7.1, ISO unrecorded
For this second picture, more exposure was used. You can clearly see the blue jacket now, and the skin tones are nice and clear. Note the background however: the ocean and the hills have lost quite a bit of detail and are now over-exposed; it was a good trade off since I didn’t fill-flash on my Canon P&S (read more on fill-flash here and here). I chose to expose for the people (in the foreground) over the water and hills (in the background). The exposure settings used were: 1/160s (slightly faster shutter speed than the first), f/2.8 (much larger aperture opening than the first), ISO still unrecorded (but unchanged from the first).
1/160s, f/2.8, ISO unrecorded
Got a question? Just post a comment and I’ll field them that way so that everyone can learn …
Now for the more technically inclined, the increased amount of light used in the second picture is almost 3 stops (compared with the first picture). This amounts to almost 8 times the light collected onto the sensor (calculated from this table), which explains why the under-exposure on the people was able to be corrected. In general, you can see that it was the aperture that did the trick (f/7.1 –> f/2.8). In other words, the aperture opening got bigger, thus allowing more light in. The shutter speeds are very close together and not a big contributor to the exposure being corrected (1/125s –> 1/160s).
Higher learning:
Learning about Exposure – The Exposure Triangle
Exposure in Photography