Most digital cameras offer various automatic and manual settings. Each of these can be used to produce great images; often it's up to the discretion of the photographer as to which one works the best. The automatic setting is fine in some situations, but you also need to be comfortable manually controlling your aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. (If you're in the dark on these terms, they're explained in Chapter 3, which also gives you information on your camera's automatic settings.)
Regardless of whether you use automatic or manual controls, you should always check the results of your image quality by referring to your camera's histogram. The histogram warns you if your highlights are blown out or if your shadows are underexposed. See Chapter 3 for more on using histograms.
Confidence is key, especially when you photograph people. Get as familiar with your equipment as possible so you can achieve appropriate exposures the first time. This way you can spend more time communicating with your subjects or taking in the beautiful scene you're photographing. Having your face constantly buried in the camera's LCD display screen causes you to miss photographic opportunities.
Choosing the lens that fits your message
Your lens determines what information is available to the camera's digital sensor. With digital SLR cameras, lenses are interchangeable so you can choose the appropriate one for the scene you're photographing. Most digital point-and-shoot cameras are equipped with a zoom lens that enables you to zoom in for tight shots and zoom out for a wider angle of view.
You can choose from the following three main types of fixed lenses:
Wide-angle: These lenses reveal a more peripheral view and allow you to capture a large area of your scene. Using this type of lens is ideal when you want to fit as much information as possible into your frame. Elements that are closest to your camera will appear much larger than those that are farther away when using this lens type.
Normaclass="underline" These lenses reveal an angle of view that's similar to what you see with your eyes. They don't capture as much peripheral information as a wide-angle, but they do produce an image that's most true to the way something looks in real life.
Telephoto: These lenses have a narrow angle of view that captures a smaller portion of your scene. This type of lens causes elements to appear larger in your frame than the other two lens types. Telephoto lenses are ideal when you're far from your subject but want to get a tight shot of it.
Chapter 3 tells you more about lenses.
Using perspective to enhance your message
Your perspective is determined by your camera position in relation to the elements of your scene. It's how you see your subject and everything else in your frame. In a three-dimensional world, the way you see things changes when you move up, down, and side to side. Changing your perspective enables you to position everything in your frame in the way you see most visually pleasing or appropriate for your message.
The elements in a scene and the relationship of those elements to each other within the frame determine the message that a photograph conveys.
If you're on a road trip with your family and come across a national landmark, you'll probably take a photograph to prove you were there. The message of that photograph is "Hey, look at us; we were there." In this situation, your perspective is critical for revealing and manipulating the relationships of a scene's elements in your frame.
Say you get everybody out of the station wagon to have a look at the Grand Canyon. While your family is looking over the edge, you ask them to turn around for a picture. You have three elements to consider, the subject (your family), the background (the Grand Canyon), and the foreground (the parking lot). Your perspective is going to determine how much of each of these is going to be included in the composition and what relationships they have with each other. I describe the details of perspective in Chapter 8; however, the following list introduces you to some of your options in the Grand Canyon situation:
" Step close to your family. This perspective shows more detail of who they are and less detail of the environment around them.
• Back away from the family. By backing up, you make your family smaller in the frame and show more of their surroundings.
• Use a wide-angle lens. With this lens, you can include as much of the scene as possible — your family, the background, the station wagon, and even some other tourists in the area.
" Use a long lens. When you use this type of lens, you can crop in specifically on the family and their immediate surroundings.
" Choose a high angle. If you choose to shoot from a high angle — maybe by standing on top of the station wagon — you show the family and a view that looks down into the canyon.
Figure 1–3 shows a scene that I photographed with two separate perspectives. Each image in the example reveals different aspects of the environment. The perspective on the left approaches the subject from far away and has an emphasis on the surrounding environment, thus distributing compositional importance to all the elements in the scene. The perspective on the right approaches the subject from a nearer vantage point and distributes more importance to the subject. This perspective is more descriptive with regard to the subject and is great for isolating the star of your photograph.
24mm, 1/200 sec, f/4, 100
70mm, 1/250 sec, f/6.3, 100
Figure 1–3: Because of the differing perspectives, the messages in these images also are different.
Putting together the elements of composition
Your composition for a particular scene is basically a recipe. You consider certain factors automatically — what you focus on, how wide your angle of view is, and which perspective best represents the scene, to name a few. But other variables are unique to each situation, such as how many subjects to include, what mood the scene's color scheme and lighting create, whether your subject is still or in motion, and so on.
In order to best determine these variables, you simply have to practice and build your skills. Most photographers go through phases as they build their compositional skill level. Doing so enables you to really master one area before moving on to the next. You can pay special attention to any specific compositional element, but here's the order I suggest:
1. Keep an eye on your focal point.
By using the techniques in this book and your camera's owner's manual, ensure that your subject is always your focal point. Don't settle for results in which your subject is blurry (unless you're using your artistic
license to do so, which is discussed in Chapter 12).
2. Concentrate on creating compositions that have depth.
To create depth, include foreground elements, a subject, and a background. Your subject is in focus (you mastered that in the first step), and you have foreground and background elements to create a supporting scene that enables viewers to work their way through the image.
Figure 1–4 shows an image with foreground, middle ground, and background elements. Your eyes are drawn into a photograph that displays this technique.
3. Pay attention to color in your scene.
Color plays a major role in determining how people feel about images. Being in tune with color is essential to relaying messages in a photograph. Pay attention to color in your scenes, and you'll eventually notice it without trying. Look for scenes that predominantly reveal a single color, or seek out scenes with complimentary color elements.