Creative Photography Activities: Macro Photography (Tiny Things)

This is more properly called Macro Photography, where you are imaging small items. You'll need:
- A source of bright light (open window, bright sun behind a person outdoors, etc.)
- Some tiny things - paper clips, coins, paper currency, stamps, beans, you name it.

Camera Setup:
Mode: Aperture Priority (Often shown as Av on the mode wheel)
ISO: 400 or so (your f-stop and available light levels will determine this)
White Balance: Custom
Aperture: Mid-range, from f/5.6 to f/16.

Watch out for: Focus. Depending on your lens, you can only get so close to the objects before the camera can't focus on it. You may be able to back up a bit and zoom in, but without a special Macro lens or close-up attachments, your focusing distance will be limited. Check the minimum focus distance on your lens, and stay farther than that distance. If you put close-up attachments on your lens, you can get very close.

White Balance Setup: Take a shot of your reference paper right where you will photograph your items. Make sure it's bright gray, and set custom WB.

The Pose: Compose your items any way you would like. I suggest to start with a random arrangement, with your focal items clearly set to be positioned for good focus and imaging.

Framing the Image: Consider a plain backdrop such as white, black or a single other color with a small "nap" (eg not a towel). Determine if you will want the entire image in focus, or just some of it. For an entire image to be in focus, you'll either need the subjects to be exactly parallel with the image sensor (meaning you shoot from directly overhead for flat items laying on a table), or a very tiny f-stop (meaning focus zone is wide). Try both - a smaller f-stop for very small and tight focus areas, and larger f-stops for wider focus zones.

Take the Image: Your shutter speed may be limited by the light levels. Brace the camera or better, use a tripod if you have one. You may want to switch to manual focus to set the specific focus point.

Analyzing and Improving: Vary your camera angle and lighting if you can. If you camera has a live view feature, use the image magnifier to check your focus. Vary the f-stop and camera distance/zoom to change the amount of the field that's in focus.

Advanced Tricks: In post production, use the unsharp mask to sharpen up details of the small items. This is best used after the rest of your editing, and right before you save an image at a particular size.

Creative Photography Activities: Window Portrait

This is a basic indoor portrait with soft window light from one side. You'll need:

- A window that does not face the sun (or it is overcast outside)

- Daylight

- A willing model

Camera Setup

Mode: Aperture Priority (Often shown as Av on the mode wheel)

ISO: 100-400, as low as possible

White Balance: Custom

Aperture: As low as your lens will go. Lower f-numbers mean a larger opening which creates nice fuzzy backgrounds.

Watch out for: The shutter speed. With a low-f-stop, you should not have low shutter speeds (below 1/60 second), but your ambient light and ISO setting will determine that. You may need to stabilize your camera if the shutter speed is lower than 1/60 second.

White Balance Setup: Put the white paper in front of the subject. Take one image of the paper, and make sure it is more grey than pure white in the playback. Then go to your menu, and choose Custom White Balance, and select that image to use as a reference. What you are doing is telling the camera to use the paper (which is grey/white) as the source of the definition of "white". It will then translate all of the other colors to show them correctly in the images taken. This is always preferable to a canned white balance setting, or the brainless "Auto" setting.

The Pose: Position your subject back of the centerline of the window, so a little light falls on the "dark" side of their face. Have them turn their head to look slightly out of the window.

Framing the Image: If you have a zoom lens, you can either be close and "zoomed out" or farther away and "zoomed in". With people portraits, it's usually better to be back and zoom in, as it reduces the size of the nose and other features in the middle of the face. Turn the camera to portrait (tall) orientation, half-press, and look at the read-out. You should get a focus blip where the camera thinks the focus point should be. Move the center point to the closest eye to the camera, and half-press again. Once you get a focus lock, move the camera to recompose the image. You're doing this to cause the tightest focus point to be on the eye closest to the camera. If your camera has live view, ignore it and use the viewfinder. Using the live view encourages poor camera holding technique.

Take the Image: Play back and look for blown-out highlights in the subject's face. Some cameras have the ability to show blown-out highlights as blinking white/black. If the background (out the window) has some, don't worry, but you don't want the face blown out. If you do have white highlights, use the Exposure Compensation to reduce by ? stop to 1 full stop and reshoot.

Analyzing and Improving: Look at the image. Is it exposed well? The window side of the face should be nicely lit, and as it is facing slightly away from the camera, is called the "short side". This is an example of short lighting, where the short side gets the light and the broad side (facing the camera) gets the shadow. If the shadow side is too dark, get a bit of reflective material, be it aluminum foil or white cardboard, and hold it just off of the camera on the dark side. It will reflect a bit of light from the window back to the shadow side and will reduce the contrast or shadow level. Experiment with the subject looking out the window (I call that the "dreamy shot"), and looking at the lens (but still not straight on).

Advanced Tricks: Pull this image into your editor and try converting to black and white using the Channel Mixer tool. Choose 70% red, 15% blue and 15% green, and you'll see a very nice BW image with the skin tones nicely highlighted!

Creative Photography Activities: Back-Lit Silhouette Portraits

This is a portrait of a person or thing, taken with bright back light, causing the subject to be rendered as a dark shape You'll need:

- A source of bright light (open window, bright sun behind a person outdoors, etc.) Sunset with water behind is a great setting for this kind of shot.

- A willing model

Camera Setup:

Mode: Aperture Priority (Often shown as Av on the mode wheel)

ISO: 100 or so (there will be lots of light)

White Balance: Custom

Aperture: Mid-range, from f/5.6 to f/16.

Watch out for: Setting up the exposure. Even in Aperture Priority, the camera may try to expose for the subject. You may have to use your exposure compensation to drop the image by 2-3 stops.

White Balance Setup: Take a shot of your reference paper before you adjust your exposure compensation. Make sure it's bright grey, and set custom WB.

The Pose: Your choice here, but I recommend an interesting body pose. For ladies, I recommend a turned pose off center, hands on hips, head facing 90 degrees so you can see a face silhouette.

Framing the Image: For people shots, frame in portrait mode, and not on center. Think of the rule of thirds, and leave some open space to one side.

Take the Image: You want a very bright background and the subject quite dark. If the camera refuses to do this naturally, you can use the Exposure Compensation down by 2-3 stops from normal to force a darkening of the underexposed portions. Do not use flash!

Analyzing and Improving: If you can get the background perfectly exposed, to see the colors and features, and the silhouette is dark, you have nailed it! Try the same kind of shot with non-people things such as bridges, buildings, towers - anything that has less light on one side and will create an iconic shadow.

Advanced Tricks: Instead of messing with Exposure Compensation, you can expose for the background, note the f-stop and shutter speed, and then switch to Manual mode and crank up the f-stop (to larger f-numbers) or crank up the shutter speed (to faster values), to lower the total exposure. It also holds those parameters, and will not float around like Aperture Value tends to do when changing your composition. Also, in post production, you can use the Levels tool to pull in the darks and make them darker.