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Tuesday, March 01, 2011

Filed under: Market Served •Fine Art •Nature •Stock •Travel •Technique •

Break the pattern.

Tom Bol | 03/01

Pattern is interesting, but disrupting the pattern is more interesting.

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I teach a lot of photo workshops, and one topic that is on many people’s mind is composition.  Students feel they can learn tangible topics like post production techniques and how the camera operates.  But when it comes to composition, many participants seem to think you are born with the creative gene and it is next to impossible to learn.  It’s true, some folks are hard wired to be more creative than other people.  But just like any skill, practice makes perfect.  You can learn to be ‘more creative.’  This post is the first of many looking at ways to improve your creativity.  Some posts will look at exercises to improve your creativity, and others will look at more tangible guidelines to help improve composition. 

One compositional guideline is break up patterns to make the image more interesting.  Pattern refers to repeating shapes or other elements in an image.  Patterns are favorite subject matter for photographers, everything from rooftops in Prague to vast rows of tulips in Holland.  The eye wanders down these repeating shapes and lines, and the image works. We like simple design that isn’t cluttered, it is just easier to take in a nice pattern than a busy shot.  But that can be the image’s downfall.  Pattern is interesting, but can be boring as well.  One technique I like to do is break up the pattern with an out of place element.  Maybe it is one bird slightly out of line in a row of birds on the beach.  Or maybe it is a small juniper tree growing out of a crack surrounded by similar cracks with no trees.  In the image above, taken at White Sands, NM., the repeating wavy lines of the sand dunes are interesting and a nice shot.  But finding a small yucca to add in the image makes the shot more interesting.  The next time you are shooting patterns, try adding an element to disrupt the pattern and catch the viewer’s attention.

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Use gels on your flash for special effects.

Tom Bol | 05/11- 05:35 AM

Adding gels to your flash and changing white balance creates unique images.

I like to follow this principle.  “The more skills you have, the better your chances for success.”  I used to use this principle as a climbing instructor when teaching students rope systems.  Inevitably on some climb something wouldn’t go right, maybe a simple thing like getting a rope stuck.  The more rescue and climbing systems you knew, the better your chances of having a solution to fix the problem.
The same is true for photographers.  Every photographer has a story about a ‘photo shoot gone bad.’  Strobes don’t fire, talent doesn’t show up, permits aren’t in order.  What separates one photographer from another is how they deal with these situations.  Clients like photographers who have solutions, not problems.  Knowing more technical skills behind the camera also helps.  And one of my favorite things to do is add gels to flash to spice things up.

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Creative Use of High Speed Sync

Tom Bol | 04/29- 10:11 AM

Use high speed sync to add mood to your shot.

When most people think of high speed sync, they think fast shutter speeds and freezing the action.  True, shooting at 1/8000 with flash is going to freeze the action no matter what the main light source is illuminating the subject.  But what about other uses of high speed sync and flash.  Until the release of the Pocket Wizard Flex system and Hypersync (see my last post), I was often frustrated shooting in bright sun.  I needed an aperture of F16 to get the right exposure at 1/200, my fastest sync speed using my Elinchrom Rangers.  What if I wanted to use a wide open aperture like F2.8 to get soft focus and blur out the background?  The answer is use high speed sync for selective focus shots in bright, sunny conditions.  Maybe high speed sync should be called ‘soft focus sync.’

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