Archive for the ‘the course’ Category
18September2009
Don’t Forget The Camera In Your Pocket
Posted by Rob_Nunn under: the course.
It’s so easy to get caught up with the news about all the latest cameras and lenses, when in truth the most important way we can improve our photography is simply to take more pictures. The problems is that our cameras are small, but not that small. I don’t want to take my dSLR to work so I get grab some shots on the way to the corner shop for a mars bar.
The answer is that we’ve all probably got a decent enough camera in our pockets already – our mobile phone.
The beauty about mobile / cell phone cameras is that they have auto-focus, a nice wide angle and massive depth of field, making taking pictures incredible fast and easy. The difficult thing about them is the screen – not bright enough if it’s sunny, and too small for full composition, but more than good enough in most situations.
A really cool thing to do with your mobile phone is to take random shots. Just walk along, swinging your camera around, clicking away, and you’ll be surprised at what you capture.
You’ll end up with a lot of rubbish, but don’t delete them until you’ve seen them on your pc’s big screen – what might look like trash on the little phone screen could look great when you see it full size.
Of course there’s nothing wrong with traditional compositions too!
These photographs remind me of how important it is to shoot whatever catches your eye – not to make judgements about your subject, only the form of the photograph.
Look at these photos in a slide-show.
Cheers, Rob.
6January2009
Simplifying Composition By Learning The Rules
Posted by Rob_Nunn under: technique; the course; tutorials.
I’ve had some interesting emails from Nugroho discussing composition. Nugroho (also known as Shade) is an event photographer where he works, but was having trouble coming up with other types of photographs.
Rather than simply run through and talk about the usual Rule of Thirds / Leading Lines type stuff, I thought I’d illustrate my ideas with some really simple diagrams.
Remember, I’m no expert, but if you’re having a little trouble nailing down your compositions, take a look and it may help.
16October2008
More Black And White / Mono Conversion Techniques In Photoshop
Posted by Rob_Nunn under: the course; tutorials.
Inspired by Andreas Overlands excellent black and white tutorial, I thought it was about time I got some practice in with Photoshops other Black and White / Mono Conversion techniques, instead of just stripping out the colour with a hue / sat adjustment layer….
So, in this tutorial I’ll be looking at converting to grey-scale, the channel mixer, the desaturate option, and the convert to black and white filter. Then I’ll have a quick look at adding a colour tone to your image as well. So fire up Photoshop, grab a coffee, open up an image you want to convert to mono or black and white, and lets get started!
25September2008
How To Change The Colours And Customise Your Blogger / Blogspot Blog
Posted by Rob_Nunn under: the course; tutorials.
In a previous article we looked at how to create a free Blogger / Blogspot Photo Blog, but its a bit bland, so in this tutorial I’ll show you how to change the colours, add a links bar, and a tag / labels list.
20September2008
How To Create A Free Photo Blog At Blogger!
Posted by Rob_Nunn under: the course; tutorials.
We all love sharing our Photo’s on Flickr – but have you ever thought about starting your own photo-blog, similar to this one? Don’t worry about the cost – it’s free – and it’ll take you about twenty minutes to set up and start blogging, and I’ll show you exactly what to do.
I’ve written this tutorial / guide while creating a test blog, – so check out Minolta Manual SLR’s to see what you’ll be able to do in less than an hour. (Don’t worry if the colour is different, I’ll show you how to do that in the next tutorial.)
