Photography should be about being creative, showing your emotions, capturing moments and having fun. In order to do all of that though, one must mater the basic concepts of photography which are often exemplified in certain specific photographs. Mastering techniques should be a focus of your photography learning, but I don’t think it should define your exact journey to becoming a better photographer. One of our Twitter followers, Ross Vernal inquired, What would you say are the 10 essential shots a photographer must perfect before they can start to develop their own style? Here are some examples of the shots I’m talking about, and the concept to shooting them. This should in turn, lead to more parts in this on-going series to help answer Ross’s question, because it’s rather complex.
Difficult On-Location Exposures
This stunning sunset was accomplished using graduated ND filters, not HDR as one might first think. Sunsets (and sunrises) can be some of the most difficult to shoot because of the competing elements of a bright sky and dark foreground. Exposures can be difficult and the window of time to shoot them is narrow. While this shot doesn’t carry a traditional rule of thirds for the horizon, the offset trees in the right third compensates for that just fine. Master this shot and you’ll have fully comprehended complicated on-location exposures and have a stunning photo to hang in your home.
Locations & Patience
Star trails, like this photo are beautiful and show a great deal of patience. Because you’ll need to find a location free of ambient lights (street lights, etc.) own a tripod, have a very clear night and then start experimenting. These types of photos show the skill and knowledge in doing long exposures, the circle is an effect of the earth spinning, not done in post processing. The longer the exposure, the more the swirl appears. Shooting these images means you’ve mastered the art of scouting for locations and the patience to wait several minutes to several hours for a single exposure to be captured.
Exposure, Composition & Off-Camera Flash
This photo covers a lot of skills, all in one shot. Post sunset, pre blue hour, rule of thirds combined with on and off camera flash and wide-open depth of field, this photograph has it all! This very impressive and professional portrait combines multiple technical capabilities that result in a great photograph, above and beyond what a normal snapshot would provide. Shooting wide open here creates a very narrow depth of field, pushing the sharp and in-focus portion, the model, to the viewers eye. Because the sun had already set and the background was kind of bland, shooting wide-open here adds separation between foreground and background, while still maintaining the rich colors from just after a sunset. By utilizing an on-camera flash which in turn triggered an off-camera flash to camera left, the photographer is able to light and highlight the model without the appearance of flat and boring shadows. The off-camera flash was powered near all the way down, but provided enough fill to make the shot that much more appealing. Mastering this means a firm grasp in photography concepts and complicated on-location lighting situations.
An important idea to keep in mind is that all of these are photographs, simply that. It’s the knowledge of the shooter and how they choose to pick specific techniques such as shutter speed, aperture, location, filters, flashes and subject matter that makes the shot. Mastering one or two areas will not help your shooting, it will if anything stifle your ability to create your own style of shooting, one in which people will know you’ve taken the image. This article is only a primer, intended to get you thinking about shooting styles and what they mean to you. Look for how to learn, apply and create your own style in forthcoming articles.
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