One of the key ways to add flair to your site and make it more interesting is to use images. You may know that there are billions of images ‘available’ on the internet, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you have permission to use any image that you find. The best way to ensure you have permission to use the images you do is to create those images yourself! You do not need to be a professional photographer with oodles of expensive equipment to create interesting images. If you have a smartphone, you likely have a very good camera within arm’s reach right now. In fact, it has been said that the best camera for you is the one you have available. Before we dive into developing your skills with photography, audio, and video, take a few minutes to watch the kinetic typography video below Ira Glass on Storytelling. The activities[^1] on this page will give you some ideas and practice with taking better photos without you having to purchase any equipment.
Taking better photos
The suggestions below are borrowed from TEN: Ten Ways to Improve Your Craft. None of Them Involve Buying Gear a free ebook by David duChemin. We’ve lifted some key points.
- Get Pickier: Instead of using your camera like a rapid fire machine gun, spend more time pre-composing in your mind. As you get more practice, you can be more selective, and more deliberate. See if perhaps you can decide before taking a shot if it will be good.
- Better Contrast Makes Better Stories: Contrast can be in terms of colors and lighting, but also elements and subjects in your photos- look for things that maybe do not belong together (juxtaposition). Look for near and far perspective.
- Change My Perspective By Changing Yours: Find different and unique points of view. Look down, up, lay down on the ground, anything different from your normal view of the world at head height. Seek perspectives of lines.
- Create Depth: Look for ways to add dimension of visual depth in your 2 dimensional images- play with foreground, lines, use of wide angle lenses, use of dark backgrounds
- Get Balanced: The rule of thirds is not only about placement on a grid; duChemin describes visual mass, elements that draw more attention in a photo and how to balance that effectively. “Becoming more intentional about creating and playing with balance in your images will help you create images that more intentionally express what you have to say.”
- Pay Attention to the Moment: Sometimes it means slowing down, but also being more aware of the action in a scene, trying to anticipate the moment of something interesting before it happens e.g. watching a family at the table preparing for when baby might spill the glass of milk? at sporting events trying to be ready for the kick that scores the goal?
- Look to the light: Probably the most key lesson- be aware of light that works and what does not. Knowing about shadows, directions, aiming for directions where light is strong (or not). Good light makes every photo. Learn how to sense when light is good (and when not, and you can skip lousy shots).
- Use the Best Lens: If your camera uses different lenses, understand better what a wide angle does versus a telephoto not only in terms of what it can fit in a photo, but what effect it has one photos (squashing or expanding space). If your lens is fixed, understand what its limits are (how close you can get, what happens at severe angles).
- Expose for Aesthetics Learn: how to use aperture, shutter speed, iso to control the image- what the effects of these all play on depth of field, motion freeze vs blurring. For fixed lens camera/mobile, at least understand what the level of light means for your photos (why are those low light photos are blurry?)
- Put a Great Foreground in Front of a Great Background: Pay attention to the near and far. A landscape scene is dull without something in foreground to give depth and scale. Learn to avoid clutter and distracting elements.
These are of course, very general guides. You get better as you look at yours and other’s photos. You get better when you think more before you press the shutter. You get better when you try new approaches. You get better when you break the rules.
Choose one of the activities below to complete.
Practice these techniques and write about your results
Write a blog post that summarizes the tips you tried. Include:
- Link and credit for the tip.
- Embed an example of a photo where you tried the technique
- Describe how you thought about this, or what approach (or variation) you tried.
- Take your photo that you are most proud of in terms of learning a new photo technique, and write a summary in the shared Google doc How We Are Becoming better Photographers. With your contribution, we will have a guide for others to benefit from.
- Use the categories ‘TWU Online’ and ‘photography’.
Go on a Photo Safari
We have a fun way to exercise your visual interpretation skills. Below are a list of subjects to capture in photos that you must to find within a 15 minute window of time. It is less about creating highly artistic images, but just being inventive in interpreting the subjects. When ready, pick a place that is likely to have a variety of subjects (middle of town or campus, your basement, whatever). This is not a test! You do not have to get them all, just try to think in interesting ways about how to interpret and capture the list. Here is what to seek in your own photo safari!
- Your first photo is of something that shows the current time! Document when you started the safari.
- In the next 15 minutes, try to capture as many of the following photos as you can
- Make an ordinary object look more interesting, almost supernatural
- Take a photo that makes use of converging lines
- Take a photo dominated by a single color
- Take a photo of something at an unusual angle
- Take a photo of two things that do not belong together
- Take a photo that represents the idea of “creativity”
- Take a photo that expresses a human emotion
- Take a photo that emphasizes mostly dark tones or mostly light ones.
- Make a photo that is abstract, that would make someone ask, “Is that a photograph?”
- Take a photo of an interesting shadow.
- Take a photo that represents a metaphor for complexity.
- Take a photo of someone else’s hand (or paw)
- Take another photo of a timepiece that shows the time you stopped. It should be fifteen minutes since step 1, right?
- Write a blog post about your experience and include all of your photos (if using WordPress, see how to make a Gallery in your post). Describe the place you chose to do this, and why you chose it. What was the experience like? What photos worked for you best? What do you think was the most inventive?
Categories for this post:
- TWU Online
- Digital Literacy
- Photosafari
[^1] These activities are adapted from an open course called YouShow offered at Thompson Rivers University in 2015. They are used here under the original Creative Commons Attribution License. The original activity was devised in a dark basement by @cogdog and @brlamb.