Ron Hashiro

You can use these ideas with any camera. Even pictures from a disposable or point-and-shoot camera can be enhanced by spending a few moments with these thoughts.

• Part 1 - Basics
• Part 2 - Basics
• Part 3 - Advanced

Camera angle can change a boring photo into an interesting one. Sometimes it worth the wait until the angle is right. For example, in the photo below, it involved waiting until the cruise ship moved in to the right position for the photo.

Rather than looking everything at the eye level of an adult, what would happen if you looked at things with the eye level of a child? Or, from a higher viewpoint as in the photo below. The camera angle brings in not only the subject, but the background as well.

Each photo has the potential to pull the viewer's eye in a given direction. For example, the people here are looking towards the left. What do you find yourself naturally doing?

There are other ways of making eye movement. Roads, trails, diagonal lines or curves all have a tendency to move the eye along the photo.

Framing is placing objects along the edges of the photo and helps to establish the bounds or limits of a photo. It guides the viewers eyes back to the subject, or along an edge to see other elements within the picture.

Here we see the coconut tree used as a frame to guide the eye along the left side from the people and the ocean up along the left side and to the radiant colors of the sunset. The clouds in the sky adds texture and variety to an otherwise plain sky.

Lighting is very important in bringing out all the colors that are there. The rule of thumb is that you want the sun to your back, so the scene that you are taking has full sunlight on it.

You can tell from the shadows in the photo above where is the position of the sun.

If you take photos of people, you don't want the shadows in their eyes. To avoid that, turn on the flash, even if you take a close-up in bright sunlight. The flash will fill in the harsh shadows. You'll need to experiment a little with your camera to see how well it works.

Before you press that shutter, spend a moment looking over the scene to ensure you didn't have an unplanned reflection appearing. Reflections (and glare) can be seen in people's glasses, windows, water and water surfaces.

When taking photos of people with glasses, there are a couple easy technique to use to reduce or eliminate glare:

• Have them move their head from side to side, and watch the amount of glare in their glasses. Try to find the spot where the glare is the least, have the point their head in that direction, but look with their eyes towards you. In that way, they'll maintain eye contact with the viewer.
• If you have a bright background (such as a daylit background) and can use your automatic flash metering to monitor and calculate the fill-in lighting on the subject, try this trick:
  

  Set the exposure for the background, turn on the flash and shoot. The camera will expose for the background, and the flash will illuminate the subject enough to give proper exposure of the subject. That exposure setting will be less than what would have caused glare to form on the subject's glasses.

• Part 1 - Basics
• Part 2 - Basics
• Part 3 - Advanced