In this day and age of digital cameras, you’ve probably heard or thought that all you have to do is push the button and great pictures magically appear. Not so fast. The truth is you can have the top of the line digital camera, but if you don’t know what you are doing, you will take lousy shots.
I would love to give you some good tips to help you improve your photography skills. These tips are coming from years of experience as a San Diego wedding photographer.These tips are all about the lighting and they will some of biggest reasons for you success in taking photographs.
First great tip in regards to lighting.Now if the shots you will take are going to be outdoors during the day, the natural sunlight will be some of the best lighting possible. Now you are probably thinking, “that’s easy, when you are a San Diego photographer since it is always shiny there”, when in actuality really bright sunlight can cast harsh shadows.Or it could blur the details of faces when the sun is overhead.
Overall, you are going to want to take most of the shots with the sun behind you.This stops any harsh shadows in your photo caused by the sun. But there will be some instances when you want to try different angles when you are trying to get some shadows into the shots.
Now that we know what to do during the day shots, what if you have to take some night shots?
The key to taking photos at night is turning off your flash.Of course if it is absolutely dark with no light you wil need it, but for times when there is some lighting, use the lighting around you, but make sure the shutter speeds are slow enough to let light in.Also, stay steady when you are taking your photograph or you will cause the picture to blur.Applying these couple of techniques will make a dramatic difference for those nights shots you take.
The final tips to using lighting for great shots is using the golden hour.Now there is a time that photographers refer to as the “golden hour” or “magic hour”, and that is during sunrise and sunset.
It is during this time of day when you will capture great shots that capture more warmer colors.You’ll be able to get that golden lighting that isn’t available during any other time of day.
There you go.Probably the biggest tip in taking beautiful photos is to make use of the natural lighting around you. Knowing what techniques to use for different parts of the day, or just scheduling a photo shoots to capture those times of day will help you become an excellent photographer.
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