February 27, 2013

Motivation and Inspiration to Photograph

Full moon on 2013/02/25

What do you do when all of a sudden you find yourself NOT wanting to photograph? Maybe due to lack of motivation or inspiration. I think we all experience this stage and it's not just in photography, it happens in all walks of life. Here are a few suggestions that could perhaps bring back the motivation and inspiration to keep on shooting and wake up that creative side that we have in us.

February 23, 2013

Perspectives

The V43 Gang

Can you tell me the story of the photo above? The main subjects here are the people and their reflections but why are they so small. They seem to be secondary objects only to this vast open beach. The foreground is mainly empty and there's also a lot of sky. If you're curious I used the M. Zuiko 12mm f/2 here, wide at 24mm equivalent. I should have gotten close to my main subject (the people and reflections) with the 12mm or better yet I should have used a telephoto to compress my subjects and be more clear with my photographic story telling.

Not so long ago I was told there are two perspectives, wide and telephoto. There is also normal (somewhere in the middle of wide and tele) but depending on how you use your foreground and background a normal lens can render as either. Wides are all about the emphasis of foreground. Things placed closer to the camera will be emphasized over things further away. Like in the photo above, the sand in the foreground is emphasized because it is closest to the camera. The closer the subject and the wider the lens the more extreme this emphasis becomes. One of the tricks to using a wide is to get close, NOT to get everything in or to get more in. Telephotos on the other hand de-emphasize the relationship between foreground and background, they will look relatively about the same size. You use a telephoto to get a compressed effect, to separate your subject from background using focus planes rather than because you want to get closer. Understanding perspectives is one of the fundamental tools of photographic story telling. This is important because it lets you dictate to the viewer how important the subject is.