When you understand good composition, then you know when you can break the rules.

In this edition I hope to teach you some of the standard rules to follow when shooting so you can improve your final outcome. It will be then up to you to work out the best way of breaking these rules so you can come up with some unique ways of shooting a scene.

Now composition for anyone that doesn't know is basically, where things are placed on the final image. Now this is important for landscape photography, but also plays a major role in most other types of photography. Now there are a few different composition techniques, but the one that I have always used, and is probably the most common, is the Rule of Thirds. Basically what this rule states is when you look through your cameras lens you divide the image into one third segment, both horizontally and vertically, as shown in the image below. 

So on the picture above generally, you will decide what is going to be the focal point in your picture, for landscape photography this can be either something on the ground or something in the sky. So if the ground is going to be the main focus of your shot then you would line up the horizon with the top horizontal line. Or if you were shooting something like a sunset, you may have the horizon lined up with the bottom horizontal line. In most cameras these days you can have the option of displaying a grid or not to display a grid. So when you are starting out or practicing having the grid on gives you a good guide. The red dots on the grid above is where it is good to have the main subjects on your photo placed.

So, I never have used a grid to line up my shots, but I always keep this technique in the back of my mind when I take a shot, as you can see from the above photos they are still pretty close.

In the first image of Stonehenge you can see that the horizon is basically in line with the with the bottom horizontal third of the picture. And even though normally someone would take a shot of Stonehenge taking up two thirds of the picture, I like to always take a different perspective. In this example making the clouds and the sky the main focus.
You may go to a place that is a tourist haven, but the way I think about it is, how can I shoot this same object I have seen so many times before in a way that no one else has seen before. This example, you may say, is still a very standard shot, which it is, but if you have ever been to Stonehenge you know that you can not get very close to the structures at all and there are hundreds of people walking a loop path the whole way round. This means you always will have people in the background. But sometimes good composition is also about patience and waiting for that one moment that everyone is hidden behind the structure so it looks as though you are there alone.

In the second image you can see that the boy character is in line with the left third line and the dogs face is on one of the red dots, thus when you look at this image even though most of the subjects are on the left side of the image it still seems well weighted or balanced.

These pictures leave you with a sense of purpose to the image or a story that the image has told you by leading your eyes into an image.

Another technique to consider is to fill the whole frame with your subject, this leaves no doubt in someone's mind as to what the image is supposed to be about. This technique can be used if you are trying to create an image with high impact, because you are putting the subject right in the viewers face. As with this picture below of this old broken bullet ridden train. As you look at this image and get drawn in further you start to see more and more damage it leaves you with a sense of history and thoughts as to what this train has been through.

What is ISO and how do I use it?

So what is ISO? How does it affect my pictures? And how do I use it?

ISO stands for International Standards Organisation, which doesn't really mean or explain much. Basically it relates, once again, back to when people were using film in their cameras. It basically set how sensitive the film was to light. So an ISO 100 film wasn't very sensitive to light, where as an ISO 1600 film was very sensitive to light. In other words if you were using an ISO 100 film and shooting at night, the shutter would have to be open for a long period of time in order to get enough light on to the film. Where as if you had an ISO 1600 film and you were shooting at night, then you more than likely would be able to hand hold the camera. The shutter speed would be much faster because it would collect the light on to the film much faster.

So how does adjusting the ISO affect the final image? In the days of film what would happen, the larger the ISO number the more "noise" or "grain" is visible in the photos. I have put some photos below at different ISO's so you can see what I am talking about. Now in DSLRs they replicate this by adding noise to the final image.

As you can see from the images above, there is a major difference between an ISO 100 picture and an ISO 6400 picture.
These days most people are used to looking at perfectly clear photos, mainly due to phone cameras. So you probably say, why would I want a picture that is all grainy and isn't clear. In some cases it may be because you don't have a choice, like in some night photography. You don't want to use a flash because you won't be able to capture the atmosphere if you use a flash and you don't have a tripod and need to hand hold your camera. The main reason I would use an ISO that would give grain to an image is because it can provide a sense of drama or a sense of age to a picture, I find this works best in black & white photography. Below are a couple of grainy photos taken by a couple of photographers who photograph homeless people. you can imagine is these photos were crystal clear then there wouldn't be the sense of drama or roughness about the images.

So how does ISO relate to aperture and shutter speed? Well all of these are connected and when one is adjusted the other two will either automatically be adjusted or need to be manually adjusted depending on what setting you are using on your camera. Below is a diagram that will help to explain how these are connected.

What is Aperture and how do I use it?

Funnily enough, this is the question that I get asked the most for advice on, but people who ask don't realise that this is what they are asking for advice on.

So what is aperture? Aperture relates to how far open the iris of you camera is. Now for anyone that isn't sure what is the iris of your camera. It is the part in your lens that controls how much light is let through to your camera body. You can change how far this opens with the aperture setting and this will affect how long the shutter is open, this can also affect the ISO setting (we will look at shutter speed & ISO in future newsletters) You just need to know for now that they are all related to each other.
You can see below how different aperture settings change how far open the iris is. Funnily the smaller the number, the larger the opening in the iris. But I'll explain why shortly.

So how do you use the aperture setting on your camera. On Canon cameras the setting is "AV" on Nikon, Sony and most other cameras it is just "A". When you are looking at your display screen or through your lens it appears on your screen as a f-number, as seen below in the circle.

So why does a smaller number make the hole larger? It is because the number refers to a ratio between the focal distance and the opening diameter of the iris. The way I think of it so I can remember how it works is, at F/1.8 only the first 1.8 meters of the photo is in focus at f/22 the first 22 meters of the photo is in focus (and this isn't how it works but it helps me remember, and the distance I have stated is just to help remember how it works, this is not the actual focal range).

Getting the correct Exposure

What settings to use to improve the exposure levels in your photos.

Whether you use a DSLR or a digital point and shoot camera there are always some slight changes you can make to improve your photos. Hopefully this series of monthly newsletters will help you to get better shots.

Firstly, let me briefly explain exposure. This is not how many followers you have on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. This relates to the amount of light let through your lens onto the sensor and as a result, how light or dark your image may be. See below.