Using fill flash

The flash built into your camera can add extra light to the foreground of a subject even when the subject and scene overall are well lit.

If you can't decide whether the front of your subject is well lighted, stand off a few feet and use the flash to fill in extra light. Don't stand too far away because a flash may only cover out to 6 or 8 feet from the camera.

If you are shooting in a location where the burst of light from your flash would be rude, or prohibited as in a theater, gallery, museum or church, use Program mode to increase the camera's shutter speed. Don't change the aperture.

Raising the ISO

To increase the shutter speed in Program mode, raise the ISO starting at 800. Keep increasing the number until you get a fast enough shutter speed that permits you to handhold the camera. That's probably going to be 1/30 second or faster.  If you must use a slower shutter speed, make sure image stabilization is turned on if your camera has that feature.

If you are shooting indoors, where lighting typically is poor, hold the camera steady with a tripod or by propping it against a wall, chair, stack of books, pillows, or bench. Breathe slowly with a natural rhythm as you gently press the shutter release.

Inside, where the color of ambient light varies, turn on Auto White Balance (AWB).

A camera may have various white balance modes, but Auto and Daylight are the most important.

Auto White Balance

AWB controls how colors look in your camera.

It corrects the color of light indoors, outdoors under streetlights and event lighting. It removes the color cast from artificial lights to make a scene look more natural.

Daylight White Balance

Daylight White Balance helps you hold onto the colors you see in natural light, like a golden sunset, blue dusk, or a foggy morning.  It doesn't work well with fluorescent or tungsten lights.

Still photography vs. video

The Chicago Sun-Times has fired its photography staff, and will use reporters with smartphones to shoot photos and videos for stories.

The newspaper said the radical change reflects the increasing importance of video in news reporting.

The Sun-Times had been a reservoir of talent – 28 people with decades of experience and skill. All gone all at once.

The paper's professional photographers had broad and deep knowledge of America's third largest city, and the hard-earned ability to tell prize-winning stories with pictures.

As the New York Times said, "Now it has some freelancers and reporters toting cheap cameras with their notebooks and pens."

Of course, this decision by the Sun-Times overlooks the news judgment and story-telling capability of the experienced photojournalists, as well as other considerations like composition, impact, beauty and focus.

Today, the prizes are awarded for website page views, length of stay at a website, and which stories are e-mailed the most. From that point of view, grainy security camera views and poorly-composed amateur images are as good as high-quality work from trained and experienced photojournalists.


Chicago Sun-Times Fires Photo Staff, Will Train Reporters to Use iPhones For Photos
MacRumors, May 31, 2013

Chicago Sun-Times lays off its photo staff
Chicago Tribune, May 30, 2013

Chicago Sun-Times drops photographers
CNN video Reliable Sources, June 2, 2013
Howard Kurtz talks to Pulitzer prize-winning photographer John H. White about what the layoffs mean for the news industry  (4:48)

Do Newspapers Need Photographers?
New York Times, May 31, 2013

Chicago Sun-Times fires entire photo staff, plans to train reporters to take pictures with smartphones
Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, May 31, 2013

Photo credit: Photojournalist shoots a crash scene with a smartphone, even though she has two SLR cameras and three telephoto lenses, in this meme found via Reddit. This was shot in Virginia and is not a Chicago Sun-Times photographer.

Grayscale

Black-and-white images are composed of shades of gray, varying from the weakest intensity, black, to the strongest intensity, white.

When we look at a black-and-white photograph, we see its tones in grayscale.

These are not two-color images of only black and white. Rather, grayscale images have many shades of gray between black and white.

Obviously, the world we see with our eyes is filled with colors of all hues and shades. However, we often find a black and white photo to be more emotional, evoking feelings and provoking memories.

Sometimes a black and white photo seems to reveal more detail and texture of a subject or scene, as if seeing the complete range of colors would distract us.

From white white to black black

Grayscale tones range from bright white to deep black. A better photograph encompasses as many of these brightness values as possible.

A digital camera allows a photographer to select the monochrome mode to capture a scene translated into black and white.

Of course, every shot is a color (RGB) image. The black and white image generated by the camera is a simulation of how black and white would appear.

RGB color is a model in which red, green, and blue light are added together to reproduce a full spectrum of colors. The image processor in a camera has been programmed arbitrarily to see colors as the product engineers see them. To record a monochrome image, the RGB colors are converted to grayscale.

Framing visual elements

Composing a photo means arranging the visual elements in the viewfinder or on an LCD monitor screen.

Whether you stand far away or move in close, you are framing your subject within that window. You can:

• Frame the shot to focus attention on your subject.
• Crop the shot to make the strongest visual statement about the subject.

Framing

Framing allows you to focus attention on your subject – isolating the subject from the larger world.

As you frame a scene in the viewfinder, you crop out extraneous pieces of visual information – getting rid of peripheral visual elements that do not say something about the visual statement you intend to make.

Looking at a scene, you may find something that can be used to frame the subject. It does not need to be a four-sided frame.

Examples of framing elements you might find in a picture could be a doorway or arch, or trees with overhanging branches.

Cropping

Images may require cropping after they are shot.

Cropping removes the outer parts of an image to improve framing and accentuate the subject.

When you view an image later, you may see fat you would like to trim away from the sides, top or bottom.
You will want to keep anything that strengthens your visual statement while removing elements of the photo that have less relevance and weaken the image.

Those could be anyone or anything extraneous, irrelevant or unrelated to the subject, providing background clutter, blaring a distracting hotspot, or showing too much empty space that contributes nothing to the statement you want to make.

Shape after cropping

• You can crop a horizontal photo so it appears to be a vertical picture. You might do that to give the image a feeling of strength or make it more imposing.
• On the other hand, you can crop a vertical picture to make it horizontal. That could give the image a more relaxed feel.
• Or you can crop a photo to a square picture to give the subject a sense of symmetry and quiet strength.

Colorful Waters

Here's how to create some colorfully soft abstractions:

1. Smear some bright acrylic paint colors on a large sheet of white paper.
2. Set a flat-bottom clear-glass bowl filled with water on some sort of supports so it is a foot or two above the paper.
3. Pour an ounce or two of vegetable oil into the water. Remember oil and water won't mix.
4. Use your finger to stir the liquids into patterns.
5. Wait for the oil and water to stop moving and then look for pleasing shapes in the water.
6. Move in close with your camera. You may need to go to the camera's macro setting for a really close in shot.
7. Shoot across the skim on the surface. Make sure the back of your camera is parallel with the surface of the water.
8. More than likely any bright light source will work.

The colors you smeared on the paper should show through the water in the bowl, softly blend together in an abstract blur.
 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
An alternative approach would be to squirt drops of food coloring into water. The way the colors constantly change as they flow into and mix with the water is eye-catching.

1. For this, a square glass container such as a cheap plastic or glass aquarium would work better than a round bowl.
2. Place an unpainted large sheet of white paper behind the container.  The background paper should be well lighted as you shoot through the container.
3. Buy inexpensive squeezable bottles of blue, yellow, green and red food coloring.
4. To shoot monochromatic images drop in one color and shoot.
5. To shoot multicolor images, drop in several colors. The water will become streaked with colors.
6. If it becomes  too muddy, simply pour out the water and refill the container.

Your photos will reveal a vibrant rainbow of floating abstractions.