November 27th, 2007 by
Os Honestly, I’m not much of a book person but for the sake of improving my photography, I went online to search for books specifically on composition. My photos are generally lacking in composition. They are boring and look like any ordinary snapshots.
I’ve seen and bought a number of books on photography which are mostly similar. How to use your camera, what is DoF (Depth of Field), what is shutter speed etc… Fairly standard and boring topics. That is why this book is so refreshing: Learning To See Creatively by Bryan Peterson.
Why do other people’s photograph stand out more than mine? The main reason is composition. Composition can turn a photo from “Oh, that’s nice…” to a “Wow! How did you do that?”. Bryan guides and shows you how to train your vision and “see creatively”. There are many photos and comparison to guide you throughout the book and helps to visualize what Bryan is explaining throughout the book.
There are also plenty of engaging exercises including getting down on your knees and belly to view the world differently. It can be daunting at first, especially if you’re like me. I hate it when everyone is looking at me kneeling down to take a photograph. You can review your photos after the exercises and understand the different ways of “seeing”.
After a number of same old photography books, I am quite reluctant to spend more money on books. I’d rather save them for my dream Nikkor lens 17-35 f/2.8. So I borrowed a copy of the book from my local library, you should do the same too. After only halfway through it, I decided that I want my own copy for keeps. It’s only $16.47 from Amazon! How could I resist?!
Brian Auer recently conduct a little experiment that produced fascinating results. He posted the above photograph and invited people to edit and upload their results. Even though the original photo was pretty mediocre, the edited photos were remarkable.
Brian believes that this affirms his belief: Photography is 50% capture and 50% post processing. I do believe that post processing plays a part in photography today. But 50/50? I’m not so sure. 
There are several photographers that I know of who can produce great out-of-camera photographs. Personally, I try to do as little editing to my photos as possible too.
Head over to Brian’s blog and check out the results!
The Hidden Pond by Stuck in Customs
iDigitalPhoto has a great compilation of tips to improve your photos. Here are some of the tips that I find extremely enlightening:
Lighting
Light from the side brings out shapes, textures and structures. That’s why early morning and evening are rich times to photograph.
Color
Our eyes naturally adjust to colored or tinted light sources to make them appear white and so will your digital camera but only within certain limits. (Ahh, so that’s why!)
Flash
Balance the flash with day light for stunning results. Your camera may offer a ‘slow flash’ or ‘synchro flash’ or ‘daylight synchro’ setting.
Direct flash on groups of people produces better-looking images than direct flash on a single person.
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Digital Photography School has a great article on asking yourself some questions before taking a photograph. I’ll be the first to admit that I generally have the habit of being shutter-happy. I guess it’s a bad habit from my point-and-shoot digital camera days.
I’ve been putting in more effort before taking photos lately and this article really helps me in understanding what I should think about before taking a shot.
Here are some of my favorites out of the 10: 
1. What story am I telling?
This is an important question and one that should help you to make any number of decisions in terms of composition, framing, exposure etc. In essence what you’re asking is ‘why am I taking this shot? What is it’s purpose and what am I trying to convey?’ Is it purely a way to keep a record of a moment, are you trying to capture the emotion of a moment, is it possibly a shot to give to someone, is it part of a larger series of shots or will it be the only shot to commemorate the moment etc.
This is the hardest item for me. I’m not much of a storyteller. In fact, I do not have a story to go along with most of my photos. I just want to share what I see with anyone who views my photos. I need to put more effort to add a story to my photographs.
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BURИBLUE on Flickr
I found a great tip for landscape photography that sounds so logical and so simple but yet many of us do not realize. While composing a landscape photograph, try to incorporate 3 aspects into the photo. A foreground, middle ground and a background.
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