Wide Angles Emphasize Geometry

So use that to your advantage. The trick is to get the camera completely square to the scene because wide angles also exhagerate any misalignment of the camera and any horizontals and verticals in the scene.

Interest is added to the scene by the addition of people.

You Won't Know If You Don't Try

I was getting very frustrated with my current cheap scanner and wondering if I could do a better job with my D80 and lightbox if I was careful how I set things up. So I tried it out. For this and another few night shots it worked great. For light shots it was awful unless I did so much masking to block extra light from reflecting on the film that it was more hassle than the scanner. I would never have known if I hadn't tried and, as usually happens in these situations, I learned something. And this picture came at great from that process.

If you want to grow, try things you don't know.

Get Low

This is a great illustration of how unnecessary are most of the things that are sold to photographers. What does sharpness have to do with this shot? What does freedom from falloff, or freedom from flare, or colour accuracy have to do with this shot? It is good to have good equipment so that its limitations don't constantly dictate to you but it is amazing how strong an image can be without most of the things that people worry so much about.

So what makes this work? A good subject, a good viewpoint (low with the cars streaking around me) and an involving composition.

Seeing What You Can't See

This is one of those shots that aren't so obvious without the benefit of experience. It was quite dark and the white foam coming out of the storm drain was something you had to look at for a minute before you really noticed it. I was able to picture this before I took it only because I now have a good idea how rushing water will look in a long exposure and what the perspective distortion from my 15mm is like. I knew I wanted to point it down to emphasize the foam and make exciting lines out of the background lights. I knew roughly how the colours would render in a long exposure and how details would start to appear that my eyes couldn't see.

Experience comes from doing so get out there and shoot!

People In A Moment

What makes a great people shot? Is it the lighting? Is it the lens? As people ourselves we are intensely attuned to other people. What makes a people shot is the right moment.

Disparate Items

The symmetry of the overhead latice and the grubbiness of the ventilation grill are at odds. They are at odds in shape, in distance, in angle, in cleanliness. It is what makes the image work

Viewpoint and Framing

One of the difficult things to visualise when starting out in photography is the concept of the relationship between angle of view and perspective. Different lenses have different power to magnify the view before the camera and can produce more or less magnified views of the scene in front. However, the perspective will be unchanged as long as the camera is in the same place. In other words, it is impossible to distinguish between a picture taken with a 100mm lens and a picture taken with a 50mm lens and cropped. To get a truly different viewpoint requires moving yourself and the camera somewhere else. In this case, a high balcony.

Another thing to note here is the use of some nearby buildings to frame the distant view. This has the effect of focussing the viewer's attention at the point of interest.

Summer Snow

This is an optical trick of the light, but a fun one. The rain was pouring down buckets and I was trying to get a shot of the lightning. The lightning was above the clouds so I gave up. I decided I would get a shot of the rain itself so I popped the flash. This is the result.

Just Enough

A lot of my strongest images are largely abstract. However, abstract images with no sense of reality can be quite unsettling. I think the trick is to get just enough sharp to identify the subject.

Another trick present here is in sense of scale. This little plant is actually tiny. Because I am very close and looking up at it, though, its inherent resemblance to a tree is reinforced.

Capturing a Feeling

A common misconception is that the job of a photographer is to make some sort of copy of a slice of the world in a slice of time. In fact, the job of a photographer is to use a representation of the world to express a feeling and induce that feeling in the viewer. To this end it is not always necessary to be able to define exactly what it is that creates that feeling as long as you know how to create it.

This photograph of a small flower blowing in the wind conveys a lot of that motion and feeling of bright windiness. It is also one of the first images I have processed using a piece of software that does a better job of turning negative images into positives. It does a better job not because of any measurable specification but because the images converted to positive with it have more "reality" and more "depth".

Decent Colour In Poor Light

This is a picture of the hood of a baby blue Corvette under hideous sodium light. Although the colour is not perfect in this negative colour film shot it is miles better than I could achieve with my digital D80. Modern negative films deal very well with difficult light -- especially mixed difficult light.