HOW I FIND INSPIRATION AND SET UP THE SHOT

If you’re a weekend warrior or an avid hobbyist, it might help to know that you already have most of the skills you need to put together a beautiful gallery of images. I think the dirty, little secret of photography is that it really isn’t that hard to get 90% of what you want with the equipment and know how you already have. The other 10% is a lot of finesse and experience and technical skill, but the average devotee of your work isn’t going to see it. Skilled photographers can sometimes be the worst critics, but browse through instagram or any picture/social media site and you’ll see thousands of images that are basically fine. The critic isn’t wrong when he or she says the edits have problems or the images could be fixed, but it shouldn’t stop you from turning out your good work. Still, how might you improve your photos with a few simple adjustments that you can easily make and without a lot of time and effort?

Take a look at the images below of Erica and me. We were just having fun while scouting locations for this year’s engagement and romance sessions and building up some promo material for social media. We planned nothing and the images came out perfect with minimal editing…Keep scrolling; you’ll see; and, I’ll show you some things you can do to make your day-venture photos into fun and beautiful photo essays that will catch your friends’ eyes.

We started out driving toward Mount Baden Powell in Southern California. You can easily get from the beach to the snow in less than two hours here. On our way up the mountain, we noticed a tiny, partially frozen lake fed from the snowmelt off the Angeles Forest. We parked the car and spotted acorns, old logs and hibernating cat-tails just at the end of where the lake bleeds off. But enough about us. Here’s how I set up the shot and what you can do to easily walk through your photos before you take them. Scroll down for tips.

The images above reveal a few simple and easy to use tips to help you set up your shots. First, go somewhere. Even if you don’t know where you are going, go somewhere. The most important thing I can tell you is that if you aren’t excited about what you see, it’s not really worth taking a picture of now, is it?

Now I don’t use a tripod often, but since Erica and I were having fun for ourselves, once I spotted the location I wanted to photograph, I set up the camera on the tripod and walked around looking for things to put into the frame and to choose which angle I wanted to shoot from. It’s not that hard, and it’s a lot of fun. Before you start shooting, stop and ask yourself, “What does this look like from another angle?”; “What else is around me that could tell more of the story I’m trying to capture from this location?”

Now look at the images in the second and third rows above. Notice what happened here? Here they are again.

In three tries, it was obvious which angle to take the shot from. The first is bland and you can’t really tell what the environment looks like. The second is better, but my head is smack dab in the middle of trees and brush. Now, if that’s what is important, fine; but, here I’m missing the beautiful lake and the mountain landscape. The third image nails it. You can see the mountains, the bushes and the lake, and it tells a much richer visual story. As you can tell from the images above, the lake was shallow here, and I could have easily had us take shots from the water’s edge, but it doesn’t really make much sense, does it? I walked through the water to get a feel for what it would look like. I mean, if we wanted to get wet, we could have done it, but that’s not the story we were telling. When I look at images, I wonder what the people are doing; why they are there. If we were about to go swim, great. But, we weren’t, so keeping the images out of the water just made more sense.

Now here is one thing I wish I would have done, but didn’t…

There were these great cat tails along the side of the lake, and we used them in the photos, but I didn’t take any pictures of them. How great would this set be if there were some more pictures of exploding cat tails and pictures of each of us hunting through the weeds trying to find them?

So, how are you going to make your pictures better? By going somewhere and finding something to see; by looking around for things that make the scene more interesting, and more like what it actually looks like (you can’t capture everything in one frame, but you can add to what’s there if it’s part of what is around you to give a little better sense of what it looked like); and by taking shots from different angles, and comparing them. Start to see through your lens and not your eyes.

Trust me. Go have fun and try. You’ll be instagramming your best photos in no time. I can’t wait to see what you’ve taken. And, hey, tag me @jnixphotog so I can see what you’re up to. Imagine beautifully!