“The decisive moment, it is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as the precise organization of forms which gives that event its proper expression.”
~Henri Cartier Bresson
Henri Cartier Bresson’s photographic style, and his 1952 book, popularized the notion of the "decisive moment" in photography. It is candid action captured at the moment at which the action is at its peak or at its best. Think of a sprinter in a race. The decisive moment may be when she crosses the finish line with an expression of joy on her face. Think of someone giving a speech. It may be a momentous speech, but not any photograph of the speaker will capture a decisive moment. You would want to capture the best facial expression and hand gestures that form the peak of the moment.
This month, we’re looking for photographs that were taken at the right time to capture the best and most expressive moment of what was happening. Capturing that precise moment has an element of luck, so the trick is to be prepared and anticipate the action!
Entries are not restricted to street photography, but can be any style.
Read the rules. One entry only each month per person, please!
Enter your super-amazing photos in our photo contests. The winning image will be featured on the Ultimate Photo Tips homepage for all of the following month.
Looking for something fun to shoot? Holiday lights make a great photographic subject! Here are some tips to create both realistic, magical shots, as well as abstracts.
Are you looking for something fun to photograph? How about holiday lights? Hi, I’m Julie from Ultimate Photo Tips. It’s holiday season now, and my neighborhood is filled with beautiful and colorful lights on all the houses and trees. It inspired me to get my camera out and take some pictures, so I hope I can inspire you to do the same! I’m going to share a few tips to help you get some great images.
The first thing to think about is that when the lights are on, it’s dark out, so your exposures are going to be long; long shutter speeds. The other thing is, I usually use ISO 100, since it gives me the least noise. I don’t mind if the shutter speed goes long; I’m expecting that.
The big decision you have to make when photographing Christmas lights is whether to keep your camera still on a tripod, and go for a more realistic looking shot, or to hand-hold it, and move your camera during the shot. That will give you more abstract images. Let me share a few examples so that you can see the difference.
Let’s start with a couple of shots on a tripod. The first is my neighbor’s tree. I really love those blue lights! The exposure here was 30 seconds at f/14. The small aperture created the round spots that you see. They were water droplets on my lens.
Now let’s look at a few more abstract shots! In these shots, I’m using a longer shutter speed, pointing my camera at some lights, then moving the camera during the exposure. This first one is a 6 second exposure at f/7.1
For this shot, I moved my camera around in a spiral pattern that was then traced out by the lights as lines in the image. This was a 3.2 second shutter seed at f/7.1.
This last one is another closeup shot of those colored lights on the tree under the snow. For this one, though, I zoomed the lens slowly while I was exposing. This is a 6 second exposure at f/7.1. I was actually on the tripod for this one, but zooming the lens so that there’s movement in the image.
I hope those photos inspire you to try some of your own. The key when photographing Christmas lights, is to experiment! The beauty of digital is that you can see right away what kind of effect you’re getting and what’s working. Have fun with it!
Are you looking for something to do with snow besides shovel it? 🙂 How about some snow photography? Here are eight great tips for photographing snow.
Are you looking for something to do with snow besides shovel it? 🙂 How about photographing it? Hi, I’m Julie from Ultimate Photo Tips, and today, I’m going to give you eight tips for photographing snow.
The first four tips are about photographing falling snow flakes.
Snow Photography Tip Number 1 is about choosing the right focal length for your lens to get the effect you want. A long lens will compress distance, so you can get a layered look to the falling snow, with snowflakes at different distances appearing as different sizes. If it’s not snowing very hard, this is a good way to get a lot of flakes into your image. This photo was taken with a focal length of 100mm.
Snow Photography Tip Number 2 is about choosing an aperture. When you shoot wide open, you can get snow flake bokeh, with some out of focus flakes. This can work well in combination with a long lens. If you stop you lens down and use a small aperture, you can get your flakes sharp, but be careful. If your shutter speed gets too long, to compensate for the small aperture, your flakes may start to appear as streaks. This shot was taken at f/4. Watch out for those big, out of focus flakes.
Snow Photography Tip Number 3 is about choosing your shutter speed. You need a fast shutter speed to freeze the flakes. This one was taken at 1/200 of a second.
Exactly which shutter speed to choose depends on how much wind there is too. This was also shot at 1/60, but the streaks are much longer because the wind was blowing hard.
Snow Photography Tip Number 4: You can use flash when you’re shooting snow in low light to freeze the flakes. You should take lots of shots when you try this because you often get one or two flakes close to the lens that turn out as large white splotches over your image.
Snow Photography Tip Number 6: Watch your white balance. If you’re photographing snow in the shade, the only light is reflected light from the sky, and your camera’s auto white balance can be fooled into giving you blue snow.
Snow Photography Tip Number 7: Photographing snow on a sunny day can be a tricky situation for your light meter. Keep an eye on your histogram, and watch for blown out highlights.
Finally, Snow Photography Tip Number 8! Let’s not forget about the most commonly cited tip. If you use your camera’s meter to expose an expanse of snow, it will be rendered as grey.
You’ll need to tell your camera to over-expose by 1.5 to 2 full stops to get your whites looking white!
Whew! That’s it! Now grab your camera, and go enjoy the snow! For more great photo tips, please visit my website at ultimate-photo-tips.com, and make sure to sign up for my mailing list while you’re there.
Are you guilty of trying to stuff too much stuff into your photo composition? It’s a classic mistake. We want to share our experience with our photos. The trick is, you don’t have to share it all at once! Watch this week’s video to learn the benefits of simplifying.
Are you looking for ways to take your photos to the next level? The biggest problem I see when I review photos from novice photographers is that they include too much stuff! Hi, I’m Julie from Ultimate Photo Tips, and today I want to talk about one of my favorite topics, and that is story-telling through photo composition. Specifically, I want to emphasize that less is more when you’re trying to tell a story through a picture.
All too often, I see pictures from a photographer who has come across a beautiful or unusual scene, and has proceeded to try to include all of it in one image. That’s the temptation, right? We want people to share our experience, so we try to "fit it all in" one image. Unfortunately, that photo composition strategy tends to backfire. The picture ends up looking chaotic, and viewer is left struggling to figure out what your intended subject really was.
Don’t make your viewer work hard. As the photographer, it’s your job to do the work! You have to simplify the scene in front of you by selecting what goes in your frame and what stays out. I firmly believe that if something doesn’t add to your story, then it actually takes away, and serves as a distraction. I encourage you to think carefully about what has attracted you to a particular scene, and then simplify, simplify, simplify, to leave only elements that tell that particular story.
Let’s look at a few photo composition examples from a trip I took to Istanbul.
This first shot is really a tourist’s snapshot. There’s no compelling story, just an eye-level perspective of an open square and building. Can I find and isolate anything within this that would make a stronger story? What about this guy here who is selling bird seed to the tourists to feed the pigeons?
Here’s another one. Is this a photo of the mosque? The bridge? The people fishing? It’s hard to tell. There’s a lot going on, and the elements are not well organized. I was actually interested in the people fishing, so I walked forward a few feet and turned back to photograph this scene.
I love the story here! It’s all about being too short! The gentleman’s pants are too short, and he’s too short! I’ve included his rods and tackle to tell the full story of what he’s doing, but it’s a much more coherent image than the first.
Finally, this photo composition of a path is not too special. But when I stopped to ask myself what was really catching my eye here, I found that it wasn’t the path at all.
Take the time to understand what has caught your eye, and made you lift your camera, and then create a photo composition that eliminates everything from your image that doesn’t support that story.
That’s it for this time! For more tips to improve your photography, please visit ultimate-photo-tips.com, and make sure to sign up for my newsletter while you’re there! That’s where I share ideas and inspiration that I don’t share anywhere else.
Learn photography through a friendly and constructive photography critique. In this video, I share my thoughts on a lovely image of water under a pier, offering tips for simplifying the image to focus on a single story.
Photography Critique: What I like about this image!
You’ve got me right away with the subject of this photo. I love water, I love photographing water, and I love looking at photos of water!
Here, I also love the light. The reflections that it has created on the water below the pier are gorgeous. Related to the light, I love the colors in the image. I appreciate the contrast of the complimentary colors. There are warm hues under the pier, contrasting with cool blues around the outside. That works well.
Finally, I love the repeated shapes of the pier footings that lead our eyes in to a vanishing point.
All of these elements are very strong, and I can see why Kimberly was drawn to this scene.
Photography Critique: A Quick Fix
The first thing I notice is that the horizon is not quite level. A small rotation takes case of that quickly.
Photography Critique: The Weakness in the Image
I think the weakness of the image is that it is a bit too busy. It feels to me like there’s a lot going on, and I’m not sure where I should be looking. I’d like to see the image simplified a little.
Photography Critique: Tip to Determine How to Simplify
Whenever feel the need to simplify an image, I do a quick test. I switch the image to black and white, and review it. Sometimes, it’s the color that’s overwhelming the photo, and serving as a distraction, rather than supporting the story. In such cases, a conversion to black and white might simplify the photo and strengthen the story.
In this case, the image still feels overwhelming to be in black and white. I don’t feel that solved the issue, which points to the fact that it’s the composition, and the lines and shapes in the image that are making it feel too busy to me. It’s time to switch back to color, and try something else!
Photography Critique: Cropping to simplify and strengthen composition
There are two strong elements in the image: the splash across the front and up the left side, and the repeating pattern of the pier footings. The elements don’t seem to be working together here, but instead are competing for my attention.
My first attempt at a crop will be to try and simplify the image, while keeping both of these elements:
To me, this crop just reinforces the fact that these two elements are competing. It hasn’t solved the problem. I like the splash at the left, and I like the repeating shapes, but my attention bounces between them. Time to try again.
I feel like I need to make a choice between the splash and the pier. To me, the pier is the strongest element, with the repeating shapes, and the beautiful light underneath, so I’d like to keep that. This time, I’ll crop in from the bottom left.
I kept a little of the dark beam on the left to balance the one on the right, and a little splash at the bottom to serve as an anchor and a bit of a frame. I much prefer this crop. I feel like we’ve simplified the image, and settled on a single story to tell.
There’s one more experiment to try! It’s often worth flipping your image horizontally to see which way works best. Our eyes "read" images from left to right, just the way (in this culture) we read books. Let’s try it:
This looks even stronger to me. I feel like my eye is grabbed at the left, and sent through the image, following the lines and led to the vanishing point.
Note that this crop is quite different from the original image. In the original, the vanishing point was closer to the center. This crop is asymmetrical. I prefer it this way, since the imbalance adds to the angles of the lines to move us through the image. If you prefer symmetry, however, there is another option for cropping to a square that puts the vanishing point in the center, and emphasizes symmetry:
I prefer to stick with the asymmetric version! For a final touch, I’d warm up the color temperature just a little to saturate those warm hues even more.
Learn photography through a friendly and constructive photography critique. In this video, I share my thoughts on a lovely image of water under a pier, offering tips for simplifying the image to focus on a single story.
Photography Critique: What I like about this image!
You’ve got me right away with the subject of this photo. I love water, I love photographing water, and I love looking at photos of water!
Here, I also love the light. The reflections that it has created on the water below the pier are gorgeous. Related to the light, I love the colors in the image. I appreciate the contrast of the complimentary colors. There are warm hues under the pier, contrasting with cool blues around the outside. That works well.
Finally, I love the repeated shapes of the pier footings that lead our eyes in to a vanishing point.
All of these elements are very strong, and I can see why Kimberly was drawn to this scene.
Photography Critique: A Quick Fix
The first thing I notice is that the horizon is not quite level. A small rotation takes case of that quickly.
Photography Critique: The Weakness in the Image
I think the weakness of the image is that it is a bit too busy. It feels to me like there’s a lot going on, and I’m not sure where I should be looking. I’d like to see the image simplified a little.
Photography Critique: Tip to Determine How to Simplify
Whenever feel the need to simplify an image, I do a quick test. I switch the image to black and white, and review it. Sometimes, it’s the color that’s overwhelming the photo, and serving as a distraction, rather than supporting the story. In such cases, a conversion to black and white might simplify the photo and strengthen the story.
In this case, the image still feels overwhelming to be in black and white. I don’t feel that solved the issue, which points to the fact that it’s the composition, and the lines and shapes in the image that are making it feel too busy to me. It’s time to switch back to color, and try something else!
Photography Critique: Cropping to simplify and strengthen composition
There are two strong elements in the image: the splash across the front and up the left side, and the repeating pattern of the pier footings. The elements don’t seem to be working together here, but instead are competing for my attention.
My first attempt at a crop will be to try and simplify the image, while keeping both of these elements:
To me, this crop just reinforces the fact that these two elements are competing. It hasn’t solved the problem. I like the splash at the left, and I like the repeating shapes, but my attention bounces between them. Time to try again.
I feel like I need to make a choice between the splash and the pier. To me, the pier is the strongest element, with the repeating shapes, and the beautiful light underneath, so I’d like to keep that. This time, I’ll crop in from the bottom left.
I kept a little of the dark beam on the left to balance the one on the right, and a little splash at the bottom to serve as an anchor and a bit of a frame. I much prefer this crop. I feel like we’ve simplified the image, and settled on a single story to tell.
There’s one more experiment to try! It’s often worth flipping your image horizontally to see which way works best. Our eyes "read" images from left to right, just the way (in this culture) we read books. Let’s try it:
This looks even stronger to me. I feel like my eye is grabbed at the left, and sent through the image, following the lines and led to the vanishing point.
Note that this crop is quite different from the original image. In the original, the vanishing point was closer to the center. This crop is asymmetrical. I prefer it this way, since the imbalance adds to the angles of the lines to move us through the image. If you prefer symmetry, however, there is another option for cropping to a square that puts the vanishing point in the center, and emphasizes symmetry:
I prefer to stick with the asymmetric version! For a final touch, I’d warm up the color temperature just a little to saturate those warm hues even more.
This week’s challenge is to photograph reflections. You may find reflections in water, ice, a mirror, metal, or any reflective surface.
The fun with reflections is to play with whether they are an accurate "mirror image" of the original, or whether they warp the original in some way. In some cases, the symmetry is rewarding. In others, the intrigue is in the new form that is created in the reflective surface.
Have fun with this one! I look forward to seeing your reflections.
Read the rules. One entry only each month per person, please!
Enter your super-amazing photos in our photo contests. The winning image will be featured on the Ultimate Photo Tips homepage for all of the following month.
Light or Subject? Which should come first? When choosing your photography subjects, turn your thinking on its head. Look for the good light first, and then photograph whatever you find in it.
The subject, or the light: which one should come first?
Hi, I’m Julie from Ultimate Photo Tips, and today I’d like to try and turn your thinking around when it comes to finding subjects for your photography. Sometimes, we go out with a preconceived notion of what we want to photograph. But I say, find the good light first, and then make your subject whatever is in that light.
Photography is all about the light. The right light can make or break your image. To get the best photographs, I recommend that you keep your eyes open all the time for interesting light. When you find that light, then see where it’s falling, and photograph that! Just about anything can make a good subject when it’s in the right light. Let’s look at a few examples.
Here’s an early morning photo in the country, taken at 5:20am. Often, finding the right light means getting out during the golden hour, or magic light, which is half an hour before and after sunset and sunrise. The light is warmer at this time, and the shadows are softer, and your photos are usually better!
Take a look at this second photo which was taken a few feet away from the first, and just three hours later at 8:30am, after the sun was high in the sky. The magic is over, and the photo is gone.
When I took this photo, I was at the top of a hill, and the sun was setting down at the bottom of the hill. The light rays were really low, and it created this unusual situation in which only the leaves that were vertical to the ground were catching the light. Keep your eyes open for unique lighting situations like this. They create unique photography subjects!
Just to show you that great photography subjects can be made out of truly anything, when it’s in the right light, consider this photo. The lines are actually straight, and the curve is created by how the light is falling. It makes a nice abstract. Guess where I took it?
Good light doesn’t have to come from sunlight. Sometimes it’s created by artificial light, too. Always be on the lookout for interesting patterns of light and shadow, which can create beautiful photography subjects.
I hope you’ve gathered the moral of the story by now! It might turn your thinking around a little. Find the good light first, and then photograph whatever’s in it.
That’s it for today! For more fun photo tips, come on over to ultimate-photo-tips.com, and make sure to sign up for my newsletter while you’re there. That’s where I share ideas and inspiration that I don’t share anywhere else.
Having trouble understanding camera lenses? If you want to understand lens quality, as well as what your lens’ maximum aperture is all about, watch the video!
Did you catch Part 1 of this series about understanding your camera lenses?
After listening to this video, try the exercise below.
Video Transcript
What makes one lens different from the next? I’ve been getting lots of questions about lenses lately, so I’m doing a little mini-series about them. Hi, I’m Julie from Ultimate Photo Tips. In my last video, I explained the focal length and field of view. Today, I want to talk about two more aspects of lenses: glass quality and maximum aperture.
Understanding Camera Lenses: Glass Quality
First of all, let’s talk about one of the biggest differentiating factors between lenses: the quality of the glass. The best lenses are sharp. But sharpness is not the only quality you want to look for. To one degree or another, all lenses suffer from certain optical aberrations, like blur (lack of sharpness), distortion, vignetting, loss of contrast, and chromatic aberration. Those are the effects that you want to minimize. So, a high quality lens is one in which these negative effects are not as pronounced.
Understanding Camera Lenses: Maximum Aperture
Now let’s talk about some more numbers. When you hear someone describe a lens as a 24-105mm f/4, you now know – from my last video – that 24-105mm refers to the focal length. Let’s look at the other number, f/4. What does that mean? That number refers to the maximum aperture of the lens. What’s the widest it can open? Lenses that can open wider are usually more desirable (and heavier, larger, and more expensive!) So an f/2.8 lens is better than an f/5.6 lens. Why is a good to have a larger maximum aperture?
There are two reasons. First, a wider aperture means that under the same lighting conditions, you could use a faster shutter speed to get the same exposure. That’s why lenses with a wide maximum aperture are sometimes called "fast" lenses. This can be very useful if you are hand-holding your lens, and want to keep your image sharp.
The second reason that a wider maximum aperture is desirable is to get a bigger drop-off in sharpness. Being able to shoot with a very wide aperture will let you blur your background. Soft backgrounds can be desirable for portrait photography, close-up photography, and more.
Something else to know is that on many zoom lenses, the maximum widest aperture varies with the focal length. So, you may see the lens listed as a 28-135mm, f/3.5-5.6 lens. That means that when the lens is at 35mm, the maximum aperture is f/3.5, but when you zoom in to 135mm, the maximum widest aperture changes to f/5.6. Remember, the range is referring to the maximum aperture, not the overall range for the lens. That maximum aperture is often written on the end of the lens near the glass. It may appear as 1:3.5, rather than f/3.5.
One final thing to note is that you may actually want to avoid using your lens at its minimum and maximum apertures, and come in a stop or two. At the extremes, you may experience more of the lens aberrations I mentioned earlier.
That’s it for today! Check out more tips over at ultimate-photo-tips.com, and make sure to sign up for my newsletter while you’re there. That’s where I share ideas and inspiration that I don’t share anywhere else. Happy shooting, and I’ll see you next time!
EXERCISE – Understanding Camera Lenses:
As I’ve just discussed, a zoom lens may have a different maximum aperture when set to it shortest and longest focal lengths. Play with your own zoom lens to check this out. Set it to the widest angle focal length first, and then (in aperture priority or manual mode) change the aperture to its widest setting. Now, zoom your lens to its longest focal length, and check what happens to your aperture setting. Did it change?
Having trouble understanding camera lenses? What do all those numbers mean? In this video, I talk about focal length, and how it relates to field of view and perspective.
Are you ready for Part II of this mini-series on understanding your camera lenses?
Video Transcript
I’ve been getting a lot of questions about lenses lately. What makes one camera lens different from another? What do all the numbers mean? A 24-105 f/4 — what’s that? Hi, I’m Julie from Ultimate Photo Tips, and to answer all these questions, I thought I’d do a little mini-series about lenses. And for today’s tip, I’m going to concentrate on the focal length of the lens.
Understanding Camera Lenses: Focal Length & Field of View
That’s the first number you usually hear when a lens is being described. When I say a 24-105mm lens, or a 100mm lens, the number is referring to the focal length of the lens. It’s specified in millimeters. That number is telling you about the field of view, or the angle of view, that the lens has. Is it a wide-angle lens (anything up to about 35mm), a "normal" lens (35-70mm), or a telephoto lens (80mm on up to 300mm or more)?
Let’s look at some examples of how the focal length of the lens is related to field of view. In these examples, I am standing in the exact same place, and just changing the focal length of the lens used in each shot. You will see that the focal length affects how much the subject is magnified.
Finally, here’s a really wide angle shot at taken 16mm.
Understanding Camera Lenses: Zoom Lenses
A zoom lens allows you to vary your focal length within a given range. For the images you just saw, I used a lens with a focal range from 16 to 35mm, and another lens with a range from 70-300mm, and I took the shots at the extremes of each one. A fixed focal lens, also called a prime lens, has a single focal length that does not change.
Understanding Camera Lenses: Focal Length & Perspective
Now, just because you may have a zoom lens, doesn’t mean you don’t have to move your feet! Because I stood in the same place for those example images you just saw, my perspective didn’t change. However, if I move my camera position for each image so that I fill the frame with the same subject each time, then I do change my perspective. In that case, and in the examples I’ll show you next, you’ll see how a wide angle lens really exaggerates depth, whereas a telephoto lens compresses distance. Let’s take a look.
Let’s start again with a shot (above) taken with a focal length of 300mm. Notice the two signs, one at each edge of the frame. For all of my shots, I’ll keep the signs at the left and right so that the same subject matter fills the frame each time. Also take note of the relative size of the white truck and the stop sign. To get this shot, I’m standing way down the street, far away from the stop sign.
This (above) was taken at a focal length of 16mm. By the time I took this shot, I was standing almost in between the signs. Notice how the distance is much more exaggerated here. The perspective has changed in each shot, and the impression of depth is increased as the angle of view gets wider. That’s because the relative sizes of the objects within the frame change. The truck is now tiny, compared to the stop sign. That gives the feeling of depth.
Okay! I think that’s enough for today. I hope that helped you in understanding camera lenses. Next time, I’ll talk about other aspects of lenses like their maximum aperture, and glass quality.
In the meantime, come on over and visit me at ultimate-photo-tips.com for more great photography tips, and make sure to sign up for my mailing list while you’re there. That’s where I share ideas and inspiration that I don’t share anywhere else.
