It is sad to invest money in a good SLR camera and not be able to get more than unsuccessful, ugly and disastrous photos, one after another, due to naive oversights about basic rules of travel photography, rules that every photographer, however, beginner, should know. Today I bring you a series of tips given by photography tuition and basic rules of photography with which you can take correct photos of those that satisfy the eye. From there, making them spectacular will depend only on you. At least the rules will be on your side.
1) THE RULE OF THIRDS
This rule is very simple but it has tremendous power in the way we visualize the photo. It consists of dividing the image, mentally, into 9 equal parts (using 2 parallel horizontal lines and 2 vertical lines) and then places the subject at some point of intersection of the lines. This photo illustrates it perfectly:
2) THE HORIZON LAW
Useful when photographing landscapes. When you are composing a photo, before shooting, imagine 2 parallel horizontal lines by dividing the photo into 3 equal parts. This is applicable in both horizontal and vertical modes.
3) EXPLORE NEW ANGLES
Experience photography by shooting with your camera from daring and unusual angles. For example, take a picture of you in the rearview mirror of the car (only when you are not the driver, please) or capture the image of a historic building reflected in a puddle of water.
4) APPROACH WITHOUT FEAR OF THE SUBJECTS
Use the Macro function of your camera (in automatic mode you can identify it with a flower symbol, and in SLR cameras using a Macro lens) and take close-up photos of small objects. Capture details you could even focus exclusively on the detail bypassing the rest of the object. The results are usually very striking.
5) ADOPT THE HEIGHT OF YOUR SMALL AGE SUBJECTS
To achieve great photos of children, squat or kneel, try to lower and position the camera at the same height as the child or animal you want to photograph, so you will transmit more realism.
6) USE THE FLASH OUTDOORS
For portraits, use the flash outdoors. Even if it is a particularly sunny day, the flash helps prevent the areas of shadow that occupy the person’s face by wearing a hat or something that casts a shadow or because the sun is above or behind the person photographed. The best to avoid it in forcing the flash. It is called fill flash, and its purpose is not to illuminate the darkness but to fill the subject’s face with light so that it is uniform with its surroundings.
7) ALWAYS SHOOT IN RAW
Take all your photos in RAW. This format preserves all the elements of the photo (colors, light, shadows, and saturation) and allows, through further processing, to move them as we please. Taking a photo in JPG produces a final photo in which we would have no more room for modification.