Photo Retouch

If you are a sports fan, you know what it means when a team goes into a “rebuilding year”.  It is just when the owners or coaches decide its time to train new members and correct bad habits in others.  And invariably, what team leadership says when they go into such a time is that they are going “back to basics.”

Most times it’s best for you and I as professional photographers to go back to basics.  And, of course, if you are just getting started in the world of photography and want to learn “the ropes”, the basics are a natural start.  Nevertheless you will want to study the work of other professionals.

Anybody can take a photograph.  I attended a wedding reception where the wedding party left a disposable digital camera on each table at the reception for guests to snap photos.  Before all was said and done, it was all those youngsters that were walking about taking pictures from the dirty dishes to their own underwear. These were not photographers and while those pictures will no doubt get a few chuckles, these are not the kind of professional pictures people want for their long-term memories.

Now don’t get too upset about confusing technical terms.  Aperture is just a term for how wide your camera lens is open to let in light.  And shutter speed is just how long you let the light come in to affect the picture.  For getting a shot of a fast moving event, let the lens opening real wide but a short shutter speed so you capture the event quickly and close the window so the picture is caught before more light hurts the quality.

Photography is about being able to see light and light situations.  You can and will get learn a lot about lenses and flash photography and other ways to turn the control over the lighting of a shot to you.  So add to your core skills of photography a willingness to never stop learning.  The better and more sophisticated you get in your ability to work with the equipment, the more you will learn and the more you will want to learn. 

You can get a greater control over these basic controls of the camera such as aperture and shutter speed by learning how to switch from automatic settings to manual settings.  The automatic settings of any camera are just there for the general public who are not interested in learning the basics.  So they give you some basic settings like landscape, portrait and sports settings.  By switching to manual, you can learn what settings work best in different situations.

And that takes us to the most important basic about becoming a great photographer and that is practice.  Take some time with your equipment and play with it.  Take it to situations and take photos with different aperture and shutter speed settings, in outdoor and indoor settings and different orientations to light.  Don’t be alarmed when some of your images don’t come out correctly.  That’s part of the learning curve.

By learning by doing, you will build your confidence in your work and eventually become a great photographer.  Please don’t get over confident, there is always more to learn.  And that is one of the ammusing things about cameras and photography, isn’t it?

Photography in San Antonio by Richard’s Photography- 2010 Senior Portraits

When you were a young adult you would think about the future and what your job would be, what is the advice your elders always gave you? It was, “Do what you love to do and you will always be happy.” And that has to be true because if you can spend your work week doing what you love the most, it really won’t be work as much as it will be play that people pay you to do.

So if your passion is photography, it makes sense to start your own photography business. But how to go about it? You see so many small photography shops that seem to spring up from out of the blue. What is the best way for you to go about starting your own business like this?

The place to start when it comes to a photography business is how to do it in a legitimate way. You want a business that will last a lifetime so you want to start it out right. So don’t fall for the “get rich quick” internet schemes or books that claim they will spill the insider secrets of other successful photography business. There are no insider secrets to this business other than what you need to know to run any business. To succeed you have to…

* Pay your dues
* Get your education.
* Learn from the pros.
* Have knowledge of your craft
* Communicate with others
* Take pride in customer service

You can accomplish the first five of these goals by going to school and working part or full time in somebody else’s photography shop. You may whelmed at the idea of more school. But your photography business will be about more than just cameras, photo shoots and dark rooms. You have accounting principles to comprehend and execute, taxes to be paid, a facility to rent, employees to pay, insurance to worry about, contracts to sign and all of that other “stuff” that goes with running a business. So start early and get some basic business classes under your belt such as accounting and economics. It will do you and your business a lot of justice

Many trades have an apprentice system where you tutor under a master of the craft. But it might be a good thing for you to take this matter into your own hands. Plan on working for another photography studio long enough to learn the ins and outs of running a small business and of running a photography business. This gives you the chance to build your knowledge and exposure to equipment, learn technique and how to work with your subjects.

In fact, it might be a good idea to deliberately apprentice at a number of different types of photography studios before launching out on your own. So you can learn the ins and outs of wedding photography, baby photography, fashion photography and others from specialists all before you spend a dime of your own money to start your own enterprise. In this way, you build skills, you build knowledge, you build experience and you can watch and take notes of the great things others do and the mistakes to avoid.

Your employers will be thrilled to share their real world knowledge with you if you are open to them that you want to learn from the masters how to do this with the goal of becoming their competition in the future. Above all, you can build a client base from the many customers you work with before you start your own business. Buy taking care of someone else’s customers, they can become your customers when you finally get your business of the ground. And that is good business.

Richard’s Photography in San Antonio specializes in Studio Portraits 

4 great Tips for Making Great Digital Wedding Photography even Greater

Brides and grooms everywhere are beginning to realize the expertise of professional photographers to get the best digital wedding photography images for their special occasion. And why shouldn’t they? They would abosultely want to obtain only the best photography taken so that their photographic memories would be sealed for as long as they both live.

There are numbers of people reaching out with their own personal digital cameras for their own photography needs One of the reasons for this is that the quality is better compared to the traditional and old fashioned film cameras. Another interesting fact is that the photographs can be stored not only in their hard-bound leather covered photo albums but also on website albums online.

Today, people are using their computers more than ever before for communication. With computers, they can easily upload and transfer their wedding pictures and share them with family members and close friends all over the world. You do not have to rely on slow emails just to send your pictures. They are being delivered electronically and viewed the very second you upload them to your desktop computer.

This is one of the many advantages of digital photography. If photos are taken properly, you are pretty much guaranteed that you and you special person of interest will never regret having used digital photography for your wedding pictures.

Below are some of the tips to get the best digital photography for your wedding.

1. Choosing the right backgrounds.

Photos can really look awesome once they are shot with the perfect background. You can use the florals and decorations in the church and in the reception areas as a back draft for your photos. Be sure to fix some spread out festive decorations so that they will appear mostly with perfection on photographs.

Always remind the photographer to check if the view is good before taking any pictures. It does not mean that you have to stand on the same corner or place. The best photographer is able to make even the most simple of background look great on photo if it is taken in the right place and angle.

2.  Look out for any types of glass or mirrors.

Somebody wearing glasses can tilt their nose down to refrain from glare from flash. Should it be an eye-glass, outside window or champagne glasses.  One way or another, they will cause a reflection or brightness to reflect back on the camera it is included in the photographs.

To avoid this, the tilt and position of the camera can be manipulated so that it will not directly bounce off the glass. The photo can be taken sideways or downwards but never on eye level.

3. The perfection of timing.

People being photographed should not always be looking straight into the camera. And none of the people have to be smiling at the lens too.

One way to reach your goals is to photograph the moment in a photojouranlsitic manner You will see that catching persons on film when they are in their candid state is much better than having them wearing a fixed expression. Photography can also be called photojournalistic to have a stealth approach.
4. Review each photo.

To utilize the maximimum the memory that your digital camera can handle, it is sometimes a good idea to review every photo shot taken. Over shooting the same subject at a wedding should be avoided, be more original.

It’s best to take a variety of images for a better selection.

The greatest wedding photography is made even greater now with digital cameras. This is one important value that you definitely should have on any special day.

Professional Photographer in San Antonio

Many people are interested in learning professional photography for their own knowledge or to freelance as a photographer during certain times of the year or when they are between office jobs.  The vast number of people that would like to learn professional photography has spawned a lot of websites that will take a person through the steps that are needed to shoot photographs in a way that looks like they were taken by a professional.  The techniques that are learned to obtain the best photography will depend on which area of photography the person would like to focus on, whether it is nature photography, family photography, or landscape photography.

Step One – Purchasing The Equipment

Different types of professional photography will require different types of photography equipment so your choice of what style to study may be limited by how much you are willing to spend for the equipment.  Many people choose to obtain a basic digital camera to start with because it is very easy to position and zoom, you can view the photographs immediately after taking them, and they can be mounted on a tripod for still shots.

Step Two – Practicing Photographic Shots

By using a digital camera and a tripod, the person can practice taking photographs of different types of subjects and discover through trial which types of lighting they prefer, which types of subjects they enjoy, and whether they would like to pursue professional photography further.  Some people have such difficulty taking basic shots that they discover that they do not enjoy photography as much as they thought they would while others take to it like a duck to water and decide to make professional photography their full time career.  Taking photographs like a professional photographer will take a lot of practice, but the person should have fun learning how to take the photographs and discovering the subjects that they like to photograph.

Digital cameras are great for practicing professional photography because you will not waste a lot of film on bad shots.  Any photographs that you do not like can be deleted from the memory card immediately and the photographs that you do like can be uploaded to a computer to be viewed larger or saved as a file for future review.  Using a digital camera can also allow you to edit the photographs that have been taken so that you can see what needs to be done the next time you decide to take that type of shot.

Step Three – Finding Hints And Tips For Improvement

There are many websites on the internet that provide hints and tips for people that are interested in professional photography.  Some of these websites will have better information than others so it is very important to look at several different websites before making a decision about which ones to follow.  Professional photography is just as much about the photographer as the photographs and if a photographer is unhappy taking the photographs, it shows through on the images so be happy with the style that you have chosen.