Taking your time

In addition to thinking carefully about composition and lighting, another golden rule is: take your time. Don’t be afraid to get off the beaten path – meandering down back roads on a Sunday afternoon can be equally as entertaining as watching the Colts get hammered by the Saints. Once you spot something of interest, don’t be afraid to walk around a bit looking for interesting angles and shadows, and don’t be afraid to get down on your knees to shot up at your subject for a bit more dynamic tension.

Another golden rule of course is: get CLOSE!!

And the final golden rule is to take your SDI card back home and run those images through Photoshop or some other editing software. The pictures you see here are very slightly cropped (I was using my little Nikon point and shoot); the blacks are enhanced a bit in Adobe Bridge, and the colors are saturated a tad and the curves are adjusted to open the shadows. It takes time, but messing around with the software is fun.

My experience is that ALL photos should be edited and enhanced a bit before displaying. This will be particularly true for your end of course Photostory project – don’t turn in unedited pictures.