This is a tip I learnt from the super-talented Susannah Conway. I didn’t realise how much difference it can make when you just turn a vertical or horizontal line into a diagonal – and now I do it all the time.
Why not start looking for diagonal lines in your world!
Come back tomorrow for an interview with photographers Christine Boyd and Xander Neal of Northern Ireland-based photography studio navyblur (and then back for more tips on Friday!)
How often do you check in with where you connect with the earth? We walk over hundreds of different surfaces every day which, paired with an interesting pair of shoes, can make a thoughtful image
Where have your feet taken you today?
Come back tomorrow for more tips!
The sky offers so many surprises – but sometimes we are so busy we forget to look up
Look up when you are out and about today – what do you see?
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Tomorrow 17-year old photographer Ffion Atkinson shares her story. More tips throughout the week!
We often notice only those things we choose to notice, and zone out thing we inherently dislike. Although I love sunny flowers, I am not generally a fan of bright yellow. So I went in search of it, and found so much waiting for me.
What is your least favourite colour? Where can you see it around you now?
Come back tomorrow for more tips!
Often we have a natural inclination to try to fit an entire object in the frame, however big that might be. Try to resist that sometimes (especially if photographing something quite ordinary), and go for bits of an object instead. Sometimes the results can surprise you – and end up much more artful. The image above is of part of a beautiful ceramic serving dish I found in Greece.
What ordinary things around you have beautiful parts?
Come back tomorrow for more tips!
This is one of the oldest ‘rules’ of photography, but it is so powerful when you consciously try to use it.
Imagine your viewfinder split into a 3×3 grid of nine same-sized rectangles. Try to place the subject of your photo along one of the dividing lines (above), or in a place where the grid lines intersect (below).
What rules do you like to break?
More tomorrow!
For the next two weeks this space will become a place for celebrating photography – and I hope you will stick around for the party!
I love photographs. Memories captured, beauty preserved, promises unspoken.
My Dad is a trained photographer and apparently one of my ancestors was the first ever photojournalist! I have been taking photographs for years, with all sorts of different cameras. In the Do What You Love e-course go out and about in search of beauty and explore what kind of photographers we are. This has made me reflect more on what kind of a photographer I am. I am fascinated by the way the subject matter of my photos has changed hugely at different times in my life.
When I was younger I used to take pictures of everything (and often process them in my Dad’s dark room in our garage, marvelling at the magic as the images emerged in the developing solution). In my early twenties I travelled a lot on my own and lived abroad for several years – in this period I mainly took photos of landscapes and buildings.
Then I spent several years working for UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund) and found myself drawn to people’s faces, especially those of children in developing countries – and food (in street markets etc).
More recently I seem to take more random pictures of details – my feet, textures, the sky – and I can’t stop taking pictures of flowers lately. Funny how it changes over time.
I am drawn to simple photos that show raw beauty – whether in the subject, the colour or the feeling of the image.
In the next two weeks I am going to share some of my favourite tips, along with interviews with fantastic photographers (Roxanne Krystalli, Christine Boyd and Xander Neal).
I hope you will also join in and share your own tips and tricks. And if you fancy getting out and about a bit more with your camera this month, why not join Susannah Conway’s ‘August Break’?
So tell me, what kind of a photographer are you?
PS If you want to start seeing the world in new ways, why not join the Do What You Love e-course. Registration is open now!
… I hope it makes people feel the way I felt when I discovered ‘My Heart Wanders’ by Pia Jane Bijkerk.
It is so beautiful it made me gasp.
It is like a precious treasure, which reveals breathtaking natural elegance and soulwarming words with every page.
It even has a little gift buried at the back – a paper heart tied with a ribbon and the note ‘from one wandering heart to another’.
Aesthetically this has to be my book of the decade… These photos really don’t do it justice. It was as if the book didn’t want to be photographed, but I really wanted to share a peek with you.
The perfect gift for a close friend – or even for yourself…
When I woke up this morning I had this really strong flashback of my time as a student in Kyoto, the ancient capital of Japan (and my favourite city in the world). I was sat in my homestay family’s kitchen some 15 years ago making cheese on toast in their strange grilling machine, using the delicious squidgy doorstop bread I have only ever found over there. I had this incredible sense of joy in the moment, as I went through my breakfast ritual in this foreign land, before heading off to school past rice fields and bamboo forests, a whole day of adventures stretching ahead of me.
I keep feeling a very strong pull to Kyoto these days. It comes in waves and my mind keeps wandering East. And when I woke up this morning it struck me what an incredible sense of freedom I had at that point. I was virtually alone the other side of the world, with very limited money but a whole year to savour all for myself. I was picking up the new language piece by piece, with mini triumphs every day as I managed to converse with the old man selling sweet potatoes, or read a new roadsign or sing along with a festival chorus. I went to school in the mornings, and spent the afternoons exploring. My time was my own, to spend how I chose.
And then I realised it is not that dissimilar now. I have a business to run and bills to pay, but one of the reasons I made the leap away from the corporate world was to have that freedom to choose how I spend my time. Sometimes you find yourself working so hard that you forget that it is completely up to you whether you start your day on the computer, or in the park, or in the studio… So I’ve started a new routine for my mornings – tea in the garden and half an hour with a book about Japan before the day begins, and a moment of thanks for this freedom.
What about you? What is your morning ritual?
[Image courtesy of Gypsy Girl’s Guide]
I am so excited and honoured to have been invited to join a tribe of inspiring women – including Christine Mason Miller, Boho Girl Denise Andrade, Marianne Elliott and Jen Gray – as a wandering contributor to the gorgeous Gypsy Girl’s Guide.
One of the most delicious sources of travel and life musings I have come across, Gypsy Girl’s Guide was one of the first blogs I ever read when I discovered this online creative world.
So now it feels so precious to be invited along for the ride by founder and talented photographer Alessandra Cave.
This is my first ever ‘column’, and today I posted my first contribution (here), musing on ‘Travelling Light’. I would LOVE to hear your thoughts – so please do stop by and share how you travel these days…