When a photo turns into art

Most of the times, having a new camera or being new to photography makes us take pictures of everything. But when does a pic/snapshot transform into a beautiful photograph?

There are some things to keep in mind:

1. Do you care about the photo? An image is supposed to tell a story. It makes you understand it without words. It does not always have to be technically perfect. It has to be beautiful.

2. Is it unique? We tend to take photos of daily things, such as flowers(macro photos of flowers are all over the place), sunsets and sunrises, cats, etc. You can, of course, take a picture of a flower and it can be perfect, but keep in mind that the more "cliché" your photo is, the more you have to be creative about it. I´ve taken a picture of the moon. Right after I got my zoom lens. It was perfect, sharp and nice. But others before me took even more beautiful pictures of it. Do I get credit for it if I upload it on the internet? Probably not. I might, however, take a night photo in a dark place with the sky all lit by the moon and stars and make it the most beautiful moon picture even taken. It´s all about the originality

3. Check your technique. It´s true that you can only understand photography better after you´ve practiced a lot. And the more you practice, the better you´ll get. You´ll learn to have a photographic eye(understand in a better way color, lights and shadows). Even so, there are a few initial rules that make your images look better(the thirds rule, how to pose a model in an image and how NOT to crop limbs, etc)

4. Only one thing - please, start with images that are in focus(well defined). We love bokeh and motion blur, but only as long as the main subject is in focus or we can understand what´s going on in the image.

5. Check if the image looks the way you saw it before taking the picture. I´m sure the fireworks you saw were amazing, but seeing dots in the sky in your image do not make me see them the same way you did. For you, it´s a beautiful image because it brings back the memories, but for me, it´s a badly timed image. We need to see an image the way it looked when you decided to take a picture of it. Your eyes are amazing, they don´t overexpose, underexpose, blur or tilt the image. Only after you succeed capturing that, we could be compeled to feel at least part of what you felt.

I hope the few tips I wrote here are helpful for you and please, if you have any other tips, be sure to let them in the comments below. If there´s one thing that I like about the time we live in, is the knowledge share and the amazing quality of images nowadays cameras are able to capture. We just have to understand when to press the button.

by PhotoLore 24 february 2014 4 replies

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