What makes people react to a good image or, what should a winning image really look like? One could also say, please give me the guidelines which photographers use to take winning category images. I guess these and more are typical questions almost every photographer or would be photographers think off, especially when sitting back with a good glass of wine. Does experienced photographers ask these questions or does it happen all by itself after years of doing photography? Are these the only questions that will define a winning image?

How many people go read reviews, web articles or visit a forum after buying a new camera? Personally I think the percentage people getting a magazine or reading web based reviews are high. Nothing wrong doing that, the question is, what would you think the perfect image should look like after reading web reviews? When consulting the web one will read things like dynamic range, noise and many more. My experience is web articles cover more technically type aspects related to photography. How important are these technical type questions in helping you take winning images. Surely they are important, I do not think incorrect exposed images will be price winners……

Lets consider one of the most basic rules on our journey becoming real photographers. The first image I see when thinking of composition is the so-called "Rule of Thirds" I think this is the most fundamental and probably the most important guideline in terms of image composition. When I started many years back with my first small 35mm film camera I remember my farther telling me about the rule of thirds. Later somebody told me that the rule of thirds are really an image or copy of how the brain see the world through our human eyes. The human brain does not direct the eyes to the middle of a scene on first contact, no the brain has a pattern it follows when scanning a scene or image. By developing a good understanding of how the brain see an image, we as photographers will increase our winning image hit rate I believe. You can easily test this by developing a habit of showing your best 2 or 3 images after each day out with your camera to your wife or ladies, your best friend. Look at the reactions and listen to the comments, you will learn a lot about both the emotional side of photography plus about your own images.

Thinking about the "Rule of Thirds" the questions is, does the little ship sail away in the above image or is it sinking? The rule of thirds has been talked about and written about much on the web, no need for me to add anything. My advice is, search the web and list the 5 or 6 most important points related to the rule of thirds. Keep them with you and you will quickly get a feel for it. Without going into any in-depth discussion, the following general points will also help you to discover your own set of rules taking that winning image:-

• On landscape images, always build in something interesting into the foreground, this helps create a feel for depth

• Practice to select the right focus point in your images - set your camera to focus on the first half press and to capture exposure when pressing the shutter all the way

• Use leading lines to guide the eye into the image, great example is using a road to lead the eye into the image

• Keep in mind that photography is a form of art, you the artist. Technically correct images are in most cases completely boring

• When shooting a close-up portrait, ask the model to let the head turn a little forward and to the side, this creates a warm intimate or friendly look.

• For portrait work keep a pocket book to note each "working" position so that you can plan the next shoot better

• Plan when going out for a serious job, no planning equals sub standard results

• Take your time, do more than one picture of the same subject

• On portraits its important to wait for the right moment, take care to never wait more than 3 seconds, flirt with your model

• When shooting architecture or buildings avoid taking right from the front - work the image until best view corner views often works best

• Make use of natural framing. Some of the most interesting images use this technique

Each of the above images includes elements of what I discussed. The final point I like to briefly discuss is the term, "Working an Image" Its something I personally only learned more about much later in my photographic hobby career. On a day's outing, I enjoy to return with anything from 300 to 500 images. With digital one can do that and when home I find it fun to sort the images and to keep those I really like. On the other hand if I want to get a specific image then I will really "work the image" until I get what I look for.

Working an image is nothing else than deciding on a subject and then to work that image by considering different angles, heights, focal lengths until you get the best angle, view, background and impact. Buildings are great examples of working an image, landscape images are also great examples and finally I found product images often requires this technique to help create great images. Take a simple example of taking an image of a camera or a motorcar. The most common example is of the photographer standing two or three meters away from the motorcar and to then "snap" the image. Next time force yourself to take at least 50 images of the motorcar before you go, go in deep down, use reflections, zoom in on the badge on the hood, use the sides of the motorcar to get an interesting effect, zoom in on the wheel and many more….. Keep on "working that image" until you find results that make people say wow. Do we really need to shoot wedding images in the local botanical gardens? Have you ever considered doing it in the local supermarket? My son recently did a wedding shoot in water. The results were absolutely amazing. You can see more of his creative work on www.picturebrothers.ch

To be honest the little guy above was not really polite. He kept on moving while I was getting ready to take the shot, so I decided to drop in the water drop with Photoshop. For the rest it is all true. As a hardened Olympus user I am still getting use to my 7D, and it is not easy. If it was not for the fact that I knew the 7D is an excellent camera I would have went back to my E3. I always said that it is so easy to say I will change until it happens. It is only then that one realize just how good the previous one was.

I received my dream Macro lens this week and were really happy to have it in my hand. The lens is completely different to the average macro adapter or 50mm macro lens most of us know. From the little time I spend with this lens I quickly saw that I know very little about macro photography and the learning curve is going to be steep and interesting.

The first few macro images I took were not sharp and I went into the typical negative post buying behavior so many brands fear. Then I realized that it could be the mirror flap that resulted in the slight blur. I then did a few more pictures today controlling the mirror separate to the shutter operation. Took me a while to find the function because it is not called mirror lock-up as are the case with Olympus cameras. Another interesting aspect was the shutter mechanism between the Olympus and the Canon. More about that in my next article on macro photography.

I honestly have not made up my mind on should I only use my PEN in the future or does one really need an old style SLR camera. From what I see from the new E-P3 I have no second thoughts at all that the new PEN will do most photo shoots as good as most SLR's. It is also true that customers do not only look at your work, they also very aware of the equipment in your bag. Somebody with a 5D in his hand is just the better photographer than somebody with a older 30D in his hand. That is how many customers view the world today.

Siegfried

I bought the Nodal 3 Panorama head when my PowerShot G7 was my main camera. Panorama photography is something that fascinates me and its something I really enjoy doing. When I speak about panorama photography then its about really using the right equipment and software to get the best results. On this one I am a little old fashioned......

Setting up the panorama adapter for the first time after a long period I had to go search for a few answers. Doing that I came across a site that just invited me to spend way more time than what I intended to. I then decided to contact the owner of the site, John Houghton, and to ask him if he would be interested to write something for the Photography is fun website. John replied and said he would think about writing something. John also agreed to answer questions on our forum should any one of you like to give him feedback or if anyone has a question on taking panorama images.

John replied and included a short article:-

By 2004, I had acquired some experience with Photoshop, Panorama Tools and PTGui, so I dug out my old Stevenage panorama negatives, scanned them into my PC and stitched them with PTGui to get a reasonable print at long last:

I'm something of a perfectionist when it comes to stitching, so I try to use a tripod and panorama head (Nodal Ninja 5) to avoid parallax problems, especially indoors. However, some popular visitor attractions only permit the use of a handheld camera. The London Eye is one such place, and shooting a handheld panorama in the confined space of one of the pods, with people inside moving around, is extremely challenging. It took three or four days to stitch a set of images to my satisfaction, (with much Photoshopping), but I was quite pleased with the final image:

It's probably my most difficult stitch to date. Of course, it really needs to be viewed in a spherical viewer for the best effect, as at my web site:

John
http://www.johnpanos.com