How to Take Photos Outdoors

Okay. What are the keys to taking good pictures and being aware of light? Now early this
morning, I shot a picture of the house behind me. The sunlight was coming from over
there and lit the house from the front. It showed all the details. But now, we have light
coming from the side. Now these are some of the more flattering lighting for people
and/or houses, cars or puppies. Now, I’m going to turn around, I’m going to take a
picture of the house.

Now, what I just did was I have the shadows of the trees there, I have the trees above,
you see the beautiful green, you see the blue of the sky, there is a lot of personality to this
house now. If you’re selling your house, this is a key, same thing with shooting a car. Put
it in the right light, take it from different angles, show personality, everything. Every
picture should be approached as doing a portrait whether it’s a picture of a flower, a kid,
a dog, a house, a car, remember, do it a portrait. See the personality that light creates.

Nice flowers, I like the lighting on there. Okay, I got an interesting angle. I’m going to
come in a little bit closer, still interesting picture. Okay, now I’m going to try something
a little bit different. First reason, it’s always interesting to take a picture from another
angle. But you might have noticed, we have this trailer in the background, that distracts
the image. I got the flowers here but it’s a boring image that throws the eyes off. Now,
I’m coming over here. And what I’m doing is I’m coming down like this and I have the
green in the back of the flowers. Now, I’m going to try a little variation on things. I want
to try with my flash and the light.

Now remember, I said before about getting an on camera flash. The camera will set up
the exposure for you. I’ve put this on here, I’ve put it on automatic, the camera will
compensate for the two different types of light. Okay, I did that. I’m going to come a
little bit closer. Alright.

Now, I’m going to try something else. When we’re shooting in lower light like shade, the
camera shutter has to stay open a little bit longer. When the shutter opens, sometimes the
camera picks up just a little but of shake, so let’s avoid that. Here’s a little tip. First of all,
be aware of gravity.

Okay, while these tripods are designed for table top work, they also function for outdoor.
I am now using this to steady the camera. I push it back against myself. And there, I’ve
compensated for camera shake, I’ve given two different lights, I’ve eliminated the
distracting background and again, I’ve done it from different angles. So remember, if the
picture is interesting to you, walk around, see it from as many angles as possible.

Now, I also shot this early in the morning. Again, be aware of light. Light creates
personality no matter what camera you have, inexpensive or professional, light creates
personality.

Flashback pictures’ review

Lens endurance is a common problem in taking a photograph, the right lighting, the right
angle. Now, this is a passable picture but we’re in shade here. The light is coming from
the side. It’s not so flattering to the house. The angle is off, the sky is washed out, it’s just
not an attractive picture. Now, if we wait for the correct time to take the picture and take
the time to compose the picture, we’ll get a much stronger image.

Now, we’ve addressed composition. What we’ve done is we stepped back a little bit, the
greener the long leads up to the house, the sky is a deeper blue, there’s more green to the
trees. The colors and harmony, the house is in harmony. It’s just a matter of being patient,
walking around your image and coming up with the correct composition.

Okay, we’re going to address the patience issue here. We saw some nice flowers, we took
the picture and it’s okay but we have a distracting trailer in the background, the
foreground is in there. What can we do to eliminate this? Ideally, we could ask them to
move the trailer but it wasn’t my trailer, there was no one there to ask so I’ve decided to
approach it by taking another angle of this. We’ve come in a bit closer, the flowers are a
bit bigger, they’re a bit more noticeable but we still have some distracting images in the
background. The lighting is a little bit better here. The lighting is a bit more even. This
picture works in the sense that the green and the yellow compliment each other. But it’s
still not that appealing a picture.

Alright, we’ve come even closer on this now. In coming closer, we’ve eliminated the
trailer a little bit but it’s still distracting. Now, the colors are harmonizing thus making it
stronger. We’re getting something that’s starting to work here. Now, here is another
common problem. We’ve come in too close and the foreground is out of focus. The
background isn’t focused a little bit but we’re still dealing with the angle of the trailer and
the lighting. We need to work at this a bit more. The picture is getting much stronger
now. The lighting is a little bit better, the color is really beginning to harmonize but we
have that distracting top there. So again, we have to work at the angle a little bit.

Alright, here’s a common error even professionals make. I didn’t change the setting on
this. I came from a different angle and now the exposure is completely off but this is a
digital camera and we could always delete this image. Okay, now our patience has paid
off. We’ve got a strong image here. We’ve got the colors harmonizing, the light is nice
and the composition is very strong. We’ve eliminated all of the challenging details in the
background, the focus works. This is an image that you could be proud of.

Okay, now we’ve tried something a little bit different. We’re working with more of a
horizontal angle here. It’s working again, the colors are nice but now we have the
distracting detail of the earth to the lower-right hand side and the building at the top of
the picture.

Okay, we’ve changed our angle here. We tried something a little bit different. Instead of
letting the background be a distraction, we’ve begun to work with it a little bit. We have
the flowers off centered to the left and we see a trail leading up behind the flower and it’s
something now that it begins to work a little bit. We played with the angle and now we
tried a different angle on the angle. The colors are a little bit off here though. We’re
working with the shade so we begun to lose our harmonious colors.

Alright. We began to get experimental here. We tried to use our flash. And you know
what, it just doesn’t work. The colors in the front are washed, the background is a little
bit too dark. Don’t use your flash in this case.

We’ve adjusted the flash a little bit here. The colors are a little bit less washed out. The
background, even though it presents a little bit of a challenge in the composition provides
an interesting shape back there. It works a little bit.

Okay here, we finally have the right light. The yellow pops out, there’s detail in the
leaves, it’s very strong. In fact, the color and the lighting worked so well on this that even
though we have the distracting background, it’s a picture that jumps out of you and it
overcomes that challenge of the bad background.

This is the picture, we’ve walked around with different angles, we’ve stood up, we’ve
lain on the ground, we tried the flash. What we’ve done here now is we’ve come in very
close. We’ve got the right light, we’ve got the right composition. The flower dominates
the image. You could see the tulip. This is a very strong image. The background is dark
enough, it’s out of focus. It brings in and really snaps the foreground. This is what
attracts the eye. This is a picture you could send to a greeting card company.