Today I want to chat a little bit about framing our images, and when I am talking about framing I don’t mean slapping on a garish gold victorian frame on your photos but composing your images to frame in key elements. I have talked before about using dodge and burn in Photoshop to focus on where the users eyes go to but want to talk about how to use things in the foreground to frame your shot. At a wedding I am constantly looking for ways to use other people that are around the image to frame in the person I am trying to photograph. A lot of times photographing with a long lens gives you that perfect shallow depth of field to be able to have something completely out of focus in the foreground but your main subject nice and sharp. Its always a good practice as you are photographing to scan the scene and see what you might be able to use around you to photography through. Is there a fence with a separation between two slats you can shoot through? Maybe some columns that you can use in the foreground to block off and frame part of the shot? Or people, my favorite thing to use as a wedding to frame in another person.
So lets take a look at a few recent shots that I used other people to frame someone in. In this shot I used a few of the groomsmen who where staggered out in a line to create some depth to the shot and help to make the bride stand out. It was shot with my trusty Canon 70-200 2.8 (one of my fav’s for wedding and portrait work), and was shot at f/ 2.8 to get as shallow of a depth of field as possible. You can see how having these 3 guys in the foreground really help to lead your eye right to the bride. It also helps that she is in white and they are in black since our eye will always go to the brightest part of the scene.
This next shot was taken during the first dance and is another good example not only of using framing to create emphasis but also looking outside of the main event. I think sometimes we can get stuck thinking about photographing the main action going on and can easily forget the side moments. Sometimes a grandmother crying as the mother son dance goes on can be a priceless shot that really captures a huge part of the wedding day. There are so many little things that can be happening in the background that are really important to tell the full story of a wedding. Remember to constantly scan the scene and be on the look out for these other moments happening. For this shot it was during the mother – son dance and I just loved the composition of this shot as the bride watched the first dance. This shot again was with my trusty Canon 70-200 2.8 set to 2.8.
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Thank you for the tips!!
Great shots!
I was looking for an impressive iPhone/iPad app for editing my photographs and one of my friend had recommended me very cool app named “Photo Splash Fx”. Although I have tried many others but this one is simply wonderful, as it enables me to
· Make my shots awesome, no matter if they are old vintage, black and white or new high resolution colorful photos, by applying a plethora of special effects.
· Use selective colors, variety of brush sizes (adjust manually or automatically), gestures like Pan/Zoom/Splash, unlimited Undos, Colorize, Tintalize, Recolor, blend brush to create custom effects and text blending on your photo.
· It supports both landscape or portrait mode and options like loading/importing photo from Cloud, instead of just from the camera or photo library.
· Choice of 135+ built-in effects on different parts of the same photo and still have the option of creating your own custom effects.
· Option to make favorite list of built-in effects to choose them easily for future.
· Sharing my edited photographs with friends through Email, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Picassa, Dropbox or post it in form of the post card, to anywhere in the world.
Digital photography is becoming the most popular hobby of the world today. The recent developments of smartphones, iphone/ipad has changed the way, how we think of photography. To give professional touch to your photographs, now it is not necessary to consult some professional. One may use various tools and apps to make one’s photographs masterpieces instantly with a few taps, particularly those taken on graduation/wedding ceremony, honeymoon trip or New Year celebrations. I have used many such apps in recent past. One of such app is Photo Splash FX on iPhone/iPad that provides following unique features that you can’t find in any other app altogether. I noticed following notable features:
· Make your shots awesome, no matter if they are old vintage, black and white or new high resolution colorful photos, by applying a plethora of special effects.
· Use selective colors, variety of brush sizes (adjust manually or automatically), gestures like Pan/Zoom/Splash, unlimited Undos, Colorize, Tintalize, Recolor, blend brush to create custom effects and text blending on your photo.
· It supports both landscape or portrait mode and options like loading/importing photo from Cloud, instead of just from the camera or photo library.
· Choice of 135+ built-in effects on different parts of the same photo and still have the option of creating your own custom effects.
· Option to make favorite list of built-in effects to choose them easily for future.
· Share your masterpiece with your friends through Email, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Picassa, Dropbox or post it in form of the post card, to anywhere in the world.