Ten ways to get fun photos

Hi friends

Today I am joining Shimelle and posting Ten things on the tenth


Keeping with the theme of my photography fortnight I thought I would share ten ways I use frequently to get fun photos. Again to reiterate, these are no hard and fast rules, just some things I like to use to shake my photos up a bit!

So on with the show...

1. Get down low. As in on the floor. Yep, one hundred percent serious. You will get some weird looks but the photos you take down there really do make up for it!

2. Get up high. I am a small person so this tip doesn't need to be applied to everyone! I love to position people on the stairs and then stand above them. You get a lovely natural look.

3. Use quirky angles. I often put my camera on the tilt, makes life a bit more interesting!

4. Find shapes. I love looking for geometric shapes and natural shapes especially when I am outside.

5. "look" through other objects. It immediately gives a second frame to the photo.

6. Use interesting depth of field and focusing. Change what you focus on, try something a bit unusual.

7. Look for white space. Don't necessarily centre your subject in the frame. Move them to one side. It can give your photo a bit of breathing space.

8. Play with mirrors for cool self portraits. I nearly always use a mirror when trying to take a photo of myself. A tip I recently heard was to look at the lens in the mirror rather than yourself and the photo will turn out looking more natural.

9. When taking still lifes, look for groups of three. I personally think that a group of three looks very complete.

10. Have one day just shooting in black and white. This is such a fun test. Suddenly the subject becomes so important. You look at light and shadow so differently. I find this a real challenge but have a go!

Thanks for stopping by

What photography tips do you have?

Abi xxx

Loving the 'M'- How to work on Manual Setting

Hi, Welcome to the first post in my mini series! Come on in!

I hate automatic setting.


There. I said it.
In my opinion automatic robs you, the user, of any control. Yep, it’s easy and yep it’s quick but you are letting the camera make the decision. If a picture doesn’t turn out the way you want it to, you cannot establish the root of the problem.


Manual is scary. It can be complicated but essentially it is letting you have the power. You are accountable for your photographs. That to me is far more exciting than pressing a shutter. You will get so much more out of your camera.


Manual setting allows you to change essentially three things.

1.       Shutter speed

2.       Aperture

3.       ISO

Shutter speed is the big number on your screen.  It does what it says on the tin. The bigger the number the faster the shutter is closing and vice versa.


Aperture is how wide open your lens is. Aperture numbers look like this on your display.

f/5.0 (for example)


They are sometimes known as f-stops. The lower the number (f stop) the more open the lens is and vice versa.


ISO is how sensitive the camera is to light. The higher the number the more sensitive it is therefore the lighter the picture.

 Shutter Speed, Aperture and ISO come together to form the exposure triangle.

Therefore if your picture is too light or too dark you can change one or all of these three things to fix it.

I personally always adjust my shutter speed first. If the picture is too dark like so:

I know that my shutter was closing too quickly- not enough light could get in. I therefore adjust the number on my screen so that the shutter is closing slower.

If the picture is too light like so:

I know that the shutter was closing too slowly- too much light was coming in. I adjust it accordingly and speed it up.

Shutter speed is easy to get the hang of. You soon learn to adjust your shutter speed to go faster when you move outdoors and slow down if you are going into a dark room.


Be warned though. In a dark place there is only so low you can take your shutter speed before you get a lot of blur in the pictures. For instance if you have to slow the speed so that your shutter is closing after a second, you are inadvertently going to wobble in that time and cause blur!

If you don’t want to change shutter speed you can change aperture. Nice and easy. The lower the number the more open the lens therefore the more light that comes in. Adjust this accordingly.

Aperture isn’t just good for changing the exposure though. It is aperture that gives you beautiful blurred backgrounds like this:

This will only happen when your f stop is on a low number ( the lens is wide open). I will cover this more in the next post . I love the blurry background effect so for this reason unless totally necessary I don’t change my aperture to make my picture lighter or darker.

The final thing to change is ISO. This is measured in hundreds.

A photo at ISO 200

ISO 400

ISO800

ISO 1200

The higher the number the lighter it gets. Essentially this is a good quick fix BUT, be warned.

The bigger the ISO number, the grainier the picture is, especially in a dark room.

So there we go. That is manual in it’s simplest nutshell! If in doubt look to the exposure triangle and think “what thing shall I change so that my picture is exposed correctly.” Look at your situation. Look at the pros and cons of changing either the ISO, aperture or Shutter speed. Use a bit of everything.


My normal process when finding the correct exposure in manual is to adjust shutter speed. If it is getting too dark and I am scared I will wobble and blur the picture I push my ISO up a notch. That in most cases makes for a perfectly exposed photo.


The beauty of manual is that you can expose your photos how you wish. I prefer in most cases to have my photos slightly over exposed therefore I can adjust my camera accordingly. If you want to go moody and underexposed, that is easy too!

My biggest tip though is PLAY AROUND. The more you do on manual the easier it is. It becomes intuitive. I don’t think now about how to change my photo, I just do it.


Thanks so much for stopping by

Giveaway Winner and and exciting plans

Hi

Thank you so much for your support a week ago on my 300th post. I loved all your comments and they gave me so many ideas.

Without further ado I want to announce that the giveaway winner is:

Jennifer Grace

Please email me your details at abigail (dot) beach (at) hotmail (dot) co (dot) uk

From the many wonderful things you said, something I picked up on was that in a nutshell you want more photography!

I have been thinking about this a lot and am pleased to announce that I am about to kick start a new series I have been working on:

Over the next two weeks there will be seven posts, each covering a small part of photography know how. The Schedule looks like this:

Week 1:

Monday- Loving the "M" how to work on manual setting.

Wednesday- F stop Magic Learning about depth of field.

Friday- Outtakes what goes on behind the scenes.

Week 2:

Sunday- The face has it. Candid Photography

Tuesday- It's all in the details. Photographing the little things.

Thursday- Freeze and Blur- How to have fun with shutter speed.

Saturday- It's just too much- Balancing camera quality vs practicality

I want to stress now that I am no expert. I took photography A level but my qualifications really come into the realm of trial and error and 5 plus years experience with a DSLR!

This mini course is really only my thoughts on the subject, no hard and fast rules! I would love you to join me for a bit of photo fun!

Any questions etc, leave them in the comments!

Abi xx

What I will miss

After a year working in a prep school, I will miss...

• Waking the girls up and being greeted by that warm sleepy eyed look.
• Singing Happy Birthday at breakfast time
• The endless anecdotes accompnied by "Miss Beach, Miss Beach"
• Piles of folded school clothes on the ends of beds
• Shoe check in the morning
• Book bags littering the edges of the playground
• The sound of wrong notes from familiar songs played carefully on the piano
• Saying hi to the children around school
• Reception hugs and sticky fingers
• "Matilda night" ( when I read the book to a dorm of twelve girls)
• Four year old tears
• Four year old grins
• Staff room biscuits
• Films in the girls common room
• Talking with the children about their day at supper.
• Pupils gathered around the new team sheets
• Watching them build dens in the wood
• Listening to readers
• The tempromental photocopier
• The parade of girls in the shower room complete with dressing gowns and shower caps.
• The mass exodus from said bathroom when there is a spider in there.
• Prayers before bed
• Saying "night" at lights out and hearing a chorus of "night night Miss Beach" from each bed.

Gosh, another year down. Another new adventure awaits!

Being a part of it.

I find it funny to be winding down at the end of another school year.
Being the observor this time around.
Having watched the bookbags go from crisp and new to ink splattered and dog-eared.
Shoes that were shiny are now scuffed and falling apart.

For these children, I muse, school is their world, especially the borders.
They are governed by the rhythm of the days. The timetable, the clock,the clanging of the bell.
They move in and out with the ebb and flow of lessons arriving and ending.

There are things in that rhythm that stand out. The red letter days.
Days set apart from the normal routine; plays, concerts, trips.
The things they remember.
The things they will look back on and say "Oh rememeber when we did that."
The things that highlight that particular year.

I am for most of them, passing through. An important face, a special hug, a secret whisper for that one year.
I feel so lucky to have watched the rhythm of school life from beginning to end.
Watched the year turn on its axis.
For those months to have been a part of it.

To have shared with them those ordinary days and rejoyced in the special ones.

Seriously?! July! Didn't we just have June goals. Not that it feels like July with the weather we are having.

July is set to be a busy busy month with lots of family time and several big projects in the works.

These are my goals:

-Spend some quality time with the family

-Buy my laptop for uni

-Learn how to use skype.

-Try on a maxi skirt ( I say this with total apprehension being a mere 5ft,)

-Play around with photoshop/ graphic design

-Start a triangle quilt for uni

-Experiment with ink and watercolours

-Buy a darning foot for my sewing machine.

-Start up a photography workshop/ fortnight on the blog

What are your goals this month. If you feel inspired to write your goals down do link up in the comments!

The last weekend-captured

The last weekend with all the borders. Captured.

Naturally I took a lot of photos of the children- I hope you understand why I can't really share them here!

Listening to the feedback from my giveaway post the call was for more photos! Keep your eyes open in the next few weeks or so for a fortnight of photography tips and challenges!

Thanks for stopping by!

Operation speak out won't be happening this month, simply because of a tight schedule and manic end of term rush at my end! I will be back with a vengeance in august though!