Canon Photography : Capture, Create by Nina Bailey

Canon Photography : Capture, Create develop your creative eye to capture your vision

For DSLR & mirrorless Canon EOS cameras

By Nina Bailey

Introduction

About the author

This guide is a little different to many of the books that I have written. It's not about the features, settings or customisations on your Canon EOS camera; it's about learning to see images and capture them as we want.

It's a book that's designed to expand your creativity, but also to make you think in a different way about the images which you're capturing.

Nina started her career in the retail sector of the photographic industry and then moved to Canon UK where she had a successful nine years looking after training, exhibitions and marketing both in the UK and Europe. This gave Nina an unrivalled knowledge of not only the Canon EOS system but also how to develop and enhance the skills of photographers

Some photographers seem to have a natural talent for seeing and capturing great images, whilst others seem to struggle. There's no doubt that some are more gifted, but whether it's a natural talent for composition, or simply a more flexible approach to seeing what works, I believe it's a skill you can learn. You just need to challenge your thinking about a subject and that it's more than just the obvious things we think about.

So this book is as much about the thought process in photography and some of the psychology that's behind it, as well it looks at the rules of framing and composition. After all, rules are designed to be broken – at least that's always been my philosophy in life!

I started taking pictures when I was four years old. Looking back I feel it was a great age to start because it's before you have preconceptions; it's before you really understand what is right or wrong in an image. It's also before you become your own worst enemy and see only shortcomings in what you do, rather than the positives of what you create.

The other benefit of learning at such a young age is you haven’t learned that it’s wrong to fail. Sometimes when you start to explore the photographic opportunities, the reality is that some shots will work, but others will not. I’ve always maintained that one of the beauties of digital photography is that it's only you who gets to see the failures, so that should make you more adventurous in what we try. In the days of film you always had the feeling that somebody would judge the failures when the images were being processed.

In this book I assume you have a reasonable grasp of photographic terms and a good understanding of your camera and the photographic settings needed. If not, I would recommend building a better knowledge of your camera – I have guides on all recent and current cameras – or if you’re struggling with some of the basics of photography, my two books, Canon photography for beginners and Canon photography for enthusiasts, will give you a thorough grounding of the basics of photography.

Written, designed and images by Nina Bailey © 2021.

All rights reserved. Unauthorised copying, reproduction, hiring, lending prohibited. E&OE.

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Nina started her own business in 1999, concentrating on training for amateur photographers. In 2014 Nina started producing her own range of ebooks to bring photography training to an ever wider audience. Nina writes, shoots, produces all graphics and designs all the layouts of the books herself and this gives her a very good in-depth understanding of all the processes involved in producing digital images and how they are used. In Summer 2015 Nina was appointed as Technical Editor of EOS Magazine, a role that she is doing in addition to her active role as the principal lecturer for the EOS training Academy and writing her ebooks.

Nina started taking images when she was very young and is still a very keen photographer both professionally and personally. Nina loves travel, landscape and wildlife photography. Most of the images she now shoots are for her own picture library, for use in her books and articles.

www.ninabailey.co.uk

Author's foreword This is the third book in a series which actually started out as just a single book. The aim of the original book was to cover everything photographic that was important to understand, but somehow never managed to make it into the specific camera books through lack of space. So, how did this end up with a series of three books? It's a good question and one which I’ve asked myself a few times, given how long it's taken me to write them. I started off with what became Canon Photography for Enthusiasts, which is aimed at an intermediate level, and when I was about halfway through it was becoming obvious that a significant number of topics were being left out as they were more appropriate for beginners, and so Canon Photography for Beginners was born as a concept.

Canon Photography for Beginners was originally planned to be at most a couple of hundred pages long,.

Eventually it ended up at 442 pages, as there were so many topics which could be included, but were not covered by other books that I’ve written. Although aimed at somebody new to photography – as the title indicates – the book in fact contains many areas which even experienced photographers may not fully understand, primarily because they are self-taught. It's common to have gaps in your knowledge when you have taught something to yourself. It's the old adage... you don't know what you don't know.

Whilst writing Canon Photography for Beginners, I put in a couple of short sections about how to get better images through a deliberate thought process, along with a few of the most basic rules of composition.

However, there was not space within the book to really expand on the creative side of photography. I do touch upon composition in some of my technique books, but this tends to be very specific to that subject type. So, for example, in the How to Shoot Birds in Flight book, I talk about the composition and framing for birds in flight, but don’t touch upon other areas.

So at that point the idea for a third book on the creative side of photography came into being, with the aim to help those of you who don’t just see images naturally. After my young start and all these years in photography, framing of images takes place instinctively and I'm lucky that it always has done. However, I am aware that this doesn’t necessarily come naturally to everyone. This leads to frustration – if you can't see the image before you take it, you're always going to be disappointed with the end result.

This book is designed to be thought provoking. You will learn why what you think you see isn’t always what you end up with. You will understand some of the tricks that your brain will play when you’re looking for images. You will learn or be reminded of the rules of photography, then appreciate that they can be broken or bent. And, as much as anything, I truly hope it will inspire you to go out and try something different so you can get the best out of you as a photographer, with your Canon EOS camera as your tool.

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Contents Navigating the book.

All of the menu items below are hyper-linked to the appropriate page - so just tap on the item you want to go to that page. On each page there is a link like this. Tap/click on this button to return to this page.

These navigation controls make it much faster to “jump” around the ebook.

Return to contents Basic information 7

The EOS range 8

Sensor sizes 10

The emergence of mirrorless 12

Key terms used in the book 13

Shutter speeds 14

Apertures 15

ISO settings 16

Setting summary 18

Preconceptions 19 Introduction 20

Photographic preconceptions 23

Framing preconceptions 25 Subjects 29

What is a subject?

30

Finding inspiration 32

How we think about subjects 33

What are you taking?

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Less can be more 37

The unusual 39

The abstract 40

Start seeing 41

Things to try 42

4 How we see 43

The seeing process 44

How we see colour 46

How we see areas 48

How dynamic range can change 49

Check information in low light 50

How brightness can change 51

Depth perception changes 52

You view at the widest aperture 53 Summary 54 Colour 56

About colour 57

How we see colour 58

Colour tones 59

Colour relationships 60

Warm and cool colours 61

Colour contrasts 62

Bright colours 63

Bright colours can affect all images 64

Normal colours 65

Muted and pastel colours 66

Weather and colour 67

White balance and colour 68

Understanding white balance 71

Creativity with white balance 73

Picture Styles and saturation 74

Picture styles and colour tone 75

Colour saturation 76

HSL adjustments 77

Using colour 79

Using colour and backgrounds 80 Summary 82

Monochrome 83 Introduction 84

Getting a monochrome image 85

Post-production 88

Understanding monochrome images 89

Monochrome subjects 91

Try RAW conversion in monochrome in DPP 92

Try Photoshop B&W presets 93 Light and shade 95

Light - the difference it can make 96

Focus Lock / Auto Exposure lock 98

Timings for light 99

Photo planning apps 103

Weather and light 104

Inclement weather 105

Partial and spot metering 108

Geographical changes 110

Realities of ISO settings 113

Lighting angles 114

How do you know the lighting angle 115

Lighting types 117

Using light and shade 121

Shadows 122

Look for shadows 123

Shadow /highlight adjustments 126

Extending dynamic range - HDR techniques 128

Extending dynamic range - HDR PQ 129

Silhouettes 131

Rim lighting 133

Light and shade summary 135

Go out and explore lighting directions 136

Go and look for shadows and shade 137

Contents The Elements 138

About the photographic elements 139

Line 140

Shape 144

Texture 151

Looking for Line, Shape and Texture 155

Form 157

Sun in - Form vanishes 159

Elements summary 160

Go out and shoot the elements 161 Viewpoints 162

Viewing method 163

Viewpoints 164

Straight on 165

Looking up 167

Correcting perspective 170

Looking down 171 Summary 174 The classic rules 175

Rule of thirds 176

Frame for the shape of the subject 178

Focal points 180

Leaving space 181

Using frames 185

Simplicity 188

Backgrounds 190

Numbers of subjects in an image 192

Symmetry in images 193 Summary 196

5 Aspect ratios 197

Aspect ratios 198

Aspect ratios and printing 200

Using different aspect ratios creatively 201

Lenses 202

Author's note 203

Understanding lens use 204

Zoom or Fixed focal length 205

How lenses change what we capture 207

Standard lenses 208

Wide angle lenses 211

Fish-eye lenses 219

Telephoto lenses 222

Short telephoto lenses 223

Mid telephoto lenses 225

Creating background blur 228

Ultra telephoto lenses 229

Ultra telephoto lenses + extenders 232

Telephoto lenses 233

All in one lenses 234

Lenses summary 236 Looking for the unusual 237

The unusual 238

Unusual yet familiar views 239

Escape from the obvious 241

Juxtaposition of subjects 243

Unusual framing 245

Variations on a subject 246

Unusual conditions 247

Humorous 248

Just take a small bit 249

The unusual summary 251

People 252

Framing portraits 253

Candid shooting 256

Lighting for portraits 259

Flash for portraits outdoors 261

Flash for portraits indoors 263

Where to find the flash settings 265

Posing tips 266

Adding motion 267

Adding blur with people 268

Adding blur with traffic 270

Adding blur with water 271

Why we need ND filters 274

Adding motion summary 275 Panoramic images 276

Panoramic images 277

Shooting panoramic images 278

Stitching panoramic images 280

Lightroom 281

Photoshop 282

Be careful when shooting 284 Adjustments and treatments 285

Adjustments are part of the creative process 286

Canon's Digital Photo Professional 289

Cloud storage and image adjustments 290

Things you could do to an image 291

Stages of adjustment 292

Program options - Lightroom 293

Program options - Photoshop 295

Saving options - Photoshop 298

Saving options - Lightroom 299

Contents

Auto Adjustments 300

How far can you go 301

Useful adjustments

Exposure 302

White balance 303

Contrast 305

Highlights 306

Shadows 307

Whites 308

Blacks 309

Saturation 310

Vibrance 311

Texture 312

Clarity 313

Dehaze 316

Sharpening 317

Colour mixer 319

Geometry 323

Adding grain 325

Vignetting 326

Cropping 327

Replacing skies 331

Experimentation 332 Summary 333 Using filters 334

Polarising filters 335

Other filters 339

Filter systems 340

ND Graduated filters 341

ND Reverse Graduated filter 343

ND Centre Graduated filter 344

Filter summary 345

6 The creative thought process 346

The thought process 347

Planning shoots 348

Gaining inspiration 350

Good and bad times of day 351

Evolving a shot 352

What is the subject?

353

What settings do you need?

354

Think about lens use 357

What elements do you have?

359

Think about light 360

Colour or monochrome 361

Are special techniques needed?

362

Any special post-production?

363

Experimentation and accepting failure 364

More preconceptions 365

Using the tools available 366

Evolving the idea 369

Stacking the odds 371

Keep shooting to get what you want 373

Shoot lots! 374

Improving the odds 378 Patience, Persistence, Perseverance and Luck 379

Patience 380

Persistence 381

Perseverance 382

Luck 385

The cheats people often don't admit to 387

Summary 389

Other products and services 390

Preconceptions Whether we like to admit it or not, we all have preconceptions. We weren't born with them, but as we were growing up we formed opinions about what was right and wrong. When we start to do photography, we subconsciously take in information that's all around us, some of which may be a good thing, but at other times we can pick up habits without really thinking about it. If you've learned photography as an adult, many of those preconceptions have already been formed as to what you should and should not photograph. We also can make assumptions about how we should approach photography. We live in a world when we are bombarded by images, on the TV, Internet, and social media. Even if we walk down the street, we can hardly take a step without seeing lots of images, from advertising in shop windows, on products and billboards. All these images help to reinforce the preconceptions that we have as to what we should and shouldn't shoot and what will or will not look good.

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Photographic preconceptions

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For some reason photography has more preconceptions and assumptions than many other areas, even when we’re looking at the subject itself rather than the creative side of seeing and taking images.

It’s surprising how often some of them crop up, certainly on a practical day’s training I find myself mentally ticking them off the list as they appear.

Some of the common ones I encounter are: You’re only a proper photographer if you shoot RAW -JPEGs can give results just as good providing the person taking them knows what they’re doing with their camera and can get exposures right.

You cannot adjust JPEG images - completely false, a JPEG image is adjustable, and you can do just about all the adjustments that you could do RAW image, the only difference is that there’s less latitude on a JPEG image.

You cannot use above ISO 400 because you’re going to get massive amounts of noise - also false, on cameras since 2008 the ISO has been usable up to 1600 at least, and on models post 2012, ISO 12800 is usable on just about all models.

You have to set the camera up before you can use it - Having made millions of cameras over the years, Canon does actually know what it's doing when it manufactures cameras. So as the camera comes out the box, it generally works extremely well. The customisations and some of the settings are mainly there for more advanced photographers who have their own fixed or experimental ways of working.

1:1 macro image of dew on a spider's web taken with a ring flash by excluding all ambient light

You have to shoot manually to get good exposures - in my personal opinion I see more photographers having problems with exposures who shoot manually, then all the ones that shoot on semi-automatic modes.

The camera does an extremely good job of getting exposures right and if the light level changes, the camera notices, whilst photographers often don’t.

Macs are far better than PCs, or PCs are far better than Macs - I personally use Macs, but I am not going to say that they are better than PCs, if you buy a good

quality PC. The difference is there’s no such thing as a cheap Mac whilst there are some very cheap PCs where the spec is too low to handle the size of images we shoot!

I could go on a lot longer with the ones I hear on a regular basis. However, what it does show is that there are many preconceptions which some may have accepted as facts, because somebody either told us or more commonly today you read it on the Internet.

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Subjects The subject in your image can be anything that we want. It is the photographer who makes it the subject of the image. However, our preconceived ideas can point you in the direction of the more obvious subjects, landscapes, city scenes, wildlife, close up a macro and portraits are the ones that we can reel off as being the ones most commonly taken. A subject is quite literally anything you choose to take a picture off, it doesn't have to be the whole of something, just like the image to the right which only shows the tools of the Archer, but not the whole person. So subjects are open to how you see the world and choose to capture it.

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What is a subject?

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When we ask the question, what is a subject, it’s almost a pointless question because anything can be a photographic subject. The images to the right are all what would be considered unconventional subjects, or in the case of a couple, unconventional ways of taking that subject.

The problem is that as photographers we have preconceptions as to what a photograph should be of. We think of landscapes, well known landmarks, portraits, wildlife as well as sports and action because they are the subjects that our preconceptions make us think of.

A subject can be anything that appeals visually to you. It may be because you like the colour, the shape, the lighting on it or even the patterns that have been created.

Just because others do not photograph something, it doesn’t mean it’s not a good subject, it may just mean that other photographers are not seeing that subject due to their preconceptions.

Remember we can fill the frame with very small things, make large things look small, change the way we look at things, use the lighting to change the appearance of something which could make the mundane look a lot more interesting.

It's all about opening our eyes and mind to what is naturally there and making the most of the opportunities that present themselves. You will find that once you start shooting and looking at the images you get, other images will occur to you.

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Finding inspiration

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Today we have more places than ever to get inspiration from. Inspiration comes from looking at lots of images. Whilst writing this book, I went back to three books which I have owned for a long time, to get inspiration for topics for the book and how to approach some of the subjects. These books gave me inspiration back when I was starting out in the early 80s and although they are all based upon the use of film they are still relevant today.

Today we have plenty of social media platforms,.

Possibly one of the best to get ideas about images is Instagram. There are really stunning examples of photography on there, though not all will appeal to all photographers. Some of the images are highly manipulated whilst others are simply examples of great photography. Quite often people will put on there a bit about how the image was taken or some of the settings that they’ve used.

When looking at images, think about how the photographer got that image, where it’s taken from, what the angle is to the subject, what sort of settings they might have used to achieve the effects. Think too whether it’s an image you like or dislike. You can learn as much from an image you don’t like as one that you do, if only to decide what you don’t like or why you think it doesn’t work.

It is important to have a good understanding of what I would refer to as the basics of photography.

If you understand what lenses can do and what the shutter speed and aperture change within images, you can start to look at images and 'read' how they were taken.

Let's look at the image above. This type of image must be taken with a wide angled lens; firstly it would be needed to get the buildings in and secondly, it’s the only type of lens which would give us the converging verticals we can see so clearly in the picture. It's got to be quite a wide lens because of the amount of perspective on the buildings.

It was taken with a 24mm lens on a full frame camera.

When shooting an image like this I would tend to use a mid-range aperture and this image was taken

at f11 because the lens will give enough depth-offield to get everything sharp without needing to go any narrower. The other clue about the image is the colour of the sky. It’s very dark compared to how it would normally reproduce which indicates that a polarising filter was probably used on the lens to intensify and darken the colour of the sky. So, with a good understanding of the basics you can quite literally read the image and work out the main things you need to know about how it was taken.

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Start seeing

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People get accused of listening but not hearing, whilst photographers look but they don’t see. There are images all around you to be found and yet so many people walked past great subject content every day without seeing it.

Very simple things can make images, such as the image above of the leaf which is in amongst some street fountains and it’s just being taken on a slow shutter speed to blur the water which is given a more artistic effect that would normally be obtained.

The top centre image is a bit of Banksy graffiti in London going right back to early 2004, a time when the local authorities were washing off the Banksy graffiti rather than preserving what had been done, as they do today. Back in those days they were very small and very easily missed and so you had to be quite observant to spot them. This one was on the edge of the sidewalk near to the Millennium bridge on South Bank. It disappeared literally just a couple of weeks later!

There are also many everyday things which can give good images. It may be a plaque on a wall, floats against fishing nets or even a lamp and part of a bridge against the sky.

What is certain about these shots is less is almost certainly more and so it’s down to the photographer to edit the scene down to what looks interesting to the eye and capture it in a pleasing composition.

What makes these everyday things work can be the texture within it, the interest may be the colours or it may even be the geometric patterns contained within the shot.

One of the things it can be interesting to understand is how we actually see subjects, as there’s a lot of psychology behind how we see things and a lot of visual changes which can happen when the image is formed in the brain. So the next chapter is all about how we see.

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How we see If we ask the question, how do we see? A lot of people would say we just look and we see the subject. A lot of people assume we see with the eye. The eye is only the instrument which gathers the light, to begin a complex process which leads to us seeing with something called the visual cortex part of the brain. You may wonder what relevance this has, but it's important to realise that between the light entering through the pupil of the eye and forming the image in the brain, there is a lot of what we would understand as image processing going on. This process interprets the light and converts it into the image we see. What that can mean is what we think we see, can actually be quite different to what is actually in front of us; the area we see, the brightness of the subject and even the colour of the subject can get changed by this "in body image processing" that the brain is doing.

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The seeing process

The seeing process starts with light entering the eye, but even that process is more involved than we generally think about. The light enters through the pupil, which opens and closes just like the aperture in the lens, according to the light level that we are viewing in.

In low light the pupil will be wide open whilst in bright light it narrows down to restrict the amount of light coming in. Those reading this who wear glasses, especially for reading, will be aware of the fact that in bright light it can be much easier to see sharply, especially to read, than in lower light levels. Therefore, the pupil changing size just like the aperture in a lens, affects the depth and sharpness which we see.

The light travels in through a lens which is adjusted

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(with normal 20/20 vision) to form a sharp image of the light on the retina of the eye. Due to the path the light takes through the eye the image on the retina will be inverted, just as it is on the sensor of your digital camera. Obviously, we don’t see upside down and that is one of the bits of processing that the brain does, which allows us to see subjects the right way up. The retina is technically an extension of the brain which is lining the inside of the eyeball. It is the only sensory organ which is part of the brain.

One of the things which has evolved significantly on digital models over the last few years is the camera’s ability to see and focus in low light levels, which is mostly being seen within the mirrorless models in the range. This has now got to the stage where the camera can see in lower light levels than we can easily see as humans. Our eyes can see in very low light levels but it can take at a minimum 10 minutes and often up to one hour for our eyes to fully adapt to very low light levels.

The retina has two types of light sensitive cells, there are rod cells and cone cells. Rod cells function mainly in dim light and give us the black and white vision which allows us to see in very low light levels.

The cone cells function in bright light and give us our colour vision. Therefore, the brighter the light level we are in the better the colour we see.

Even the way we see colour is more involved than many people realise. White light, which is the light we normally see is made up of equal quantities of red, green, and blue. These are the three primary colours of light and by mixing these in equal quantities, we then get the secondary colours of light which are yellow, magenta, and cyan as shown

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How we see colour

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reference points, we know what colour certain items should be, and so under artificial lighting which may have a strong colour bias we can still see human skin the right colour. Something such as a banana we know the colour of, will be seen the correct colour as our brain is correcting for the unusual colour of the light.

So although a bowl of fruit may be lit in reality as the top left hand shot shows, we can still see it as the top right hand illustration due to the fact we can reference the colour of subjects we know.

Of course, not everybody sees colour in the same way. Colour can be subjective, but there is also colour blindness which is remarkably common especially among the male population. About 8% (1 in 12) of all men have some from of colour blindness whereas only 0.5% (1 in 200) of females have any colour deficiency. The slight irony to those figures is that it’s mostly a hereditary condition and is normally passed on through the mother’s side of the family.

Colour blindness

The most common form of colour-blindness is a difficulty seeing the red, green spectrum although there is a rare form that struggles with a blue yellow colour deficiency. The more limited range of colour palette that you would see with colour blindness is shown in the colour charts to the centre and right.

Colour blindness is something that you adapt to as you’re born with it and it can be quite surprising how many people don’t know they're colour blind. It’s becoming more common to be tested for it although it’s not actually part of the standard NHS eye test.

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Geographical changes

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Where you live or where you are shooting can make a big difference to the lighting in the images that you shoot. The lighting changes according to the latitude of where you’re shooting and of course as the earth's tilt varies throughout the year, whether you’re shooting in summer or winter also can make a difference to the lighting you have.

In the UK we tend to forget how far north we are located because we have a mild climate thanks to the presence of the Gulf stream. The Arctic Circle starts at 66o north and the most northern parts on the mainland of the UK are 58o north, with the most southern points of the UK being at 50o north.

If we compare the UK’s climate with other countries located at the same latitude we find that in winter their minimum temperatures can be 20-30oC lower than ours at times. The most significant thing that most people will notice about the latitude the UK is at is the very varying day length (based upon London) that we have, ranging from just under 8 hours in winter to just over 16 1/2 hours in the middle of summer.

That means that throughout the winter months the light is at a very low angle in the sky and gives us very directional lighting, whilst in the summer it is much more overhead, so we see a very big difference between winter and summer lighting.

The two images at the bottom which are of similar subjects and taken at a similar times of day show the difference between the summer lighting we get compared to what we see in the winter. Take a look at the length of the shadows and note the colours to see the difference that it’s making.

UK Winter

UK Summer

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Lighting angles

FRONT LIGHTING This is where the light will be coming from immediately behind the photographer or just over their left or right shoulder. This gives a subject which is very evenly lit and where shadows are absolutely minimised because they’re going to be going away from where the photographer is standing.

It’s the direction where you are likely to get the best blue sky. However, because the light is shining straight onto anything in the scene, it flattens the subject out. So the cottage is in the picture above is made of stone which should have more relief than is showing up, but the lack of shadow detail is taking away from the texture on the building.

The same problem is occurring on the church in the background as without relief the church tower looks very one dimensional. Shooting with the light slightly more to the left or right but still coming from behind the photographer will help to add a bit more relief, without giving lots of problems.

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SIDE LIGHTING In this image the light is coming from almost immediately to the right of the photographer, so at 90o to the main subject in the scene. You can see that the left-hand side of the tree trunk and the church have significant amounts of shade. You can also see the shadows being cast on the bridge railings quite clearly indicating the direction of the light.

Although this lighting direction can give problems due to the amount of shade it can cast and the problem of exposing for the right area, it also can give a very 3-dimensional look to the image which it is doing in the example above, with the detail on the church and tree trunks are showing up very clearly because of the relief given by the shadows.

Shooting at this angle in the winter gives the most pronounced relief as the sun can be very low in the sky, but this also means it can be quite easily kept out of the image and skies generally reproduce well at this angle in the winter months.

BACK LIGHTING If the light is coming from in front of where the photographer is standing it is always going to give exposure problems as the main parts of the subject that you are seeing are all going to be in shade as in the example above.

In the picture above the exposure was set for the buildings in shade, accepting that the sky was going to burnout. If you look at where the shadows are in this image you can see that the sun is not actually in front of the photographer but a little bit to one side.

If it was in front of the photographer the burnout on the sky would be much more significant.

For general scenes and landscapes backlighting is always a problem unless you specifically want to reproduce the subject as a silhouette, which you may do at specific times such as sunrise or sunset.

However, backlighting can work for portraits, some wildlife and close-up shots, which are mainly shot with telephoto lenses and so it proves to be a lot easier to keep the sun out of the frame area.

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The Elements The photographic elements are the building blocks from which we build a photograph. They are line, shape, texture and form. When you take an image there will normally be at least one of these present within the image and in some cases two or three. The image to the right contains a strong element of line which directs your eyes up the buildings, but there is also the element of form which conveys the buildings 3D shape. It's important to understand the elements and what they do to an image. Some such as line direct how you look through an image, whilst others such as texture help you to understand what the subject is made of. Some are easier to capture than others, line is the easiest because it's not relying on light or other techniques to show it up. Shape relies upon the difference between a subject and the background which can be created using selective focusing, brightness or even colour differences. Texture and form make you understand photography in more depth, as they rely on the lighting coming from the correct angle to show them up.

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About the Photographic elements

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The photographic elements, line, shape, texture and form are the things that give you the basic structure of an image. Sometimes the elements are what makes the image work, at other times they are simply part of the structure of an image.

So the elements are really the building blocks of photography. To start to see and create better images you need to understand the elements, and understand the effects that they have, and the way that they are best portrayed.

Line

Texture

Shape

Form

One of the interesting things when you learn more about the elements is you start to understand why some images work well, whilst others fail. You start to realise why the lighting at the time we take the picture can be so important and why an awareness of light and where it is coming from, is such an integral part of the compositional process within photography.

correct end result. We then must go out and put that knowledge into practice, finding subjects which build up our understanding of the subject and that start to make us look outside of things we think of as obvious subjects.

The elements are the same in context to photography, as the alphabet is to reading, we need to understand the first, to be able to do the next successfully. So by understanding what the elements do, how to portray them to their best effect and how they are affected by things such as lighting and the lenses which we use, you build an understanding about how your photography is affected by the elements.

The elements are not used all the time, in fact normally only one or two are present in most images. The images to the right are selected based upon what is the key element within the picture, however in many images there may be a second or even third element present that affects the image.

Some of the elements work in any type of lighting, these being line and shape; although good lighting will always portray them better. Others such as texture and form are defined by the lighting. If the lighting is flat then these elements become hidden and this is often why images fail to work.

When we are learning any new skill, we first of all have to become conscious of what achieves a

Once we start to build up a conscious awareness of these things, we then start to do it automatically and it moves from being something we consciously do, to something that happens in the background without thinking about it.

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Viewpoints Your viewpoint is all about where you’re taking the image from. It may be about getting up high so you can look down on a scene, it may be looking up to tall building to produce a specific effect or it may be about shooting square on to minimise distortions. Different subjects work with different viewpoints, when shooting portraits, you want to be at eye level to your subject, if shooting adults that’s easy, however, if shooting a young child that does mean you need to get down to their eye level, as the best images are going to be where you’re seeing eye to eye.If you do close-up or macro photography the best images of plants are often down at ground level, as looking down on them changes the way they look. I personally like shooting close up and macro images in the summer months and I’m sure that has a lot to do with the greater height of plants in herbaceous borders, as much as the weather we get at that time of year.

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Viewing methods

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When we start to talk about the angle we’re going to take the picture at, an obvious problem we come across is that some of the angles we may want to shoot from aren’t very convenient. The image shown on the back of the camera above is a good example, it’s taken from down on the ground, and certainly I have reached the age where getting down is possible, but, getting up is far more difficult and so one of the things I’ve been very glad to see on a lot of the new models are flip screens which allow you to shoot at various angles to the subject.

They are useful for shooting down low but they are also useful for when you need to shoot at a high angle or from above your head to get a clean shot. I’m only 5’4” (163cm) tall and so shooting from a high angle for me can be quite challenging at times, so I actually have used the flexibility of the flip screens a lot over the years.

On the mirrorless models the image automatically transfers between the viewfinder and the rear screen depending on what you’re using at the time. On the DSLR models there is a button immediately to the right of the viewfinder on most models, which allows the rear screen to be turned on. On any model which allows touch controls to be used, focusing on the subject is very simple as you just tap on the screen where you would like the camera to focus.

Models made since 2013 have very good focusing even in low light levels and are very easy to operate and so it’s well worth while getting used to this feature on your camera as it is a useful option for some pictures.

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The classic rules This book is about being creative and it's because of that reason why I've left looking at the classic rules of framing and composition till later in the book. I have never been a great fan of sticking to the rules, in my book rules are meant to be broken or at least bent. However, I am also the first to say that you should understand the rules before you break them, as some of them are there for very good reasons and help you to understand what does and does not work within images. Rules in many ways are based upon our preconceptions, what should and should not be within the image.

Where we should and should not put things within images. How many subjects should we get into an image and even the angle that we’re shooting from are all things which will be found within the photographic rules. In many ways we will have touched on a number of these things as we’ve gone through the book, but not possibly mentioned them as being one of “the rules” which we are supposed to abide by.

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Leaving space

How much space you need to leave can be governed by which orientation that you’re shooting. If you’re shooting action and you’re holding the camera horizontally, then you have more space to choose where to put the subject, as shown in the image above left where the bike has a reasonable amount of space to go into.

If you’re shooting vertically then there is a lot less space within the image to leave space to go into, unless you keep the main subject a little bit smaller

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within the frame, as I’ve done on the image above right, which allows it a small amount of space more at the front of the bike then at the back.

If you have not got a lot of experience shooting sports and action, it can be very difficult to keep the subject in the right place, for where the space needs to be, the natural tendency is to end up with the subject exactly in the centre of the frame.

can be wise to frame a little bit looser and allow yourself the space to crop the image into the best composition. The two images above are exactly as taken and have not been cropped however I have a fair amount of experience in shooting fast moving subjects.

What I would say is I probably discard as many images because of framing errors as I would because of focusing or other problems.

So, when starting off with this type of subject it

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Simplicity

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Simplicity can be important when you’re shooting images. There is a natural tendency when we capture an image to want to get everything into the picture that we’re seeing. What I am going to say at this point is just remember what I said back at the start of the book, our brain chooses what we’re going to see, so trying to capture what we’re seeing isn’t the most reliable way of shooting.

The thing to think about is what are you taking. In other words, what made you first think about taking that as a picture. The images to the right are a field of poppies I spotted a couple of years ago and it was spectacular to the eye, because right along the edges of the fields the farm had obviously sown poppy seeds as a nature habitat and it did look stunning.

When I find a location like this, I will take a lot of pictures. Normally starting with the more obvious wider shots as shown bottom right and gradually evolving the images that I’m taking. Interestingly the bottom right shot was taken at 100mm and wider focal lengths simply were not working. I also experimented with the other lens I had with me, which was the EF 100-400mm f4.5-5.6L IS USM lens to see if the longer telephoto shots would be better. The bottom left shot works better for me than the one bottom right as its got less to distract the eye, and the depth-of-field provided with the lens focuses the eye onto a narrow band of the poppies.

However, the shots which I keep using time and time again are always the ones of a single poppy with good amounts of blur all around them as in the top image. Both the top image and bottom left image were taken with the lens set to 400mm

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Number of subjects in an image

It can also be important to think about the number of subjects that you have within the image. A single subject, either part or all of it works, because there’s just that one subject to think about. The images above are simple images to look at with a background which is simple to look at.

Two or three subjects within the image can work, but they must be interacting with each other or at least looking the same way.

The images above work, because in the top image the Penguins are relating to one another, whilst in the bottom one it’s obvious the two chicks and parent are together and those sort of relationships bind the images together and make them work.

The top right hand image shows where it can all go wrong, we have a number of Penguins, none of which are doing the same thing or relating to one another, they’re not looking the same way and so

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the eye has a number of focal points it could choose to look at, so it isn’t going to settle on one particular bird.

However, this all changes when we have a bulk number of birds or animals because then we start to view them as a group as in the image above of the Penguins on the ice floe, rather than seeing them as individual birds.

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Aspect ratios The aspect ratio is the image's dimensions, in other words the width to height ratio. All of the EOS models work to the same aspect ratio by default which is 3:2. In other words three wide by two high but increasingly they are offering options to shoot in different aspect ratios. This is an option which has been on EOS cameras for many years, but until very recently only affected the images if you were shooting in Live View or on some high-end models there was the option to bring up cropping lines which would then be utilised within Canon's Digital Photo Professional software to crop the image when the RAW was converted.It is fair to say that this is an option which has caused confusion for many years amongst photographers and it's likely to be seen significantly more now it has become a standard option on all of the mirrorless models.

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Aspect ratios

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It would be fair to say that photographers have been confused by aspect ratios ever since they first appeared on the EOS cameras. They started to appear when Live View was put on the models, as then you could see the area that was being taken.

But with the advent of mirrorless models they have now become much more mainstream and appear on the superimposed Quick control screen or within the menu system as shown at the bottom of the page.

The aspect ratio allows you to change the ratio between the width and the height of the image, and there are four options available: 3:2 which is the standard format the camera shoots in, 1:1 allowing the production of a square image, 4:3 which produces a slightly squarer shape which matches the shape taken by the compact style models and 16:9 which matches the common TV wide-screen format.

3:2

1:1

It’s important to understand that the numbers are a ratio, not a physical measurement of size. When you decide to shoot in a different aspect ratio it is important to understand that you will no longer get

4:3

16:9

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Lenses Lenses play a very different part within the process of capturing images. They can capture a wide expanse in the image. They can make things look dramatically closer. They allow us to control perspective and make the biggest difference to how much is sharp within the image.

Most photographers have a wide range of focal lengths to choose from and yet so often I see photographers not thinking about the focal length that they are shooting at. When I learnt my photography, zoom lenses didn’t exist and so it was easier to walk a little closer or further away then it was to change lenses. This ensured that we thought about the use of lenses a lot more than we do today, when it’s far easier to just zoom in or out to fit the frame around the subject, rather than walk to get the framing we want with the lens that would work the best for what we want to achieve. So this chapter is all about making you think about the lenses from the point of view of creating the images you want, rather than saving you walking a few steps.

17mm (1.3xx Crop sensor)

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Wide angle lenses

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24mm (Full frame sensor) The other thing which wide angle lenses are very good for is exaggerating the perspective within an image. The image above is taken on a 24mm lens on a full frame camera and this is making the people at the end of the tunnel look smaller, plus the tunnel's length is being exaggerated by the lens.

A few chapters ago I had a look at the effect of lines within images and if you want to emphasise the effect that they’re having, then using a wide-angle lens will do that. Wide angle lenses also give a specific look to the picture, in the image above it is making the tunnel look wider but also longer than it was and certainly if photographing a room, it could make it look significantly larger than it is in real life.

So, it should come as no surprise that wide angled lenses are much

loved by an estate agents. If you’ve ever visited a house and the rooms appear to have shrunk significantly from the details of the property, then it’s certain that the estate agent has got an ultra-wide lens which they’ve been shooting with.

One thing to remember is that if you tilt the lens up or down it will introduce distortion into the image. The wider angle the lenses that you’re using, the more pronounced that this effect will become. Therefore, to avoid the distortion you need to shoot as square on as possible to the subject which will minimise distortions within the image. As the lens becomes wider you start to notice distortions even if you are shooting square on, particularly in a room if you are shooting with an

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Short telephoto lenses The focal lengths that fall into the short telephoto lens group often appear on the standard kit lenses which we use. I have two lenses which would be considered standard kit lenses. The one I used most often is the RF 24-105mm f4L IS USM, which is an ideal general-purpose lens and doubles up to work well for portrait photography. I also have a RF 24240mm f4-6.3 IS USM which I use as a single lens if that is all I’m going to carry with me. The benefit it offers is it has that bit longer focal length and so is a little bit more versatile and gives me a smaller outfit to carry when working in and around towns and cities. The downside is the aperture is not quite as bright when zoomed in and optically given the greater focal range it’s not quite as good. However it is a very versatile lens.

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105mm (Full frame sensor)

When shooting around towns and cities you often need a lens which will edit down what you are seeing into an image. What I mean by that is there is so much general clutter in the streets, you often have to be very selective about what you do and do not include within the picture area. The images to the right are all good examples of this, where I wanted just a small area within the frame. So sometimes you need to think about the shorter telephoto lens as simply a lens which allows you to edit down and only keep the really good bits within the picture.

Although you can crop an image down in postproduction, remember that you are throwing away quality when you do this and so I try to shoot as much with final framing as I possibly can.

70mm (Full frame sensor)

105mm (Full frame sensor)

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Looking for the unusual We've looked at lots of aspects that go together to create images. However, the photographer also needs to do something vital, which is look for the opportunities. I have talked a lot in this book about preconceptions and one of the areas which exists firmly cemented in many photographers’ minds, is what does and does not constitute a photographic subject. These preconceptions come from images that we see all the time, which maybe of very standard subjects. That doesn't mean that that's all you can take, it simply means it's all somebody else has taken. You can take a photograph of almost anything and if it's interesting it can make a good image. The image to the right was taken in Madeira, which is far more known for its gardens, stunning mountain and coastal scenery, its fortified wine and it's mild climate. The image to the right was taken in the old part of the town, when nearly every door has a painting on it and they can make some excellent photographic subjects.

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The unusual

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The image to the right is taken in Monte in Madeira and is taken on a terrace where people are watching the wooden sledges which take you back down to the main part of the town, which is a popular thing to do for the tourists.

I was standing on a slightly higher platform and saw the opportunity for the lady who was setting up her camera and the three pairs of feet in the background. The composition mainly works because of the cobbles and the fact you can discern what it says, if it was just plain tarmac it wouldn’t work as well. It's an image that does bend a lot of the rules of composition, but for me it’s a humorous image that works. It is taken on an APS-C model with a 100mm lens, which is one of the reasons I’ve always favoured lenses with a reasonable range as it allows you to be more versatile within your framing in camera, rather than to rely on cropping in the post-production stage.

I have also placed underneath a couple of the more commonly taken images taken around the same location to show what other photographers were shooting. The bottom right-hand image is a much wider version of the exactly the same shot as the main image, showing the same three people still standing there and the more general view. The problem I often find with more general views is trying to get a clean image, which doesn’t have lots of other things in which distracts your eye, such as the bright green rubbish bin and the bright orange sign along with the rest of the street clutter that goes with everyday living.

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People For me photographs of people fall into one of three very distinct categories. There's the ones that we all take of friends and family, these are taken for memories of things we do or places we visit rather than trying to be a photographic masterpiece. There are then the portraits I take, which are there to illustrate how to photograph people. These often have a lot of creativity and can be taken at quite unusual times of day. The advantage I have with this type of photography is most of my subjects are paid models, who are very happy to be in front of the camera. Generally speaking, models will pose themselves and it makes photography a lot easier. The other thing with this area of photography for me, is I have much more control over the lighting, as most of the time I will be using at least one flashgun and sometimes more.There is then the area of candid photography, when I'm out and about around the streets in the UK or when on holiday, where I will take some images of the local people. These can be very creatively shot, taking advantage of what lighting is there at the time, as often you are trying not to be observed whilst shooting.

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Candid shooting

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124mm

300mm

When travelling lots of photographers want to take candid shots of the local population. This is often best achieved with a long lens, so you can shoot without being noticed. This is how the three top images were taken. The bottom image was taken at a centre where silk was produced and the picture was taken of one of the workers demonstrating how the silk was harvested and produced and as a result it was taken with a wide angled lens rather than my normal telephoto.

Do remember that the culture regarding having your photograph taken is different according to the country which you visit. The top three images were taken on a trip to China, where people were very open to being photographed, especially in locations where they got a lot of tourists. The bottom right image is taken in Madagascar and once again that people were generally very friendly and receptive to being photographed.

An interesting cultural difference crops up in Kenya, where the Masai are generally very happy to be photographed when you visit the village to see how they live. However, whilst out in the park minding their animals they are less happy to be photographed,

24mm

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Adding motion It may seem strange to talk about adding motion in a book where we’re talking about taking still images. However, we can use specific techniques that allow us to blur subjects, or blur part of an image which gives the image a feeling of movement which otherwise wouldn’t be there.This is a technique which is becoming more popular and more frequently seen thanks to some of the emerging technology on some of the new EOS cameras. The new mirrorless models the EOS R5 and R6 both feature the new IBIS or In Body Image Stabilisation system, which when combined with the RF lenses can give up to 8 stops of image stabilisation.This allows us to shoot handheld at shutter speeds which previously were only achievable when the camera was securely mounted onto a tripod. Because of that we can now tackle a wider range of subjects and capture more movement, even in locations where tripods are not allowed.

1/30 IS lens

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Experimentation

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I have taken a look at the useful options which are available to you within the Camera RAW window, however there are other options within the program.

One menu to explore when you have some time is the filter menu in Photoshop (not present in Lightroom) which is the one where we went to access the Camera RAW filter for JPEG users in Photoshop. This menu has a whole host of artistic effects that you can explore. The image to the right was converted into black and white and adjusted to be fairly high contrast and then an effect called Graphic Pen was applied to this. This option can be found within the Filter Gallery, then by going to the Sketch options and you will find the Graphic Pen option there. When you select it, options come up on the right hand side which allow you to control the stroke length, the light dark balance and the direction of the stroke. Adjusting these will allow you to get the images you want.

Some of the options are very practical to use, whilst others you may find it difficult to imagine that anybody would want to use them. Remember this program has been around for 30 years so over the years what people do and don’t do to images has changed quite significantly.

Although not to everyone’s taste, for those like myself who cannot draw, (embarrassing as I went to art college) it does allow the production of artistic pieces from your images. The beauty of the Filter Gallery is you can combine multiple effects. So it is a great way of building your confidence within the program and whiling away a wet afternoon.

THINGS TO TRY Find some images that you have taken and have a go at some post-production techniques. Even if you don’t have either of the Adobe programs I’ve been looking at, you will find that both PCs and Macs have a program called Photos which works in a similar way and the controls which they have will be very similar to those that I’ve described.

You may be pleasantly surprised how quickly you can turn what looks like a very average in image into something that looks very good with a few simple tweaks. If you are practising on JPEG images it can be worth saving the image as a different name or version as the first thing you do when you open it as that way you will have the original to go back to.

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The creative thought process In a lot of the books I have written I have talked about something we refer to as ESP – Evaluate, Setup and Produce. In this book I want to think more about the thought process that makes you take the picture in the first place. That is what you initially saw that made you think about capturing the image and working through the various things we need to think about to make that a successful image.The image to the right was taken one morning after there had been a severe frost and I wanted to capture the frost alongside the riverbank. So that prompted me to be out as soon as the sun started to rise looking for images, because once the sun gets up generally the frost is going to melt.It also prompted me to think outside of the normal preconceived subjects, the general views.

Sometimes they photograph well, but there are often more interesting images to be had within the detail shots that exist. It’s then thinking about how to make the most of those details.

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Planning shoots

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A lot of my shoots are planned. Not meticulously, I’m not organised enough for that.

However, I will think about where I am going to go and that is largely led by the type of images I want to take. I will normally have a look on a map and think about any locations I want to go to and think about the time of day that the lighting is going to be best.

The image to the right is taken on Dovercourt beach at Harwich of one of the two old lighthouses which are on the beach. One is on a promontory out to sea a little bit, the other one is on the beach. If you look at the beach on a map (type in Dovercourt beach Harwich into Google Maps and you’re very quickly find it) you will see that it faces South East which means it is ideal for sunrise shots with the sun rising with the lighthouse silhouetted in front of it.

What it also means is it’s pointless going there for sunset, as the sunset will be over the land and you will not get any decent pictures. The other thing which was easy to find out from the map was that there were places to park along the front of the beach, which made it easy to go back to the car to get any additional kit. It was then simply a question of looking up the correct time for sunrise at that time of year.

Of course the other thing is wise to look up if you’re planning to do a sunrise is what the weather is going to be doing. For a good sunrise you do need some cloud.

However, you do not want 100% cloud because you’re not going to see a sunrise.

There are a couple of weather apps that I use on a very regular basis and they are available free for both Android and iOS systems. The first is called XCWeather. This allows you to see the weather forecast for your current location or you can type in any other location and it will bring up a weather forecast for you to see showing you the wather conditions by the hour or 3 hour intervals.

One thing that is quite nice is if you look up the weather for a particular location it will save that in a frequently visited list, so you can quickly get back to it later in the day or another day. However, it also offers something else very useful to photographers which I don’t know of in any other weather app - it gives you the expected percentage of clouds for that day and also for the times of day.

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