Script for Photography Tutorial

Welcome to Mandarin Ducky!

Today we are going to discuss photography and editing.

This is going to be quite a long tutorial but I will try to make it as content as possible!

I am not a genius and perhaps I know only few great ways of taking pictures, which I learnt during my creative journey.

So this is not a professional educational tutorial but more my experience and my knowledge that I am more than happy to share.

Feel free to pause this video whenever you need to write something down and remember that full script is available in PDF format for you in description below.

Many of you have requested this tutorial and I am sure you can't wait to begin! Prepare some pens and paper and let us start!

Taking a photo Step 1: Lightning The way you lighten up your piece before you take a picture is extremely important and in my opinion this is the main thing.

Let's take a look at these two pictures. I think you don't need a hint to understand which picture is taken in the dark with flash and which one was made using daylight.

So when I see pictures made with flash -­‐ I always ask myself. Couldn't they wait till tomorrow or is it always dark in their country? What is the reason so many people just continuously shoot shiny varnished polymer clay in the evening time, lighten up by table lamp and with extra shine from a camera flash light.

Do you know why? I still don't :) So make sure you are shooting during the day. Never shoot at night and please don't use camera Flash. From now on promise yourself -­‐ I will start using my flash again when I will know how to take pictures without it!

Step 2: Prepare your photography surface. Here I mean your jewelry or clay artwork background. Depending on what you are shooting and how big it is -­‐ there could be few options.

Start with simplest -­‐ white, black or grey background suit almost any polymer clay creations. Especially because clay items are so vibrant and colorful -­‐ neutral tones will compliment them the most and enhance the colors of your artwork.

Don't go for crazy prints, wallpaper patterns or rough textures. They definitely are great, but only a professional photographer can work with those properly. I class myself as a Self Taught user and right now I am only in the beginning of learning these more complicated techniques.

Step 3: Positioning your setup.

Place your background with your item on it next to your window. We are going to shoot in daylight. Daylight is the best for beginner photography and is easy to play with and does not require any investments as such. Daylight is free, right? At least for now…

Try to avoid Direct Sunlight, as it will lead to having very very dark and long shadows. We don't want that. If you have to shoot in direct sunlight -­‐ try to cover your window with a curtain or use a transparent film for that part of your window where this naughty sun shines through...

Your camera: Your camera is your best friend and it will always work for you if you use it right. It is always wise to invest in a good camera, but if you can't yet -­‐ start saving and practice with what you have. When I get frustrated when I haven't got enough skills, tools, money I just calm myself down and say: "Let's just work with what we have and perfect our skills until we can afford more."

I will be working with 2 cameras for this tutorial to prove that even a little iPad camera can be quite good if you know how and where to use it.

So now you have your background and your daylight. Your item is positioned on it and daylight is nicely doing it's job.

Another MUST you should have is a Tripod.

Yes, if you want to avoid shaky, blurry pictures -­‐ buy a tripod. I bought mine for $30 on Ebay, so it is not a major investment.

You will be so happy when you will start using it!

Now we are ready to shoot.

Take your first shot. How does it look like?

Sometimes you notice that it has weird colors. If so -­‐ check your WHITE BALANCE.

White balance is a camera option that is available on any camera. Even on those that cost $40.

If you go to your camera settings you can see little cloud, sun, outdoor, indoor icons. They all can become your best friends if you know how to use it.

So ask yourself -­‐ where am I and what is going on around me. Am I at home next to the window in a cloudy day? Then USE CLOUD SYMBOL. Is it sunny -­‐ USE SUN SYMBOL. Position your piece of art on your background and try to take same picture with different white balance settings. And then take a look at them and choose the one that looks most natural. This will be your correct option.

Now let's say we already set up our White Balance but picture is still a bit too dark.

Then it's time for EXPOSURE. Exposure is a lovely camera setting but not all of the cameras have it. If you are using SLR camera -­‐ then you are fine.

Exposure depends on 3 settings -­‐ which are Aperture, Shutter speed and ISO. It's a constant game of making all three settings right according to each other and if you gone that far -­‐ you may also read this very handy post about all 3 settings. They are explained in this post perfectly. Link is provided in descriptions :) http://www.exposureguide.com/exposure.htm

But for us, simple people we should only know -­‐ that if our picture turns out too bright -­‐ we have too much light and we need to move our setup a bit further away from the source of light.

If it is too dark -­‐ perhaps we need to move it closer to the window and maybe we need some extra source of light or some light reflectors.

Light reflectors can be quite handy and they don't cost much. You can also make your handmade one from foil or buy some mirrored paper.

I personally just own this piece of mirrored paper and I am very happy with the results.

There is also such parameter like ISO. ISO is your camera's light sensitivity. For old film cameras it meant how sensitive your camera film was. I remember buying 200 for good sunny weather and 400 for darker rainy days. In digital camera it's the same but instead of a film we have a digital card and matrix.

So when I am shooting on a sunny day and my room is lighten up with light -­‐ I use ISO 200, when it is darker with clouds outside -­‐ I go for 400. Anything more than 400 will start adding annoying so called NOISE, which looks like lots of colorful dots on your picture's darker parts. This is why I don't suggest shooting at night or with a table lamp. Usual camera will never handle this and you will end up with horrible noisy pictures. Only SLR cameras can deal with darkness fine and this is where those complicated Exposure setting coming in. We don't want to make our lives harder, so we will just stick to daylight! Simple.

LIGHT BOX I personally don't use light box since I don't need it. But I have one, just in case. Light box is great for those situations when you are taking pictures of reflective shiny objects. If you don't want your jewelry to reflect everything that's around you -­‐ Light box is your choice. It will also defuse the light and make it really soft. Light boxes are not expensive either and can be easily purchased online.

I think this is it and we are ready to shoot.

Let's remember everything in few quick steps: 1.

Setup your perfect place for shooting.

2.

Make sure you are using nice daylight, no direct sunlight.

3.

Use tripod if you can 4.

Set up correctly white balance (look around yourself and check the weather outside!)

5.

Make sure Exposure is correct which means you have just enough light to shoot.

6.

Check your ISO 7.

Snap away.

Learning photography is a road full of experimentation and some things may or may not work for you.

I hope my suggestions were useful and you will improve your photography quality a lot.

Please follow the link in description to learn how to easily edit your pictures.

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Thank you for watching this video and good luck with your projects!