Angles to give creativity to your pictures

Now that some of you have learned the lighting, composition, ‘DOF’and ‘POI’, it is time to give your pictures a creative touch. Usually while photographing one always stand looking face-on to their subject when they press the shutter button. Well there is nothing wrong at with it. But if one needs a different picture they have to start virtually start exercising while photographing.

The eye level picture (top left), the overhead picture (top right) and the low angle picture (left). See the varing angles which gives creativity to the pictures. - Model Pankaj Advani. - Professional Billiards Champion, 2009. Photo courtesy A Veeramani. DNA

This can be done only if you start moving from one position to another to get a better perspective to your images. For eg: look at you coffee cup from the position you are sitting while reading this, then gradually stand up and see the change in the angle, better still stand up on the chair and look directly at the cup, looks different right. Now get down and crouch on your knee, so that the table top and cup’s bottom is at you eye level, doesn’t it have a different perspective again. Now put this use to practical photography and one will get the static subject in different perspective with every angle you change.

‘Composition’ the main stay for pictures

After mastering the art of lighting for taking good pictures the next step is to ensure that you compose your picture well. In general, good pictures result from careful attention to some basic elements of composition, together with appropriate lighting and an interesting subject. Three photographers recording the same scene may create equally appealing photographs with entirely different composition.


So always play by ‘The Rule of Thirds’ which is based on the fact that the human eye is naturally drawn to a point about two-thirds up a page. Crop your photo so that the main subjects are located around one of the intersection points
rather than in the center of the image. Your landscapes will be optimally pleasing to the eye if you apply the Rule of Thirds when you place your horizon line. If the area of interest is land or water, the horizon line will usually be two-thirds up from the bottom.

Alternately, if the sky is the area of emphasis, the horizon line may be one-third up from the bottom, leaving the sky to take up the top two-thirds of the picture. Identify a
primary point of interest before taking the picture. When you’ve determined which area is the most important to you, you can compose to emphasize it.

So take your camera out and shoot with the mode you like to use the best.
But if you are planning to use the all manual mode for a 400 ISO, you can
set the Aperture at f -11 and the Shutter speed at 250 per sec. When you’ve determined which area is the most important to you, you can compose to emphasize it. So take your camera out and shoot with the mode you like to use the best.
But if you are planning to use the all manual mode for a 400 ISO, you can set the Aperture at f -11 and the Shutter speed at 250 per sec.

OP Sharma's gift to photographers across the globe

Today, the world celebrates World Photography Day, but few actually know where the seeds of the day were sown. In fact, it was an Indian photographer based in New Delhi, OP Sharma (fondly known as OP) who was the man instrumental in getting over 150 photography clubs and associations across the globe to celebrate August 19, as the birthday of photography.

All through the year, all over the world, holidays and birthdays are celebrated. However, no one ever designated a day for photography; until OP came along.
From research work and entertainment, to documentation and art, photography is everywhere. World Photography Day was launched in 1991 by the Indian International Photographic Council (IIPC) of which OP Sharma is the founder member. Later, in 2002-03 the Photographic Society of America (PSA) with its multitude of members, across the world, joined in and also started to observe August 19 as Photography Day.

The first official photograph ever taken was on August 19, 1839. Photography was arguably one of the most important inventions of the 19th Century. Had this unique medium not been invented, our world would have been much darker than it is today. Let us not forget this fact and let World Photography Day see the light!
As for the news photographers working in modern day newspapers, their task is often tedious, sometimes life-threatening (as in covering a war zone, or tracking a flu pandemic), but it is also always rewarding.

The photographer stakes his life on every image; especially the one that you, the reader, see every morning.
Photography as grown manifold over the past 170 years, and today every family in the world has a picture adorning a wall or a shelf in their home. The medium is such that everyone can become professional, thanks to the advent of the digital camera.

The future will see further enhancements in photographic technology and technique, but whatever it may bring, one thing will remain unchanged: The emotions one feels when one looks at a photograph. So this World Photography Day, sit back, take out an old family album and let your mind wander through its memories. After all that’s what photography is all about: Capturing history as it happens.
On a footnote it is important to stress that photography is an art, and as such, it’s high time the government of India recognized it as a fine art. After all, capturing emotions, takes a level of skill.