April 11, 2025 • 30 mins
In this episode, Court discusses five techniques to inject creative vision into photography, emphasizing the importance of breaking traditional rules and experimenting with different perspectives and methods. From composition to intentional motion blur, each technique is designed to enhance creativity and encourage photographers to think outside the box.
Takeaways
- Inject creative vision into your photography on any camera.
- Exaggerate composition to break traditional rules.
- Intentional motion blur adds a unique element.
- Top-down perspectives provide a fresh view.
- Black and white photography enhances contrast and mood.
- Change camera angles for creative effects.
- Spot metering can create unique lighting.
- Experiment with different techniques for creativity.
- Photography is an art form that thrives on creativity.
- Always strive to refresh your perspective in photography.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Creative Vision in Photography
01:16 Thanks to Sponsors
05:31 Exaggerating Composition Techniques
09:22 Intentional Motion Blur Techniques
16:37 Top-Down Perspective in Photography
20:25 Black & White Photography
23:03 Camera Angles
24:59 A Bonus Technique
Thank you, Sponsors!
- Shimoda Designs
- Arthelper.Ai - Promo Code WILD for 30 Day PRO Trial
- LensRentals.com - Promo Code WildPhotographer15 for 15% off
- Check out Court’s photography and conservation work: CourtWhelan.com
- Follow Court Whelan (@courtwhelan) on YouTube for more photography tips
- Sign up for Court's conservation, travel and photography blog at www.courtwhelan.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back, friends , to the Wild Photographer.
I come to you today with anepisode I'm really excited about
recording and it's one that youknow I really try to add and
inject the creative vision intoa lot of my podcasts, especially
with interviews with guestswhere they are pro photographers
.
They have different views andvisions than I might.
They add to the conversationtremendously and I, of course,
(00:20):
try to do this with all myepisodes, but this episode,
specifically this, is one whereit's all about the techniques
for creative vision.
I have five techniques I wantto share with you today on how
to inject creative vision intoyour photography, and while I
feel like a lot of my listenersprobably have fancier cameras a
little bit more advanced, thisone, I can say for sure, is for
(00:43):
any camera out there Smartphones, introductory point and shoots,
all the way to the biggest,fanciest cameras out there.
This one is fully applicableequally across the board.
So, yeah, we're going to talkabout various things today that
will allow you to injectcreative vision into your
photography.
These things could be treatedas homework assignments the next
(01:03):
time you're out photographingstreet scenes to nature, to
wildlife, to markets, toanything.
These aren't about justwildlife, they aren't about just
nature.
They aren't about just culturalphotography or travel, they are
about the full gamut.
Before we get into the episode,I of course want to thank the
sponsors that helped make thispossible.
First up, shimoda Designs.
(01:24):
I think I may have found theperfect camera bag and I know
that's a lofty big statement.
I've even done previousepisodes, a year or two ago,
just on the elements of why it'shard to find the perfect camera
bag, and there's really a bagfor each situation.
But Shimoda Designs has comeout with this bag.
They're calling the ActionSeries.
They have a couple differentseries, but Shimoda designs has
(01:44):
come out with this bag.
They're calling the actionseries.
They have a couple of differentseries, but there's one that I
have in particular.
It's called the action.
It is phenomenal.
It is not just a great camerabag with all the compartments
and the safety and security, theaccess, and it's not just a
great backpack, it's anexceptional backpack.
It's kind of this next genbackpack where it has a high
level of water resistance or,dare I say, waterproofing.
(02:05):
It's got that roll top to it soit's really easy to access.
It's even got a top compartmentfor gear things like a rain
jacket or extra layer orsunscreen and then a main camera
compartment completelyseparated below.
It's got hip belts or that thatpart that goes around your hips
.
If you are carrying a heavypack.
You can obviously take thoseout if you don't need them, and
(02:25):
it's just really comfortable,really ergonomic.
It's got the water bottlepockets.
It's got the tripod holds.
It is a smart design and it'snot too heavy either.
So, yes, the Action BackpackSeries from Shimoda Designs.
I'm in love with it.
They are sponsoring thisepisode.
I want to give them a bigthanks and shout out.
In addition, I want to thankarthelperai.
This is an online software and,as you could tell from the ai,
(02:49):
this is an artificialintelligence program.
It's pretty darn amazingbecause it takes all the
guesswork.
It all you know, just takes thework out of having to promote
and market yourself as aphotographer.
A lot of times we creatives, wemight like marketing but not
know exactly how to do it, or wemight like marketing but not
know exactly how to do it, or wemight not want to dabble in
that at all.
We want to spend our timetaking the photographs,
(03:09):
processing the photographs,learning how to take photographs
by listening to this episode,but arthelperai takes the reins
after you create that photoafter you inject your creative
vision.
Just a little callback totoday's episode.
It's an amazing program andI've been dabbling with it over
the last month or two and I'mreally impressed with what I
find it does everything fromcreate content like blog posts
(03:32):
and social posts.
It helps you with keywords andtitling of your photos and just
this massive, massive suite ofthings that we need to be doing
today in order to staycompetitive as photographers, in
order to kind of raise that barand always go beyond what the
next photographer might be doingin order to be marketable.
So if you are into photography,especially if you're looking to
(03:54):
get into some sort of paid typephotography, it's an incredible
, incredible asset.
If you use the code wild that'sjust W I L D, like the name of
this podcast as a promo code,you will get your first month,
30 days of a free trial of thissoftware so you can try before
you buy.
So W-I-L-D there, I'm reallyreally quite a big fan.
(04:15):
Last but not least,lensrentalscom.
They've been a longtimesupporter of this podcast.
If you use the promo codeWILDPHOTOGRAPHER15.
You guessed it you get 15% offyour entire order of
LensRentalscom and I'm a hugeadvocate of what they do, not
just because of the style theydo it and the professionalism
and the incredible assortment,but just the ability to rent
lenses before you buy them, orjust rent lenses that are
(04:38):
specialty for a certain trip.
So go on LensRentalscom, shoparound, look around.
They are an incredible outfit.
Can't recommend them highlyenough, and I want to thank them
very much for sponsoring thepodcast.
Okay, now one last little thing,a little bit of quick
self-promo.
I invite you to not onlysubscribe to this podcast, but
go over and check out my YouTubechannel, where I post a lot of
(04:59):
these videos.
They do have a video component.
It's usually just me yapping atthe camera, but it's another
way to listen to my podcast.
Let's say, if you're on acomputer and you want to stream
from the internet, if you don'twant to play from the podcast
platform you're used to playing,it is now available on YouTube,
and subscribing to my channelon YouTube is honestly one of
the best ways you can help me.
(05:20):
So if you would like to do that, I certainly invite you to do
so and without further ado,let's get into today's episode.
We're talking about fivetechniques to inject creative
vision into your photography.
The first thing I'm going totalk about is composition.
So we've of course heard wellif you've listened to this
podcast or read other photoarticles about other more
traditional types of composition.
(05:41):
So I'm not going to go into therule of thirds, although it's
super important.
That's kind of old hat at thispoint especially if you've been
listening to me for a littlewhile not going to talk about
leading lines.
I'm going to talk about adifferent type of composition
here, and this is again gettingback to that core of the episode
which is injecting thatcreative vision.
I'm talking about exaggeratingcomposition, and what this does
I always say, especially when Italk about the quote unquote
(06:04):
rules of composition is that allrules are meant to be broken.
Exaggerating composition is areally in your face breaking of
that rule of thirds.
It is exaggerating compositionsuch that you purposely use well
, let's call it like the rule oftenths or the rule of fifths or
the rule of 20th, when you havethat horizon line but a big,
(06:24):
beautiful sky, when you haveincredible shimmery ocean water
on an otherwise relativelyuneventful horizon, I'm going to
exaggerate composition suchthat that median line, that
horizon line or even lines foundin nature, I'm going to put
that at an extreme end of myphoto.
What this does is it reallyshowcases the grandeur of the
(06:45):
scene.
So, as you can imagine, it'snot necessarily used for every
shot, but when you're in bigscenes or you're in front of big
features like massive toweringwaterfalls, even with big
wildlife, I use this technique.
Now I will use it in differentways depending on the scene, but
the overall idea is, instead ofplacing that horizon line at
the third points and you want toshowcase that massive sky, that
(07:07):
sweeping meadow, that hugeforest that's just lined with
trees or a massive braided riversystem, I'm going to think
about how can I exaggeratecomposition to put part of that
scene in just a little sliver ofmy shot.
It creates this really, reallyartistic version of your photo.
So intentionally breaking therule of thirds and exaggerating
(07:28):
your composition.
The other way I'm going to doit I kind of alluded to this
with wildlife is oftentimes if Ihave an animal especially, I
really like this with big,charismatic animals bears and
whales and things like that Iwill actually put that way, way
in the corner of my shot.
So you've heard me say before,with traditional rules of
composition, like the rule ofthirds, is you generally put the
(07:49):
animal, the wildlife, thesubject.
If it's a person, same rulesapply here is you usually put
them at one of the intersectingpoints of the rule of thirds.
With this exaggeratedcomposition technique, I'm
showcasing this big animal in anotherwise very, very massive
landscape.
And so that scale, thatcomparison, that contrast, that
juxtaposition, let's say, ofputting it deep in the frame, at
(08:12):
that bottom 10th of the frameor just very far in the
left-hand corner, it makesattention in the photo.
That's like wow, why is it sofar out of my main viewpoint?
You know, of course our eyesare drawn to those intersecting
points, which is why we use themso much in photography.
But then, when you tell theviewer to scan the photo and
(08:32):
look all the way in the corner,when you see that polar bear,
you see that big bull, elk, andthen you see this massive
landscape that has a meadow andmountains and wildflowers and a
river, all of a sudden itminimizes that animal in a very,
very deliberate way, throughexaggeration, to then showcase
hey, big animal, cool animal.
I could have obviouslyshowcased this animal, but let's
(08:55):
look at this landscape, let'slook at this forest, let's look
at the rest of the scene.
So exaggerating composition issomething that I always well, at
this point, kind ofsubconsciously look for, but
it's something that you mightwant to start paying attention
to, especially as you line upphotos to things like the rule
of thirds and start thinking howcould I break these rules and
(09:15):
exaggerate my composition?
Try it out.
It's going to give you what Ibelieve to be really, really
dramatic creative results.
The next thing we're going totalk about has to do with
shutter speed, and it's known asintentional motion blur, and
this falls into two maincategories, and essentially what
we're trying to do is add blurinto the scene through slow
(09:37):
shutter speeds.
Usually, what we're trying todo is, when we're photographing
wildlife or photographing evenlandscapes, we're trying to stop
the motion.
There aren't many cases wherewe're trying to intentionally
blur.
There is that one exceptionthat I've even done entire
episodes on of the silky watereffect, one of my favorite ways
to add motion blur.
But this goes way beyond that.
We're talking about adding blurinto the scene that generally
(09:59):
nine times out of 10, 19 timesout of 20, you're not going to
expect to see blur in the scene.
So what am I talking about here?
Well, this might be on a breezyday, photographing a big forest
or a landscape scene where youknow there's movement, you know
the leaves are swaying, you knowthe grasses are moving and
you're shooting at a slowshutter speed and actually
(10:21):
capturing that movement of thevegetation, capturing movement
of the grasses.
Wildlife falls into this bucketas well.
What if you have a cheetahrunning across the plains of
Africa?
What if you have two polarbears sparring?
The first thing that comes tomind which again I'm trying to
tune you and kind of get you offof that first thing we're
talking about the next level,creativity here is what if you
(10:42):
go to a slow shutter, like one10th of a second, one 20th of a
second, and actually get themotion of that polar bears paw
sort of slapping the other polarbear?
What if you get that cheetahwhere its legs are blurred but
its body is a little bit morestationary and you see that
motion?
It's almost like adding a videoelement into your photography
(11:02):
and this works really reallydarn well.
Let's talk for a moment aboutwhat those shutter speeds are,
because you may accurately bethinking well, I can't shoot so
slow that I need a tripod,because I'm probably going to be
handheld in these cases,especially wildlife, right?
So we're really talking about ashutter speed that allows you
to hand hold but also capturesmovement of the animal.
(11:22):
So the next thing to thinkabout as well we're we're
probably looking at animal thatdoes have some sort of pretty
rapid movement, because we'regoing to be shooting at a
shutter speed of something likeone over 30, one over 40, where
if we hold our camera reallystill, we can probably get most
everything else relatively crispand in focus.
(11:43):
But that animal is going toinject a lot of movement in the
scene.
And don't Look at my 1 over 30,1, 40th of a second as a hard
and fast rule.
Sometimes even 1, 100th of asecond will work, especially
with a swinging orangutan inBorneo or a leaping lemur using
alliterations here just for thefun of it Leaping lemurs in
Madagascar.
(12:03):
That's a lot of movement, a lotof motion, and if you shoot
something at 1, 60th of a second, you're going to get that
motion in the scene and becauseyou're doing it intentionally,
it falls into this bucket of anintentional motion blur.
So the advice here is, ofcourse, the first thing that
comes to mind is the sort ofquote, unquote, normal vision of
(12:24):
freezing that motion, gettingthat animal and tack sharp focus
.
We love that Viewers love that.
People that look and maybe evenbuy your photos are going to
love that classic look.
But a way to elevate yourphotography, especially in a
creative direction, is to veryquickly move on and go towards
that slow shutter.
And just to kind of recap, we'retalking about slow shutters
somewhere, let's just say,between one tenth and one
(12:45):
eightieth of a second.
That's kind of the range that'sgoing to be a sweet spot here.
Anything slower than that,there's no way you're going to
handhold it, even on wide anglelenses with a lot of
stabilization, and anythingfaster than that is probably
going to just be a little bittoo fast.
So any sort of blur that doesappear in the scene doesn't look
intentional.
You're really trying to get alot of blur, wispy, smooth,
(13:07):
ribbon-like motion of thatanimal, of that leaping lemur
I'm just going to keep on sayingleaping lemurs because that
just sounds fun.
Right, you can visualize that.
But there's another kind ofmotion blur that I want to marry
this idea with and you don'thave to use this in concert with
a moving animal, but youcertainly can and that's
actually blurring the entirescene.
So I just kind of hampered onthis idea of keeping the camera
(13:30):
still, while the subject ismoving, this next thing is
actually moving the entirecamera, and that can be bad in
some cases and it can be reallygood in others.
I think we get, I think we fallinto this trap that everything
has to be in tack sharp focusall the time.
And if you listen to my recentepisode on how to get tack sharp
focus each and every time, youmay be saying, corp, you are
(13:51):
just very contradictory today,but that's the idea.
That's the idea of injectingcreative vision.
So the process for creatingintentional motion blur across
the entire scene is beingwilling and intentional about
moving your camera, and so onereally great example you can try
in your own backyard, you know,really right now, today, right
after listening to this podcast,is take your camera out there,
(14:13):
set it on a slow shutter ofsomething like one half a second
or one 10th of a second and asyou press that shutter button
down, move your camera, uh, moveit from left to right, top to
bottom.
Sometimes I actually literallyrotate my camera kind of like
around a clock, like goingclockwise, and it creates this
swirly circular blur and this isreally really compelling for
(14:36):
certain scenes.
I do find this can be marriedwith the previous technique of
tracking moving wildlife at aslow shutter.
So not only is the wildlifeextra blurred because it's
moving, but your camera justpanning left to right or right
to left adds a little bit of ablur in the scene.
This streaking of the, you know, imagine that cheetah on the
savannas of Africa.
Imagine if those grasses arestreaking because your camera's
(14:59):
moving left to right.
And then the cheetah you cansee the legs are kind of moving
in a circular fashion.
So they have this rotationalblur and you get this really,
really artistic, very creativephoto.
So that is intentional motionblur, really artistic, very
creative photo.
So that is intentional motionblur.
You have two main categorieswhere you're trying to keep the
scene relatively still, but thesubject moving, and then the
other category is to actuallyblur the entire scene and that's
(15:21):
all done by slow shutter.
So if you haven't yet listenedto my podcast or experiment with
slow shutter speeds somethingyou're going to have to do in
order to take these shots that'ssomething you can do on iPhones
and point and shoots.
It's a little bit more in themenu system, but if you have a
bigger camera and you're used toshooting on shutter speed
priority or the TV mode, shootat those slow shutter speeds and
(15:41):
again, if you're moving theentire scene, we're actually
quite a bit slower than if we'rejust getting the movement from
the animal.
So we're in the realm of a halfa second to like maybe one 15th
of a second.
But the real trick here is togo out and experiment with this,
because it's obviously really,really hard to depict or explain
or really understand if youhaven't seen examples of this
(16:03):
and it's something that I'mhearing more and more of from my
pro photographer buddies ofdoing this and trying it out in
the field, and because we'realways trying to photograph
things differently.
As we see more and more of thesame photos online on social
media, this is a very, verycreative way to inject some sort
of new vision, new portrayal ofthings you might be
(16:24):
photographing quite often.
Or if you've alreadyphotographed something on a
photo trip multiple times, likeyou've already photographed your
10th lion when you're on asafari in Botswana and you say,
well, how can I do thisdifferently?
Well, intentional motion bluris that way.
The third technique I'm going totalk about is a top-down
perspective, and this isprobably the least fancy, maybe
most slightly obvious of all,and that it's simply just
(16:48):
photographing things with a verytop-down perspective, and what
that means is putting yourcamera so you're pointing
directly down at what you'rephotographing.
This is especially easy onsmartphones, especially easier
on smaller point-and-shootsbecause they are smaller.
You can point your camera overa barrel of blueberries or of
spices in an Indian market.
But just getting that top-downperspective is something that we
(17:10):
, as viewers, are very unlikelyto see.
We usually are not on top ofbaskets of strawberries or on
top of wildflowers with thatvery, very direct, top-down
perspective.
However, when you take a photothat way, it gives this unique
view to anyone that is luckyenough to look at your photo,
that is lucky enough to look atyour photo.
So the technique is very, verysimple.
(17:33):
I'm gonna start with smartphones, because I think that's
actually one of the easiest andbest ways to use this technique.
I use this when I'm in marketsa lot, so if I see amazing
fruits and vegetables or eventhings like baskets of eggs or
dried fish, wherever it might be, when I see patterns, like lots
of patterns, when there's a lotof texture and there's good
contrast, I'm just going to takemy phone.
I'm going to hold it where mythumb is actually on the volume
(17:55):
down button and the camera.
I'm going to be very, verydeliberate about making sure my
camera is completely flat, soeverything in that barrel,
everything on that display table, is equidistant from my lens.
That way everything's in prettygood, crisp focus and because
my thumb is on that volume downbutton, I can actually use that
to take the photo.
On the vast majority ofsmartphones these days, if you
(18:16):
use the volume down button,that's like a mechanical or an
actual shutter button on yourphone.
That way you can operate yourcamera with just one hand,
reaching over that barrel orbushel or what have you of the
contents that you're trying toget a top down photo of.
This works really well forthings like river rocks and
streams, grasses, even treesaplings.
(18:38):
It's a really uniqueperspective that I very much
advocate for.
So I wanted to start withsmartphones because they are
easier, but the technique ispretty much the same with your
bigger, fancier cameras.
Essentially, what I'm going todo is have some sort of wide
angle lens on.
Usually I'm not going to beable to see in the LCD screen.
I'm not going to be realworried about my settings, other
(18:59):
than making sure it's fastenough to prevent any sort of
hand movement of the camera.
We do want this style to be infocus and tack sharp, although,
I should say honestly, combiningthese techniques makes for the
ultimate creativity.
So if you want to inject thatcamera motion at the same time,
very, very cool.
(19:20):
But since you're hovering overthat subject again, we're just
going to use this barrel ofspices in an Indian market or
this basket of strawberries youmight see in Mexico.
You can put it over, fill theframe with it and again, normal
way would be to just take thatphoto.
Don't worry too much aboutdepth of field, it's going to be
fine.
Like an F5.6 or F8 is just fine.
Smartphones and their automaticsettings are great, but you're
(19:41):
going to reach with that onehand and just take that photo,
making sure.
If there's anything you'rereally making sure about is that
you're just perfectly over yoursubject and you're not at an
angle.
You're not askew becausebecause then all of a sudden
it's a different photo.
You're trying to provide aperspective that people don't
generally see.
And again, bonus points,brownie points.
If you combine that with someof these other techniques, then
(20:03):
you're going to get an even morecreative photograph.
But yes, top down perspectiveis something I love to do,
especially with cultural travelmarket photography.
Try it your next time.
Heck, you can even try it nexttime you go to the grocery store
and you see that scene beforeyou where there's a flat barrel,
a flat bushel, a flat displaytable.
Try that, and you're going toreally like the results.
(20:25):
The fourth creative technique isblack and white photography,
and this is something that Ihighly recommend you get into if
you haven't done already.
It's one of those things thatare oftentimes afterthoughts,
because in this world of digitalphotography, it's just so easy
to take a color photograph andthen say, oh yeah, that could be
cool Black and white.
I can do it later, I candesaturate on the computer, and
(20:47):
that's fine, and if that's yourtechnique, that's a okay,
there's nothing wrong with that.
But I do oftentimes especiallywith smartphones and point and
shoot cameras is I will set itto black and white, to not only,
you know basically cue my mindto remember that that scene is
seemed to be pretty good forblack and white, but it also
takes one step out of theequation and it forces me to
(21:09):
think in that black and whitephotography.
So what's so lovely about thisis not only is it a very
different type, a very creativetype of photography that we just
don't see that much anymore.
But it's also something that isgoing to really yield itself,
lend itself to high contrastscenes.
There are always times in anyphoto trip, in any photo journey
, in any time that you're outtaking photographs, where the
(21:32):
light is a little bit too harsh.
The bright tones are too bright, the dark shadows are too dark.
With black and whitephotography, it's fantastic when
you have high contrast, itreally provides a very ominous,
surreal, artistic look.
So I do.
I actually have a setting in mycamera where I can just tap one
button and instantly go toblack and white photography.
(21:52):
In fact it's.
It's a special app with theLeica Lux app.
It's a free app now in the appstore that I'm just in love.
With Leica, the famouswonderful camera brand Lux L-U-X
, I can actually set what wouldbe kind of like a desktop
shortcut it's just like the homescreen shortcut to go straight
into black and white photography, and I even have it set on high
(22:13):
contrast black and whitephotography and I'm just loving,
loving the results.
One thing to go further is, asyou're editing those black and
white photos on a computer, isyou can even boost the contrast.
You can darken the shadows,darken the black points,
increase the whites and thebrightnesses, and it's amazing
what you can do to seeminglynormal scenes to make them
(22:34):
really moody, really dramatic,at various times a day.
So can't recommend this highlyenough to experiment with black
and white photography on yournext photo trip, on your next
photo journey.
Definitely try that out.
Make it easier on yourself bymaybe having your smartphone set
on black and white for the dayand then your bigger, fancier
camera on normal photography orvice versa.
(22:55):
That way, when you see thatscene, when you're thinking a
little bit creative, you cangrab your camera and quickly
take a black and white photowithout fussing with the
settings.
The last thing I'm going to talkabout goes back to camera
angles.
But this is not obviously thetop down angle.
I'm talking about the angleyour camera is physically at, as
if you're pointing it straightin front of you.
Normally we have it where thehorizon is quite level and I
(23:18):
think people get lost in thisidea that you should have every
horizon and every flathorizontal line as flat as it
can be, where we're constantlygoing into the computer
afterwards and we'restraightening and adjusting, but
there's no rule that says youhave to keep your camera exactly
level.
In fact, oftentimes, especiallywhen I'm in forests or again in
(23:38):
markets and travel scenes aroundtemples and unique areas that
have this unique energy and vibeI'm shooting with my camera on
a 45 degree angle, such that mycamera is truly making a 45
degree angle to horizon.
And I do this not only to justinject a different angle but
also to kind of match leadinglines in the environment.
So one of the most common timesI do this is when I'm in big
(24:01):
forests, especially forestswhere maybe, like a storm has
gone through or I'm just seeingtrees that are already kind of
leaning one direction and Iactually use that leaning tree
to make a little bit of a framearound my shot.
So I will turn my camera so theright side or left side of my
frame is completely parallel tothat tree, meaning everything
else is at an angle.
I'm probably shooting with mycamera at a 45 degree angle
(24:24):
because that tree's at a 45degrees, so I'm making it look
as if that tree is sort of likea normal upright tree, but then
everything else is tilted and Ican't begin to tell you how many
cool effects and how many coolphotos I've gotten from this
technique.
So when you think of creativity,you're thinking outside the box
, you're thinking outside thelines.
In this case, you're usingother lines.
You're just changing yourperspective and changing your
(24:46):
camera angle.
There is no rule that says yourcamera needs to be flat and
parallel to the horizon at alltimes, so changing your camera
angle is a really, really great,creative technique.
So those are five cameratechniques, but I'm going to add
a bonus one in here.
It's one that I just thought ofas I was sort of constructing
and thinking about this podcastepisode, and it is using spot
(25:10):
metering, like forcing yourselfto use spot metering.
So, for those that don't know,spot metering is a way for your
camera to basically figure outhow much light to add in the
scene.
So most of us, including me,I'm shooting like 99% of the
time on a full screen evaluativemode, meaning my camera is
looking at all the lights andthe darks in the screen and it's
(25:32):
trying to figure out what anaverage lighting is, and that's
what our eyes do, our eyesadjust and it's trying to figure
out what an evenly lit scenemight be, such that the whites
aren't too bright, the darksaren't too dark, and it's
something in the middle.
This is like a normal photo,such that you are taking a photo
very much like what you'reseeing in the moment.
However, spot metering what itdoes is it selects just the very
(25:53):
, very dead middle of your sceneas the only place that it
meters, the only place thatchooses light is when you're
photographing wildlife thatmight be in thickets or in deep
brush, like little birds intrees, or animals that might be
backlit from the sky.
Classic example where you can'tquite figure out what the
(26:15):
metering, what the light shouldbe, because the light in the
rest of the scene, besides theanimal, is so harsh or so
dramatic and so different thatyou say, oh gosh, all I really
care about is the light on theanimal.
So spot metering is great.
However, what I'm saying here isthat's the sort of normal,
typical way to use spot metering.
In a pinch, I'm saying set yourcamera on spot metering for an
(26:37):
entire day Now.
Don't go botching the rest ofyour photos.
If you're on some sort of epicwildlife safari and you're never
going to be there again, butwalking around town, walking
around the city, especially withpeople photography, it's a
really, really incredible way totake photos.
It is going to really changethe lighting of your photo.
It's going to be very, verybright or very, very dark for a
(26:58):
lot of the photos you take.
In some cases it's going to beright on in a very again normal
lighting scheme.
But we're trying to inject acreative vision into your
photography and so this spotmetering means that only the
thing in the middle of yourframe is going to have that
quote unquote perfect lighting.
Everything else, if it's areally, really bright day out
there, and the walls in thebackground, if the ground and
(27:19):
the foreground is very sunlitand that subject is in the
shadows, it's going to brighteneverything a lot, because that
subject in the shadows is goingto be the thing your camera
tries to get a properly exposedlighting on.
It's the exact contrast.
If you have your subject inbright sunlight and everything
else is shadowy around it, it'sgoing to darken that subject
(27:40):
because it has so much light onit at the expense of everything
else.
So it's a really cool way.
Again, the only way tounderstand and properly see this
technique is to go out andexperiment with it, but you will
want to put your camera on spotmetering and it's going to give
you some really, reallyfascinating results.
One quick caveat is you may haveguessed this is that this is
going to require you to put yoursubject in pretty much the dead
(28:03):
middle of your frame each andevery time.
This is something that Iusually don't advise.
Usually we go to the rule ofthirds or we go to exaggerated
composition, which is my firsttip in this episode, and we put
them outside the middle of theframe.
So if you don't want yourending photo to be some person
or some animal in the smack dabmiddle and you want to go to one
of those rules because, again,nine times out of 10, that is a
(28:25):
better looking photo because ofjust general rules of aesthetics
the way I compensate for thisis I will shoot a little bit
wider than you might want inyour ending photo.
So what that does?
It allows me to take the photowith my subject in the middle
with that really, reallyinteresting lighting scheme, but
then when I'm cropping on thecomputer, I can actually realign
that subject to be in the rightthird, the left third and the
(28:47):
bottom right intersecting point.
So zooming out or shootingwider and then planning the crop
is a way to compensate for thatand it works very, very well,
and there you go Five tips.
Well, six tips, five tips and abonus tip of how to inject
creative vision into yourphotography.
Again, the more you stack onyour photos I'm not saying all
these are appropriate for everyphoto out there Some photos you
(29:09):
can combine a couple of these,some photos you should just
shoot normal.
But adding creative vision toyour photography is what's going
to really set you apart.
At the end of the day, you needto like your photos best, but
doing something different is asure way to make sure you have a
refreshed lens on your ownphotography.
It's sure to attract moreattention from those viewing
your photos, whether you'resharing with friends or family,
(29:30):
or on social media or on awebsite or on a blog.
It's going to level up yourgame.
It's gonna give you maybe, whatI would even say a renewed
vigor for photography, becausephotography as an art form is
all about that creativity.
If you enjoyed this episode,please do consider sending to a
friend.
The best way to get the wordout there is telling others.
I don't really market thepodcast all that much, so if you
(29:52):
want to forward this on tosomeone, I would be eternally
grateful.
You can also check out myYouTube channel at Court Whalen
on YouTube and you can forwardthings on from there.
You can also visit my website,where I have all my podcasts and
also a lot of my ownphotography at courtwhalencom,
court, whalen.
All my podcasts and also a lotof my own photography at court
whalencom, court whalen,c-o-u-r-t-w-h-e-l-a-n.
You can also on my website.
(30:13):
You can sign up for a blog thatI write.
Uh, what I'll do is I'll write,usually, uh once every couple
weeks, about photography topics,travel topics, conservation
topics, things that inspire me,and those will go to your email
inbox, should you wish.
So thank you so much for beinga part of this podcast.
Thank you so much for followingalong and I look forward to
talking to you next time.
Welcome back, friends , to the Wild Photographer.
I come to you today with anepisode I'm really excited about
recording and it's one that youknow I really try to add and
inject the creative vision intoa lot of my podcasts, especially
with interviews with guestswhere they are pro photographers
.
They have different views andvisions than I might.
They add to the conversationtremendously and I, of course,
(00:20):
try to do this with all myepisodes, but this episode,
specifically this, is one whereit's all about the techniques
for creative vision.
I have five techniques I wantto share with you today on how
to inject creative vision intoyour photography, and while I
feel like a lot of my listenersprobably have fancier cameras a
little bit more advanced, thisone, I can say for sure, is for
(00:43):
any camera out there Smartphones, introductory point and shoots,
all the way to the biggest,fanciest cameras out there.
This one is fully applicableequally across the board.
So, yeah, we're going to talkabout various things today that
will allow you to injectcreative vision into your
photography.
These things could be treatedas homework assignments the next
(01:03):
time you're out photographingstreet scenes to nature, to
wildlife, to markets, toanything.
These aren't about justwildlife, they aren't about just
nature.
They aren't about just culturalphotography or travel, they are
about the full gamut.
Before we get into the episode,I of course want to thank the
sponsors that helped make thispossible.
First up, shimoda Designs.
(01:24):
I think I may have found theperfect camera bag and I know
that's a lofty big statement.
I've even done previousepisodes, a year or two ago,
just on the elements of why it'shard to find the perfect camera
bag, and there's really a bagfor each situation.
But Shimoda Designs has comeout with this bag.
They're calling the ActionSeries.
They have a couple differentseries, but Shimoda designs has
(01:44):
come out with this bag.
They're calling the actionseries.
They have a couple of differentseries, but there's one that I
have in particular.
It's called the action.
It is phenomenal.
It is not just a great camerabag with all the compartments
and the safety and security, theaccess, and it's not just a
great backpack, it's anexceptional backpack.
It's kind of this next genbackpack where it has a high
level of water resistance or,dare I say, waterproofing.
(02:05):
It's got that roll top to it soit's really easy to access.
It's even got a top compartmentfor gear things like a rain
jacket or extra layer orsunscreen and then a main camera
compartment completelyseparated below.
It's got hip belts or that thatpart that goes around your hips
.
If you are carrying a heavypack.
You can obviously take thoseout if you don't need them, and
(02:25):
it's just really comfortable,really ergonomic.
It's got the water bottlepockets.
It's got the tripod holds.
It is a smart design and it'snot too heavy either.
So, yes, the Action BackpackSeries from Shimoda Designs.
I'm in love with it.
They are sponsoring thisepisode.
I want to give them a bigthanks and shout out.
In addition, I want to thankarthelperai.
This is an online software and,as you could tell from the ai,
(02:49):
this is an artificialintelligence program.
It's pretty darn amazingbecause it takes all the
guesswork.
It all you know, just takes thework out of having to promote
and market yourself as aphotographer.
A lot of times we creatives, wemight like marketing but not
know exactly how to do it, or wemight like marketing but not
know exactly how to do it, or wemight not want to dabble in
that at all.
We want to spend our timetaking the photographs,
(03:09):
processing the photographs,learning how to take photographs
by listening to this episode,but arthelperai takes the reins
after you create that photoafter you inject your creative
vision.
Just a little callback totoday's episode.
It's an amazing program andI've been dabbling with it over
the last month or two and I'mreally impressed with what I
find it does everything fromcreate content like blog posts
(03:32):
and social posts.
It helps you with keywords andtitling of your photos and just
this massive, massive suite ofthings that we need to be doing
today in order to staycompetitive as photographers, in
order to kind of raise that barand always go beyond what the
next photographer might be doingin order to be marketable.
So if you are into photography,especially if you're looking to
(03:54):
get into some sort of paid typephotography, it's an incredible
, incredible asset.
If you use the code wild that'sjust W I L D, like the name of
this podcast as a promo code,you will get your first month,
30 days of a free trial of thissoftware so you can try before
you buy.
So W-I-L-D there, I'm reallyreally quite a big fan.
(04:15):
Last but not least,lensrentalscom.
They've been a longtimesupporter of this podcast.
If you use the promo codeWILDPHOTOGRAPHER15.
You guessed it you get 15% offyour entire order of
LensRentalscom and I'm a hugeadvocate of what they do, not
just because of the style theydo it and the professionalism
and the incredible assortment,but just the ability to rent
lenses before you buy them, orjust rent lenses that are
(04:38):
specialty for a certain trip.
So go on LensRentalscom, shoparound, look around.
They are an incredible outfit.
Can't recommend them highlyenough, and I want to thank them
very much for sponsoring thepodcast.
Okay, now one last little thing,a little bit of quick
self-promo.
I invite you to not onlysubscribe to this podcast, but
go over and check out my YouTubechannel, where I post a lot of
(04:59):
these videos.
They do have a video component.
It's usually just me yapping atthe camera, but it's another
way to listen to my podcast.
Let's say, if you're on acomputer and you want to stream
from the internet, if you don'twant to play from the podcast
platform you're used to playing,it is now available on YouTube,
and subscribing to my channelon YouTube is honestly one of
the best ways you can help me.
(05:20):
So if you would like to do that, I certainly invite you to do
so and without further ado,let's get into today's episode.
We're talking about fivetechniques to inject creative
vision into your photography.
The first thing I'm going totalk about is composition.
So we've of course heard wellif you've listened to this
podcast or read other photoarticles about other more
traditional types of composition.
(05:41):
So I'm not going to go into therule of thirds, although it's
super important.
That's kind of old hat at thispoint especially if you've been
listening to me for a littlewhile not going to talk about
leading lines.
I'm going to talk about adifferent type of composition
here, and this is again gettingback to that core of the episode
which is injecting thatcreative vision.
I'm talking about exaggeratingcomposition, and what this does
I always say, especially when Italk about the quote unquote
(06:04):
rules of composition is that allrules are meant to be broken.
Exaggerating composition is areally in your face breaking of
that rule of thirds.
It is exaggerating compositionsuch that you purposely use well
, let's call it like the rule oftenths or the rule of fifths or
the rule of 20th, when you havethat horizon line but a big,
(06:24):
beautiful sky, when you haveincredible shimmery ocean water
on an otherwise relativelyuneventful horizon, I'm going to
exaggerate composition suchthat that median line, that
horizon line or even lines foundin nature, I'm going to put
that at an extreme end of myphoto.
What this does is it reallyshowcases the grandeur of the
(06:45):
scene.
So, as you can imagine, it'snot necessarily used for every
shot, but when you're in bigscenes or you're in front of big
features like massive toweringwaterfalls, even with big
wildlife, I use this technique.
Now I will use it in differentways depending on the scene, but
the overall idea is, instead ofplacing that horizon line at
the third points and you want toshowcase that massive sky, that
(07:07):
sweeping meadow, that hugeforest that's just lined with
trees or a massive braided riversystem, I'm going to think
about how can I exaggeratecomposition to put part of that
scene in just a little sliver ofmy shot.
It creates this really, reallyartistic version of your photo.
So intentionally breaking therule of thirds and exaggerating
(07:28):
your composition.
The other way I'm going to doit I kind of alluded to this
with wildlife is oftentimes if Ihave an animal especially, I
really like this with big,charismatic animals bears and
whales and things like that Iwill actually put that way, way
in the corner of my shot.
So you've heard me say before,with traditional rules of
composition, like the rule ofthirds, is you generally put the
(07:49):
animal, the wildlife, thesubject.
If it's a person, same rulesapply here is you usually put
them at one of the intersectingpoints of the rule of thirds.
With this exaggeratedcomposition technique, I'm
showcasing this big animal in anotherwise very, very massive
landscape.
And so that scale, thatcomparison, that contrast, that
juxtaposition, let's say, ofputting it deep in the frame, at
(08:12):
that bottom 10th of the frameor just very far in the
left-hand corner, it makesattention in the photo.
That's like wow, why is it sofar out of my main viewpoint?
You know, of course our eyesare drawn to those intersecting
points, which is why we use themso much in photography.
But then, when you tell theviewer to scan the photo and
(08:32):
look all the way in the corner,when you see that polar bear,
you see that big bull, elk, andthen you see this massive
landscape that has a meadow andmountains and wildflowers and a
river, all of a sudden itminimizes that animal in a very,
very deliberate way, throughexaggeration, to then showcase
hey, big animal, cool animal.
I could have obviouslyshowcased this animal, but let's
(08:55):
look at this landscape, let'slook at this forest, let's look
at the rest of the scene.
So exaggerating composition issomething that I always well, at
this point, kind ofsubconsciously look for, but
it's something that you mightwant to start paying attention
to, especially as you line upphotos to things like the rule
of thirds and start thinking howcould I break these rules and
(09:15):
exaggerate my composition?
Try it out.
It's going to give you what Ibelieve to be really, really
dramatic creative results.
The next thing we're going totalk about has to do with
shutter speed, and it's known asintentional motion blur, and
this falls into two maincategories, and essentially what
we're trying to do is add blurinto the scene through slow
(09:37):
shutter speeds.
Usually, what we're trying todo is, when we're photographing
wildlife or photographing evenlandscapes, we're trying to stop
the motion.
There aren't many cases wherewe're trying to intentionally
blur.
There is that one exceptionthat I've even done entire
episodes on of the silky watereffect, one of my favorite ways
to add motion blur.
But this goes way beyond that.
We're talking about adding blurinto the scene that generally
(09:59):
nine times out of 10, 19 timesout of 20, you're not going to
expect to see blur in the scene.
So what am I talking about here?
Well, this might be on a breezyday, photographing a big forest
or a landscape scene where youknow there's movement, you know
the leaves are swaying, you knowthe grasses are moving and
you're shooting at a slowshutter speed and actually
(10:21):
capturing that movement of thevegetation, capturing movement
of the grasses.
Wildlife falls into this bucketas well.
What if you have a cheetahrunning across the plains of
Africa?
What if you have two polarbears sparring?
The first thing that comes tomind which again I'm trying to
tune you and kind of get you offof that first thing we're
talking about the next level,creativity here is what if you
(10:42):
go to a slow shutter, like one10th of a second, one 20th of a
second, and actually get themotion of that polar bears paw
sort of slapping the other polarbear?
What if you get that cheetahwhere its legs are blurred but
its body is a little bit morestationary and you see that
motion?
It's almost like adding a videoelement into your photography
(11:02):
and this works really reallydarn well.
Let's talk for a moment aboutwhat those shutter speeds are,
because you may accurately bethinking well, I can't shoot so
slow that I need a tripod,because I'm probably going to be
handheld in these cases,especially wildlife, right?
So we're really talking about ashutter speed that allows you
to hand hold but also capturesmovement of the animal.
(11:22):
So the next thing to thinkabout as well we're we're
probably looking at animal thatdoes have some sort of pretty
rapid movement, because we'regoing to be shooting at a
shutter speed of something likeone over 30, one over 40, where
if we hold our camera reallystill, we can probably get most
everything else relatively crispand in focus.
(11:43):
But that animal is going toinject a lot of movement in the
scene.
And don't Look at my 1 over 30,1, 40th of a second as a hard
and fast rule.
Sometimes even 1, 100th of asecond will work, especially
with a swinging orangutan inBorneo or a leaping lemur using
alliterations here just for thefun of it Leaping lemurs in
Madagascar.
(12:03):
That's a lot of movement, a lotof motion, and if you shoot
something at 1, 60th of a second, you're going to get that
motion in the scene and becauseyou're doing it intentionally,
it falls into this bucket of anintentional motion blur.
So the advice here is, ofcourse, the first thing that
comes to mind is the sort ofquote, unquote, normal vision of
(12:24):
freezing that motion, gettingthat animal and tack sharp focus
.
We love that Viewers love that.
People that look and maybe evenbuy your photos are going to
love that classic look.
But a way to elevate yourphotography, especially in a
creative direction, is to veryquickly move on and go towards
that slow shutter.
And just to kind of recap, we'retalking about slow shutters
somewhere, let's just say,between one tenth and one
(12:45):
eightieth of a second.
That's kind of the range that'sgoing to be a sweet spot here.
Anything slower than that,there's no way you're going to
handhold it, even on wide anglelenses with a lot of
stabilization, and anythingfaster than that is probably
going to just be a little bittoo fast.
So any sort of blur that doesappear in the scene doesn't look
intentional.
You're really trying to get alot of blur, wispy, smooth,
(13:07):
ribbon-like motion of thatanimal, of that leaping lemur
I'm just going to keep on sayingleaping lemurs because that
just sounds fun.
Right, you can visualize that.
But there's another kind ofmotion blur that I want to marry
this idea with and you don'thave to use this in concert with
a moving animal, but youcertainly can and that's
actually blurring the entirescene.
So I just kind of hampered onthis idea of keeping the camera
(13:30):
still, while the subject ismoving, this next thing is
actually moving the entirecamera, and that can be bad in
some cases and it can be reallygood in others.
I think we get, I think we fallinto this trap that everything
has to be in tack sharp focusall the time.
And if you listen to my recentepisode on how to get tack sharp
focus each and every time, youmay be saying, corp, you are
(13:51):
just very contradictory today,but that's the idea.
That's the idea of injectingcreative vision.
So the process for creatingintentional motion blur across
the entire scene is beingwilling and intentional about
moving your camera, and so onereally great example you can try
in your own backyard, you know,really right now, today, right
after listening to this podcast,is take your camera out there,
(14:13):
set it on a slow shutter ofsomething like one half a second
or one 10th of a second and asyou press that shutter button
down, move your camera, uh, moveit from left to right, top to
bottom.
Sometimes I actually literallyrotate my camera kind of like
around a clock, like goingclockwise, and it creates this
swirly circular blur and this isreally really compelling for
(14:36):
certain scenes.
I do find this can be marriedwith the previous technique of
tracking moving wildlife at aslow shutter.
So not only is the wildlifeextra blurred because it's
moving, but your camera justpanning left to right or right
to left adds a little bit of ablur in the scene.
This streaking of the, you know, imagine that cheetah on the
savannas of Africa.
Imagine if those grasses arestreaking because your camera's
(14:59):
moving left to right.
And then the cheetah you cansee the legs are kind of moving
in a circular fashion.
So they have this rotationalblur and you get this really,
really artistic, very creativephoto.
So that is intentional motionblur, really artistic, very
creative photo.
So that is intentional motionblur.
You have two main categorieswhere you're trying to keep the
scene relatively still, but thesubject moving, and then the
other category is to actuallyblur the entire scene and that's
(15:21):
all done by slow shutter.
So if you haven't yet listenedto my podcast or experiment with
slow shutter speeds somethingyou're going to have to do in
order to take these shots that'ssomething you can do on iPhones
and point and shoots.
It's a little bit more in themenu system, but if you have a
bigger camera and you're used toshooting on shutter speed
priority or the TV mode, shootat those slow shutter speeds and
(15:41):
again, if you're moving theentire scene, we're actually
quite a bit slower than if we'rejust getting the movement from
the animal.
So we're in the realm of a halfa second to like maybe one 15th
of a second.
But the real trick here is togo out and experiment with this,
because it's obviously really,really hard to depict or explain
or really understand if youhaven't seen examples of this
(16:03):
and it's something that I'mhearing more and more of from my
pro photographer buddies ofdoing this and trying it out in
the field, and because we'realways trying to photograph
things differently.
As we see more and more of thesame photos online on social
media, this is a very, verycreative way to inject some sort
of new vision, new portrayal ofthings you might be
(16:24):
photographing quite often.
Or if you've alreadyphotographed something on a
photo trip multiple times, likeyou've already photographed your
10th lion when you're on asafari in Botswana and you say,
well, how can I do thisdifferently?
Well, intentional motion bluris that way.
The third technique I'm going totalk about is a top-down
perspective, and this isprobably the least fancy, maybe
most slightly obvious of all,and that it's simply just
(16:48):
photographing things with a verytop-down perspective, and what
that means is putting yourcamera so you're pointing
directly down at what you'rephotographing.
This is especially easy onsmartphones, especially easier
on smaller point-and-shootsbecause they are smaller.
You can point your camera overa barrel of blueberries or of
spices in an Indian market.
But just getting that top-downperspective is something that we
(17:10):
, as viewers, are very unlikelyto see.
We usually are not on top ofbaskets of strawberries or on
top of wildflowers with thatvery, very direct, top-down
perspective.
However, when you take a photothat way, it gives this unique
view to anyone that is luckyenough to look at your photo,
that is lucky enough to look atyour photo.
So the technique is very, verysimple.
(17:33):
I'm gonna start with smartphones, because I think that's
actually one of the easiest andbest ways to use this technique.
I use this when I'm in marketsa lot, so if I see amazing
fruits and vegetables or eventhings like baskets of eggs or
dried fish, wherever it might be, when I see patterns, like lots
of patterns, when there's a lotof texture and there's good
contrast, I'm just going to takemy phone.
I'm going to hold it where mythumb is actually on the volume
(17:55):
down button and the camera.
I'm going to be very, verydeliberate about making sure my
camera is completely flat, soeverything in that barrel,
everything on that display table, is equidistant from my lens.
That way everything's in prettygood, crisp focus and because
my thumb is on that volume downbutton, I can actually use that
to take the photo.
On the vast majority ofsmartphones these days, if you
(18:16):
use the volume down button,that's like a mechanical or an
actual shutter button on yourphone.
That way you can operate yourcamera with just one hand,
reaching over that barrel orbushel or what have you of the
contents that you're trying toget a top down photo of.
This works really well forthings like river rocks and
streams, grasses, even treesaplings.
(18:38):
It's a really uniqueperspective that I very much
advocate for.
So I wanted to start withsmartphones because they are
easier, but the technique ispretty much the same with your
bigger, fancier cameras.
Essentially, what I'm going todo is have some sort of wide
angle lens on.
Usually I'm not going to beable to see in the LCD screen.
I'm not going to be realworried about my settings, other
(18:59):
than making sure it's fastenough to prevent any sort of
hand movement of the camera.
We do want this style to be infocus and tack sharp, although,
I should say honestly, combiningthese techniques makes for the
ultimate creativity.
So if you want to inject thatcamera motion at the same time,
very, very cool.
(19:20):
But since you're hovering overthat subject again, we're just
going to use this barrel ofspices in an Indian market or
this basket of strawberries youmight see in Mexico.
You can put it over, fill theframe with it and again, normal
way would be to just take thatphoto.
Don't worry too much aboutdepth of field, it's going to be
fine.
Like an F5.6 or F8 is just fine.
Smartphones and their automaticsettings are great, but you're
(19:41):
going to reach with that onehand and just take that photo,
making sure.
If there's anything you'rereally making sure about is that
you're just perfectly over yoursubject and you're not at an
angle.
You're not askew becausebecause then all of a sudden
it's a different photo.
You're trying to provide aperspective that people don't
generally see.
And again, bonus points,brownie points.
If you combine that with someof these other techniques, then
(20:03):
you're going to get an even morecreative photograph.
But yes, top down perspectiveis something I love to do,
especially with cultural travelmarket photography.
Try it your next time.
Heck, you can even try it nexttime you go to the grocery store
and you see that scene beforeyou where there's a flat barrel,
a flat bushel, a flat displaytable.
Try that, and you're going toreally like the results.
(20:25):
The fourth creative technique isblack and white photography,
and this is something that Ihighly recommend you get into if
you haven't done already.
It's one of those things thatare oftentimes afterthoughts,
because in this world of digitalphotography, it's just so easy
to take a color photograph andthen say, oh yeah, that could be
cool Black and white.
I can do it later, I candesaturate on the computer, and
(20:47):
that's fine, and if that's yourtechnique, that's a okay,
there's nothing wrong with that.
But I do oftentimes especiallywith smartphones and point and
shoot cameras is I will set itto black and white, to not only,
you know basically cue my mindto remember that that scene is
seemed to be pretty good forblack and white, but it also
takes one step out of theequation and it forces me to
(21:09):
think in that black and whitephotography.
So what's so lovely about thisis not only is it a very
different type, a very creativetype of photography that we just
don't see that much anymore.
But it's also something that isgoing to really yield itself,
lend itself to high contrastscenes.
There are always times in anyphoto trip, in any photo journey
, in any time that you're outtaking photographs, where the
(21:32):
light is a little bit too harsh.
The bright tones are too bright, the dark shadows are too dark.
With black and whitephotography, it's fantastic when
you have high contrast, itreally provides a very ominous,
surreal, artistic look.
So I do.
I actually have a setting in mycamera where I can just tap one
button and instantly go toblack and white photography.
(21:52):
In fact it's.
It's a special app with theLeica Lux app.
It's a free app now in the appstore that I'm just in love.
With Leica, the famouswonderful camera brand Lux L-U-X
, I can actually set what wouldbe kind of like a desktop
shortcut it's just like the homescreen shortcut to go straight
into black and white photography, and I even have it set on high
(22:13):
contrast black and whitephotography and I'm just loving,
loving the results.
One thing to go further is, asyou're editing those black and
white photos on a computer, isyou can even boost the contrast.
You can darken the shadows,darken the black points,
increase the whites and thebrightnesses, and it's amazing
what you can do to seeminglynormal scenes to make them
(22:34):
really moody, really dramatic,at various times a day.
So can't recommend this highlyenough to experiment with black
and white photography on yournext photo trip, on your next
photo journey.
Definitely try that out.
Make it easier on yourself bymaybe having your smartphone set
on black and white for the dayand then your bigger, fancier
camera on normal photography orvice versa.
(22:55):
That way, when you see thatscene, when you're thinking a
little bit creative, you cangrab your camera and quickly
take a black and white photowithout fussing with the
settings.
The last thing I'm going to talkabout goes back to camera
angles.
But this is not obviously thetop down angle.
I'm talking about the angleyour camera is physically at, as
if you're pointing it straightin front of you.
Normally we have it where thehorizon is quite level and I
(23:18):
think people get lost in thisidea that you should have every
horizon and every flathorizontal line as flat as it
can be, where we're constantlygoing into the computer
afterwards and we'restraightening and adjusting, but
there's no rule that says youhave to keep your camera exactly
level.
In fact, oftentimes, especiallywhen I'm in forests or again in
(23:38):
markets and travel scenes aroundtemples and unique areas that
have this unique energy and vibeI'm shooting with my camera on
a 45 degree angle, such that mycamera is truly making a 45
degree angle to horizon.
And I do this not only to justinject a different angle but
also to kind of match leadinglines in the environment.
So one of the most common timesI do this is when I'm in big
(24:01):
forests, especially forestswhere maybe, like a storm has
gone through or I'm just seeingtrees that are already kind of
leaning one direction and Iactually use that leaning tree
to make a little bit of a framearound my shot.
So I will turn my camera so theright side or left side of my
frame is completely parallel tothat tree, meaning everything
else is at an angle.
I'm probably shooting with mycamera at a 45 degree angle
(24:24):
because that tree's at a 45degrees, so I'm making it look
as if that tree is sort of likea normal upright tree, but then
everything else is tilted and Ican't begin to tell you how many
cool effects and how many coolphotos I've gotten from this
technique.
So when you think of creativity,you're thinking outside the box
, you're thinking outside thelines.
In this case, you're usingother lines.
You're just changing yourperspective and changing your
(24:46):
camera angle.
There is no rule that says yourcamera needs to be flat and
parallel to the horizon at alltimes, so changing your camera
angle is a really, really great,creative technique.
So those are five cameratechniques, but I'm going to add
a bonus one in here.
It's one that I just thought ofas I was sort of constructing
and thinking about this podcastepisode, and it is using spot
(25:10):
metering, like forcing yourselfto use spot metering.
So, for those that don't know,spot metering is a way for your
camera to basically figure outhow much light to add in the
scene.
So most of us, including me,I'm shooting like 99% of the
time on a full screen evaluativemode, meaning my camera is
looking at all the lights andthe darks in the screen and it's
(25:32):
trying to figure out what anaverage lighting is, and that's
what our eyes do, our eyesadjust and it's trying to figure
out what an evenly lit scenemight be, such that the whites
aren't too bright, the darksaren't too dark, and it's
something in the middle.
This is like a normal photo,such that you are taking a photo
very much like what you'reseeing in the moment.
However, spot metering what itdoes is it selects just the very
(25:53):
, very dead middle of your sceneas the only place that it
meters, the only place thatchooses light is when you're
photographing wildlife thatmight be in thickets or in deep
brush, like little birds intrees, or animals that might be
backlit from the sky.
Classic example where you can'tquite figure out what the
(26:15):
metering, what the light shouldbe, because the light in the
rest of the scene, besides theanimal, is so harsh or so
dramatic and so different thatyou say, oh gosh, all I really
care about is the light on theanimal.
So spot metering is great.
However, what I'm saying here isthat's the sort of normal,
typical way to use spot metering.
In a pinch, I'm saying set yourcamera on spot metering for an
(26:37):
entire day Now.
Don't go botching the rest ofyour photos.
If you're on some sort of epicwildlife safari and you're never
going to be there again, butwalking around town, walking
around the city, especially withpeople photography, it's a
really, really incredible way totake photos.
It is going to really changethe lighting of your photo.
It's going to be very, verybright or very, very dark for a
(26:58):
lot of the photos you take.
In some cases it's going to beright on in a very again normal
lighting scheme.
But we're trying to inject acreative vision into your
photography and so this spotmetering means that only the
thing in the middle of yourframe is going to have that
quote unquote perfect lighting.
Everything else, if it's areally, really bright day out
there, and the walls in thebackground, if the ground and
(27:19):
the foreground is very sunlitand that subject is in the
shadows, it's going to brighteneverything a lot, because that
subject in the shadows is goingto be the thing your camera
tries to get a properly exposedlighting on.
It's the exact contrast.
If you have your subject inbright sunlight and everything
else is shadowy around it, it'sgoing to darken that subject
(27:40):
because it has so much light onit at the expense of everything
else.
So it's a really cool way.
Again, the only way tounderstand and properly see this
technique is to go out andexperiment with it, but you will
want to put your camera on spotmetering and it's going to give
you some really, reallyfascinating results.
One quick caveat is you may haveguessed this is that this is
going to require you to put yoursubject in pretty much the dead
(28:03):
middle of your frame each andevery time.
This is something that Iusually don't advise.
Usually we go to the rule ofthirds or we go to exaggerated
composition, which is my firsttip in this episode, and we put
them outside the middle of theframe.
So if you don't want yourending photo to be some person
or some animal in the smack dabmiddle and you want to go to one
of those rules because, again,nine times out of 10, that is a
(28:25):
better looking photo because ofjust general rules of aesthetics
the way I compensate for thisis I will shoot a little bit
wider than you might want inyour ending photo.
So what that does?
It allows me to take the photowith my subject in the middle
with that really, reallyinteresting lighting scheme, but
then when I'm cropping on thecomputer, I can actually realign
that subject to be in the rightthird, the left third and the
(28:47):
bottom right intersecting point.
So zooming out or shootingwider and then planning the crop
is a way to compensate for thatand it works very, very well,
and there you go Five tips.
Well, six tips, five tips and abonus tip of how to inject
creative vision into yourphotography.
Again, the more you stack onyour photos I'm not saying all
these are appropriate for everyphoto out there Some photos you
(29:09):
can combine a couple of these,some photos you should just
shoot normal.
But adding creative vision toyour photography is what's going
to really set you apart.
At the end of the day, you needto like your photos best, but
doing something different is asure way to make sure you have a
refreshed lens on your ownphotography.
It's sure to attract moreattention from those viewing
your photos, whether you'resharing with friends or family,
(29:30):
or on social media or on awebsite or on a blog.
It's going to level up yourgame.
It's gonna give you maybe, whatI would even say a renewed
vigor for photography, becausephotography as an art form is
all about that creativity.
If you enjoyed this episode,please do consider sending to a
friend.
The best way to get the wordout there is telling others.
I don't really market thepodcast all that much, so if you
(29:52):
want to forward this on tosomeone, I would be eternally
grateful.
You can also check out myYouTube channel at Court Whalen
on YouTube and you can forwardthings on from there.
You can also visit my website,where I have all my podcasts and
also a lot of my ownphotography at courtwhalencom,
court, whalen.
All my podcasts and also a lotof my own photography at court
whalencom, court whalen,c-o-u-r-t-w-h-e-l-a-n.
You can also on my website.
(30:13):
You can sign up for a blog thatI write.
Uh, what I'll do is I'll write,usually, uh once every couple
weeks, about photography topics,travel topics, conservation
topics, things that inspire me,and those will go to your email
inbox, should you wish.
So thank you so much for beinga part of this podcast.
Thank you so much for followingalong and I look forward to
talking to you next time.
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