merritt design photo

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Capture Philosophy | PHOTO TIP 02: Creative use of Foreground

Dynamic photos draw us in and give our eye the space and reason to move around inside the frame. Layering a composition with simple foreground, middle and background elements can add a great deal of interest to an otherwise flat photo. As such, many photos can be dramatically improved through the implementation of some simple but creative compositional choices.

While this may sound like a simple concept, finding the right foreground element can have a profound impact on a finished photo - from grounding the image with a sense of scale to framing and/or highlighting a subject. In fact, often in the search for a great foreground element, you can discover a whole new subject for a photograph you hadn’t previously envisioned. It’s a great exercise to explore your surroundings and find new inspiration.

Here are a few examples using a variety of different subjects:

01 | Draw your viewer into the photo with a compelling foreground element which directly leads into the photo:

Great Sand Dunes National Monument + Denver Art Museum © Jennifer Koskinen

02 | Find foreground elements with which to frame your subject:

Bridal Veil Falls, Telluride, CO + Denver Art Museum © Jennifer Koskinen

03 | Ground the photo by highlighting a strong foreground element in a composition that might originally have been about the background (these "discovered" opportunities often make for more personal photos of iconic locations):

Bridge Railing to Town Park, Telluride CO + Maroon Bells Wilderness, Aspen CO © Jennifer Koskinen

04 | Relate the foreground to subject matter, highlighting, echoing or strengthening the subject itself:

Sculpture outside Denver Art Museum + Chalk Street Drawing at Telluride July 4th Celebration © Jennifer Koskinen

05 | Create symmetry, layering and balance:

Driftwood at Maroon Bells, Aspen CO + Private Residence, Telluride CO © Jennifer Koskinen

06 | "Work hard and you’ll get lucky"
Often great foreground material will present itself when you are open to seeing it; the audience member who pops up right in front of you with a perfect hat and hand gesture; a butterfly on a flower when you're already on your belly in the grass; a handful of autumn photographers so perfectly set they could have been staged; and lastly of course, drifting fog makes for a lovely and precious foreground that can only be discovered when in the right place at the right time:

Mountainfilm Symposium + Butterfly on Valley Floor
Photographers in the Sneffles Wilderness + Wilson Peak Above the clouds
Telluride CO © Jennifer Koskinen

SUGGESTION:

The next time you are out shooting, take some extra time and move around to find interesting foreground elements with which to frame or draw the attention towards your subject. Play with your aperture as well (last month’s tip), and see what kind of results are yielded when you focus selectively and/or blur your foreground or background elements... experiment with color and composition, and most of all, have fun!

Happy Shooting :)

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Playing with Tilt Shift App

Denver Art Museum

I discovered another fun little app for the iPod this weekend and I've been having a blast experimenting with different effects on a variety of photos. It it absolutely incredible to me what these simple little gadgets can do!

This one allows you to mimic the highly specific depth of field effect of a tilt shift lens, resulting in images that often look like tiny scale models, even though these are - I swear - full scale scenes.

If you have an iPod or iPhone, this particular app is called TiltShiftGen and so far, I love it!

Denver Capitol building from Art Museum window

16th Street Mall, Denver

Confluence Park, Denver

Mesa Verde National Park

Telluride Wedding

View from Tattered Cover Parking Garage, Denver, CO

Glenwood Canyon, CO

Telluride from the Gondola

Telluride, CO during Mountainfilm

Denver City and County Building, July 4th 2010

16th Street, Denver CO

16th Street, Denver, CO

Telluride from Town Park

Telluride, CO - July 4th

Thursday, February 3, 2011

MDP Newsletter | Issue 03

Please click to enjoy the latest edition of the Merritt Design Photo Newsletter!

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Portrait Shoot in Denver, CO

Feeling hugely grateful for the opportunity to photograph this lovely daughter of a dear friend for her upcoming yearbook photos. Once again I find myself humbled by the photographic medium and excited to be pushing myself into new areas of joyfully fulfilling work.
I look forward to many more photo sessions with great young people like this!

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Merrittphoto on Instagram!

We got a fancy little iGadget over the holidays, and I have become completely addicted to a new form of social media / photo sharing, in the form of a free app called Instagram.

Through the app, you can photograph and apply from a selection of nostalgic and artistic filters... but the power is really in the ability to view, share, comment, "like," follow and otherwise interact with photo-minded people from all over the world.

Ridiculously fun and inspiring!

Here are some selections from my first few days of posting. If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, check out this free app and come say hello (@merrittphoto)!

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Dreaming of the NEXT in a Series... 2011

2010 Telluride AIDS Benefit Model photo, Outside the Box (framed as two separate prints, with the inner box set behind the outer):

Imagining for this year's photo has begun... Hint: this year's theme "Force and Grace"... stay tuned!

Monday, January 17, 2011

Capture Philosophy | PHOTO TIP 01: Aperture + Depth of Field

I have been asked several times lately by new dSLR owners to share tips on simple ways to make the most of their camera and take better photographs. Every time I get into this conversation, I realize how much I love sharing my passion for all things photographic.

Wide Aperture (f2.8) chosen for creative composition and shallow depth of field

So I thought it could be fun to start a “Capture Philosophy / Tip of the Month” series on the blog. Some of the information I share will be basic, nuts and bolts tips for people just getting to know their dSLR cameras, while other posts may be more philosophical, reflective of how I personally approach photography.

Please feel free to comment and/or ask for more info!

I’d like to start with creative use of Aperture, since I believe it can be one of the simplest to learn and most powerful ways to make every day photos more creative. Learning how to use Aperture and controlling your depth of field (the area of the photograph which is in focus) can produce highly satisfying results, from the ability to isolate a subject in an otherwise busy setting, to maintaining crisp focus from front to back of a wider landscape shot.

Small Aperture (f16) used to achieve depth of field form foreground shadows to mountain peaks

Wide Aperture (f2.8) used to highlight only tiny area of focus and blur everything else

Wide Aperture (3.2) isolates model and permits handheld shot in low light

Smaller Apertures can be extremely useful in capturing serene landscapes, formal compositions, and often is the best choice in architectural work, where one wants to highlight relationships across a room or between adjacent spaces.

When combined with higher ISO (when necessary), larger apertures will allow you to shoot later into the evening in lower light conditions. This approach will often eliminate the necessity of a flash, allowing you to make the most of - and more importantly maintain the mood of - natural and available light.

THE BASICS

Aperture means literally, opening. The basic creative tools of your camera are 1) choosing the size of the opening (aperture), and 2) how long it stays open (shutter speed).

What you need to know regarding the aperture, is that the numbers, or F-stops, are representative of fractions, so the smaller numbers represent a larger opening of the shutter, (f1.4, f2.8, f3.5, f4, etc.), and larger numbers (f11, f16, etc.) represent a smaller opening of the shutter.

What makes this all so powerful is that with selective focus of a larger aperture, you can narrow in on a shallower depth of field and isolate your subject so that everything else in the photograph is out of focus.

Wide Aperture (f2.8) + faster shutter speed = shallower depth of field (isolated subject in focus)

Smaller Aperture (f16) + slower shutter speed = greater depth of field (more in focus)

SUGGESTION

Find the setting on your DSLR camera for "A" (aperture priority). Play with the extremes of this setting to see what they do when you are focused on something close to the camera (say, within a few feet). Don't delete the photos until you have had a chance to look at the differences on your computer screen with the same shot and extreme aperture differences.

Isolating Eyelashes with f2.8

As a point of reference, shooting with an aperture of F2.8 when your subject is within close range of the camera can allow you to focus on someone's eye, and the rest of their face will start to soften.

When used creatively and intentionally, makes for really professional looking people photos...

You will notice that the range of depth of field changes with the distance from the camera... (F2.8 won't have as dramatic of an effect if your subject is far away).

So, get out of your "Program Mode" ... Experiment, and HAPPY SHOOTING!