Teach Yourself Creative Photography

Whether you’re a beginner and you want to know the easy techniques for taking professional-looking photos, or you’re a seasoned photographer in need of some inspiration, Teach Yourself Creative Photography has everything you need and more. We’ve packed in hundreds of crucial tricks and techniques that are certain to improve your photography skills. The first chapter provides expert guides to help you master key photography techniques for shooting everything from slow-shutter seascapes that tame raging seas to amazing multiple exposures. Each of these projects focuses on how to set up your equipment to capture the photos, along with photo-editing tips to create finished pictures that are good enough to hang on your wall. Chapter two is packed with tutorials that you can follow in Photoshop Elements, while chapter three moves…

The sea: a monumental force of nature that is both powerful and serene; familiar yet mysterious. But how do you capture the essence of this ever-moving mass in a single, static frame? One way is to use a long exposure to blur the motion of the water for a tranquil effect. This technique is achieved with the use of longer shutter speeds, where the shutter is held open for several seconds – or minutes – at a time. Anything that moves during that time will be blended together. Rapidly moving waters, such as waterfalls, can blur in less than a second; still waters, such as a calm sea, require much longer. But even on an overcast day, and shooting at the narrowest available aperture, there will be far too much…

The term ‘high key’ means images with a bright, airy look that are dominated by light tones, usually with a blown-out background. It’s a lighting setup you often see in studio fashion or family portraiture, but it doesn’t require a studio and a load of expensive lighting gear. All you need is a white wall and a pair of flashguns. To get the high-key look we simply need to overexpose the background, so that it comes out brighter than our subject, which is easily done with two flashes. Train one on the subject, with the other angled towards the background at a higher power setting. Of course, we need to be able to trigger the flash off-camera; it helps if one can have its settings controlled wirelessly by your camera’s…

Who says you need a lens attached to a camera to take a photo? The art of ‘freelensing’ can give you some truly intriguing images. The technique involves detaching the lens and holding it just in front of the camera. This produces some striking effects, in particular letting you alter the plane of focus similar to a tilt-shift lens. You can easily pick up an old, cheap manual lens, and you don’t have to worry about the fit since it doesn’t need to be attached – we used a Fujica 50mm f/1.9 lens from a 35mm film camera. Freelensing does take a little practice. Start with very minor movements, as leaving a large gap will allow major light leaks and significant vignetting from the edge of the lens. Manipulate the…

Something as simple as a piece of lightweight fabric can add an incredible burst of colour and shape to your portraits– especially if you can find a windswept location and a willing subject who doesn’t mind being buffeted by the breeze. Not only is the fabric fantastic for conventional photos, it can also be used to create beautiful effects, like our ghostly figure. In this project, we’ll explain how it’s done using a cunning combination of shooting skills and simple Photoshop techniques. The fabric in question here is a shiny dress-lining material – light enough to get picked up by the wind and thin enough to define the shape of the figure underneath, but also not so transparent that it gives the game away by showing the person in too…

Traditional landscape and seaside shots are usually taken using a wide-angle focal length, such as 16mm (or 10mm on an APS-C sensor), and narrow aperture, such as f/16, so you can capture a large part of the vista, and ensure it’s sharp from the foreground to the horizon. In this project, however, we’re going to show you how creative your scenic shots can look if you do the opposite… We’ve come to Weston-super-Mare’s Grand Pier, in Somerset, as it offers a clear focal point with lots of sand for our foreground. We have timed our visit so that the tide is out – it’s easy to check tide times in advance online (try www.tidetimes.org.uk). Be aware of how the high and low tide times vary on each day, and how…