It’s called “creative block”, and it’s an ugly beast. All artists complain of it at some point in their lives, even great ones. It can happen to you when you’re immersed in the doldrums of an uninteresting routine, or it can happen to you when you’re standing in the Mongolian grasslands during the Festival of [...]

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If I had to guess, I would say that 99 out of 100 hobby photographers never bend their legs. It’s not so hard to see why – human beings view the world mostly from one or two perspectives: standing up and sitting down. Occasionally we will also lie down in a place other than our [...]

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Natural frames are everywhere, and not just in natural places. In photography, a natural frame is anything that forms a border or part of a border around your subject. It can be literally natural, such as a tree branch, the mouth of a cave or a rock arch; or it can be man-made, such as [...]

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Scenic photos are a part of almost every photographer’s repertoire. After all, almost no one with a camera can resist snapping a photo of crashing surf, sweeping fields of wildflowers or a towering, snow-covered mountain. Landscape photos seem like they should be easy, yet the final images are often disappointing. How many times have you [...]

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Here’s an assignment for you: Take your camera out into the field, and photograph only those scenes that contain lines. It’s easier than you might think. Lines can be found almost everywhere in our world. And line is one of the most important design elements in photography. That is not to say, of course, that [...]

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Rules. They started in school and seem to follow us through life. They’re made to give guidance. They’re made to keep peace in the valley. And, some would say they’re made to be broken. If there’s one place rules are meant to be broken, it’s in anything creative. The catch is, if you’re going to [...]

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The grandfather of street photography was Henri Cartier-Bresson. His image here of the young boy carrying bottles of wine under his arms, and looking quite proud in doing so, is one of his most popular. It’s street photography at its finest because it’s spontaneous, fun, and it tells a story. Cartier-Bresson’s photographs of children were [...]

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What’s the difference between a snapshot and a photograph? Between an ordinary photograph and a great photograph? It may surprise you to hear that even in modern photography, the answer to those questions can be found in design principles that are centuries old. All great photographs contain at least one of six elements that great [...]

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What’s the difference between a snapshot and a photograph? If you’re like most people, your hard drive is full of pictures that mostly qualify as snapshots. These are photos taken randomly at family outings, vacations or other activities. They do a good job of chronicling an event, but they may not be the sort of [...]

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Over the years, I’ve learned that a lot of photography skills bleed into other areas. If you learn about action photography, it’ll help you learn how to take pictures of waterfalls. If you know how to photograph snow, you’ll probably be good at photographing sand. Another example is macro photography. Very few people know that [...]

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What makes something special? Is it special on its own, or is it only special when compared to everything else around it? Contrast is what happens when you place two polar opposites right next to each other. It can be used to draw attention to an important element in your image. Contrast comes in a [...]

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How you frame your subject can make or break a photo. If you put your subject in a place that commands the viewers attention, you’ll immediately have an outstanding photo. This subtle technique is known to many as “composition,” and believe it or not, it has a few simple rules that will give you some [...]

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Photography is an art, and art is supposed to be clean and meaningful. But what happens when you’ve scheduled a shoot where your subject lives or works, only to find a huge mess once you get there? It happens to me more often than you might think, and I don’t want to be impolite and [...]

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I think I have a pretty good grasp of what people think of me. You can always tell from their engagement level. If someone is really getting into your work, they’ll offer a dozen reasons why they like what you’re showing them. If they’re not really into it, and believe me this has happened more [...]

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During the renaissance, painting went through a distinct revolution. Gone were the medieval two dimensional paintings. Artists had figured something out, something significant about the way we perceive the world around us. We call that thing “perspective,” and it’s just as important in photography as it was in painting. The use of diminishing perspective can [...]

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