November 13, 2010

Use A Bug's Eye View For More Creative Pictures

It's no secret that there are so many ways to see this world. For example a tall person may see things a bit differently than someone who is short. If you get down low or up high you see what I mean.

One October I went to New Hampshire with my boyfriend Justin. We went to a ski mountain that was open during fall for craft fairs and viewing the foliage (they call it leave peeping). There was a 60ft wooden watch tower that you could climb up. When I got to the top I had a bird's eye view. I yelled down to Justin and when he looked up I took his picture. He looked like a tiny bug and he's a pretty big guy.

Last summer I was lying in the grass admiring my mother's flowers. I put my point and shoot camera on the ground at the base of the flowers and snapped a picture. The result was a picture of the garden the way a bug would see it. The flowers in the photo looked as tall as trees. I could never have seen that because I couldn't get that low but my camera could.

Have you ever seen one of those beautiful bright pink skies right before the sun sets? I'm always looking for a way to work that into my pictures. I made sure that the next time I saw a sunset like that to go take a bugs view picture so that the background would be that brilliant pink color.


You could even have someone hover above the garden so it would look like they were peeking down to you through the flowers. I think I am going to take that picture as soon as my moms flowers come up next year

November 11, 2010

Seeing The Shadows In Your Pictures

Have you ever thought about taking pictures of a shadow? If not you should because they can make some very interesting photos.

One day I was out on my brother Jon's boat when I noticed that the thumbs up I was giving him was there on the dash board of the boat, so I took a picture of Jon with the shadow right next to him. You notice him at first but when you take a closer look the thumbs up shadow really catches your eye. I think it is a cool shadow picture.


My daughter Lily was playing in the grass as her dad and I watched her. We were talking about how big she was getting and how proud we were . Then I saw our shadows on the lawn so I took a picture with my point and shoot camera. and it's clear in the picture how proud we really were in our family shadow picture.


I was walking around my old high school with Justin and we were reminiscing about when he used to pick me up after school. I wanted to see where I use to wait for him and saw our shadows on this brick wall. I thought it would be cool to capture our shadows instead of the same old self portrait.  I asked him to kiss me while we held hands to make a heart shape. If we had tried to take the picture of just our bodies We would not of gotten anyone to know what we were doing but the shadows says it all.

So now you have more opportunities to take cool pictures. So look for the shadows, then work with them. You'll be amazed with what you can come up with.

November 3, 2010

Shaping Your Pictures

You don't always have to think of your pictures in the typical rectangle shape of a photo. You can view your subject through an object such as a tube and get some really cool results.

One snowy day I was shoveling the driveway with my brother. He works for a company installing fireplaces and the stove pipe in the bed of his truck inspired me to take some photos.  I noticed that the inside of some of these had snow in them and were very sparkley. I got out my camera (yes even while shoveling snow I carry my camera) and looked into the pipe like a telescope. I then asked my brother to take my picture through the other end. the result was a photo of my face that looked like I was in a tunnel.

Playgrounds can be a great place to find shapes. There are so many openings and colors that can inspire the creative photographer in all of us. I took my nephew Elijah to the local school which has a nice playground and there were these foot holes meant for climbing. I got underneath and had him peek through one of these openings and the result was a picture that really focused on his eyes and striking red hair.

Another time on a trip to the playground with my daughter Lily. I was at the top of a tube slide with her getting ready to go down. Dad was at the bottom waiting and he took a picture of us up through the slide. It was a big blue spiral tunnel and then me and Lily at the top in this bright circle with the sky behind us. This was Lily's first time going down a slide and thanks to this picture I will always remember it.

So next time you have your camera out try to find something that you can look through to take your next picture through. You can frame your subject in some different shapes and take some interesting photos. All of these pictures were taken with a Nikon CooPix Camera.