One of my favorite shots from last summer. Like the Calla Lilies image posted below, it was not a composed still life but a found shot with an amazing top light that just made the whole composition.
Be sure and look for the little lurking bug on one of the petals.
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Photography, Salvias in Seattle, Travel Notes, Ukiyo-e, Fountain Pens, Technology, and other stuff of marginal interest to anybody else.
2 comments:
Beautiful photographs. Could you be so kind as to recommend photo software and a sort of 'photography' for dummies book to someone who endeavors to take beautiful photos, too?
Thanks for the compliment, Jcccl.
As for photo software, the classic tool to use is Photoshop from Adobe. That's what I use but it's expensive and the learning curve is quite steep. There are others, notably PaintShopPro from Corel and one from Microsoft too (the name escapes me), as well as LightRoom from Adobe and Aperture from Apple.
Possibly the best software for beginners is Photoshop Elements (also from Adobe). The learning curve is not so steep, it's not incredibly expensive, and there are many automatic functions that make life easy.
As far as books - hmmmmmm - I'm drawing a bit of a blank there. Spending time looking at the works of great, not so great, and photographers whose work you like is a big start. Looking carefully at how they dealt with light, form, composition and texture are great ways to learn how to take beautiful pictures.
That said, any good basic photography text book should take you through the craft part of photography: controlling light, aperture, shutter speed, iso, white balance and the like. Get one that you find well written and easy to follow. One that is specific to your camera model is sometimes the best since you can see how each thing is manipulated.
The other book to spend a lot of time reading is your camera's instruction manual. While the photographer is the most important part of any picture, knowing all the capabilities of your camera and how to get the most from it is the next step in taking great images.
Best of luck!
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