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🕛 Timeline: 00:45 Framing 01:55 Leading lines 03:06 Symetry 04:52 Contrast 06:13 Patterns 08:03 Fill frame 09:43 Depth of Field 11:48 Negative Space 13:12 Shadows Nice job Alex, very inspirational.
Whenever I’ve left my camera in the bag for a week or so…… I watch one of your videos…… and get jazzed all anew! I will watch this one many times. Thanks Alex. Your vids have added so much to my retirement mental life!….that’s not a small thing.
As a beginner who just passed that initial wave of confidence to realize how awful my photos actually are, this was SO useful. I mean I've taken a couple shots out of hundreds that I sort-of like but so inconsistently that it feels more like luck than that I was intentional / knew what i was doing, so hearing all these things to think about spelled out is really illuminating. I'm excited to try out these concepts
Your videos give me ambition to take photos around the house and garden instead of waiting for the nature park. I can’t believe the interesting scenes around here when you look at things in the right perspective.
I'll add another suggestion for minimizing depth of field without necessarily using the widest aperture: getting closer to your subject with a good distance between the subject and the background. The closer the camera is to the subject, the narrower the focal plane for a given aperture. In fact, most of my macro images of flowers are at F/10 or smaller. Any more wide open, I can't get enough of the flower in focus. OTOH you can make that work for a more abstract effect by opening up so only the tips of a lily's stamens, for example, are in focus while the entire bloom's interior is totally blurred. But again, Alex, you always provide food for thought! P.S. in the penguin photos, the brown ones are Emperor chicks. The one adult is likely looking for its own chick to feed it. They locate their own chick, and the chick recognizes its parents, by voice. Really amazing!
I am so happy I stumbled across this channel. It may have just simultaneously made me a better (hobbyist) photographer, but saved me the money of upgrading my already excellent camera! Time to go play outside. Thank you again.
I love shadows. I have made a few shots of just shadows. The spiral tree decoration for outdoors for Christmas, when the sun hits it near dusk onto the house made a great shadow. There's a downhill area with a tree at the bottom beside my house, like two days a year the setting sun will come in and cast a shadow of my legs really long with torso on the tree. What a great shot. I saw a video of a man driving an old car at dusk with sun very low and cast a wonderful shadow on the field beside it. Look for them, they're out there
What is this magic you put into your videos . . .? I’m not listening to a speaker imparting information; I’m engaging in a conversation, sharing ideas with an old friend. Magic, I tell you.
I don't know why but I love this your tutorials not just tutorials also the Thumbnails where simple but engaging viewers. Every time I watch your videos it also started me to improve a lot Cheers to you Sir
I love your channel. You're a fantastic and inspiring communicator. Every time I watch one of your vids it makes me want to go out with one of my old Minoltas!
Alex your teaching is like having a personal mentor with patience taking you through to a stage where I feel confident to try out all that you are showing. Thank You very much ! Terry.
You are by far my most favourite content creator. Your vids and themes stick around in my head long after watching them. Will you make me a better photographer? Maybe. But you sure make me see the world around me in new perspectives. Thank you very much!
What a great post and exceptional pictures. All of them. What makes these pictures stand out for me is their clarity. Obviously thoughtfully taken. Thank you for this video.
So enjoyable to see these great images and hear your thoughts. I love many of these but one that really stood out was the guys in a race at 10:08 … What a wonderful depiction of that moment. I’m not that into sports but I can really appreciate a great image!
As a life long artist, I've found "cognitive-ease" is the core of how people view images. A simple sense of depth, and simple direct implied story, simple color associations, clear and concise. Most photography uses "static" composition, because they are so clear, most illustrations use "dynamic" composition, because an illustrator can better control the eye movement through a work of art. "static" = horizontal and vertical lines, "dynamic" = diagonals.
As a new judge of a photo contest I really appreciate this video. It reinforces the points I want to use in evaluating the submitted photos. Extremely helpful, thanks for a great video.
Hi Alex, I've been enjoying your RU-vid channel for sometime now. I've found your channel inspiring which has made me think more about my own photography and how to improve it. You also inspired me to start videoing my own short blogs which at this point I post on face book. My newest blog, which I'll post next week, I borrowed a phrase I've heard you use; "The strokey beard crowed." I like that phrase so I hope you don't mind me borrowing it. Thank you for the inspiration it's been very helpful.
Wonderful motivation Alex. Thanks. I am always fascinated how we create something out of nothing in certain pictures, like seeing 3 dimensions in a flat picture or seeing cubes when there are dots, mystery when there is nothing, and the hint of a story when it's just a moment in time. Great topic
See, it is this sort of information that teaches us (or refreshes our recollection of) how to not only create (and by create I mean making the photo and then editing/processing it) our images and evaluate our own and others' work, to help create a conversation about our photography. Thank you.
your channel made me lock my sony alpha in the desiccator box and pickup film... I feel like I need to relearn everything from the beginning.. You and Ted Forbes are my favourite
Wow so many great photos! A couple of things you left out. 1. Though this might be obvious, negative space usually denotes isolation or loneliness. 2. The general rule with depth of field is - if there's nothing interesting in the background, that's when to use a shallow depth of field, 2.0 etc.
Really loving this video really well done on this one and your quote from the movie Repetition works, David. Repetition works, David. is from Natural Born Killers
Something I’d love your take on is the influence of Instagram on framing formats. The platform REALLY wants you to make portraits 4x5 or 1x1 and gives you a 16x9 as a concession…but the landscape formats don’t stand out on the platform as the Instagram pundits will tell you. Everything is geared towards portrait format ( phone screen). Most of the beautiful photographs you share are landscape 4x3 ish ( which I love because it affords the most accessible dynamic tension of rule of thirds. I find myself cropping my photos to square…but I haven’t uploaded a single one to Instagram yet… because I think they actually work better in 4x3 landscape, but Instagram adds these white bands when u don’t crop. I’m sure your answer will be ignore Instagram and shoot what you want, but it might make a good video topic. Love your vids. Howzit from South Africa :)
Fantastically informative video today. Thank you so much! Your description of the purpose and use of negative space is the best I have ever seen. And the section on shadow had me yelling "YES! YES!" at the screen. All the focus these days on a cameras dynamic range and the ability to pull all the detail out of an image has always seemed so... irrelevant... to me. Many of the greatest photographic works I have ever seen - take Ansel Adams for example - make massive use of shadow to draw the eye and create impact. Now, maybe in Ansel Adam's case it was the limitations of the film available at the time, I don't know, but these days such blatant use of deep shadow would lead to the camera being crucified for not having enough dynamic range! Thank you for hopefully helping others see the folly in avoiding shadows at all costs!
Hi, 'The Photographic Eye'; I subscribed! Your videos are exciting and among the best for learning photography. I would rank myself as a novice in photography. I've never taken any photo classes or entered any photo contests. I have a Kodak digital zoom camera, though. And a tripod and a camera stabilizer. I'm also a university student in the southwest USA. Last year I started exploring RU-vid videos on photography in the category of High Fashion Photo Shoots. I'm also interested in Landscape, Still Life, and Street Photography. I look forward to watching many of your videos on your channel. Peace out!
When people talk about the rule of thirds, I shudder. In your examples, _I_ think the photos would be stronger with the subject somewhere else. Mostly, I imagine my subject facing something, and often I give it space in front. Sometimes, I have it facing out of frame. I sometimes find subject on or near the edge appealing, surely you remember photographs like that.
I think the obsession with high dynamic range and the lack of shadows is linked with the fact that bright pictures are favored by viewers and subsequently by The Algorithm
Hi Alex. Thanks for yet another great video. A couple of open questions. 1: Could the use of vignetting be a suitable framing device? 2: Unless otherwise stated, were all of the images in this (and other) videos your work? Cheers.
Shadows worked for Caravaggio and Rembrandt mmmm, my art history is better than my history of photography that's why I find your talks so helpful Alex. Thanks
@András Dobos don't doubt your English I think part of the process of assimilation of ideas is when we find a point of contact and art history looks as though it's my way into the shadows 😀
Nice examples and a good video overall. The thing I miss though is how much an image can look different after two different people do the post processing. In my opinion taking the image is around 'olny' 1/3 of the work. It's only in post processing that a good shot either turns into a great one or is ruined for good.
