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White balance refers to the color tint of a photograph. Film and digital sensors are calibrated for certain types of light. Whenever an image is shot under different light conditions (or color temperature), white does not appear white. If an image appears reddish it is referred to as “warm”, while bluish images are referred to as “cool”. Images shot under fluorescent lighting that turn out green are usually just referred to as “icky”, and accompanied by words I cannot repeat here.

Having a tint to photographs is not always a bad thing. Many photographers like to use warm images for landscapes and portraits. Cool color temperatures can make wonderful images as well. The trick is to make sure that color tinting in your images is deliberate.

In order to use color tint to your advantage you should understand what light creates what tint. In studying color temperature we learned how light color is measured by its temperature. Now we need to see what light creates what temperatures/tints.

Light Sources and Approximate Color Tints
• Flame - Yellow to Orange
• Incandescent Lighting (your house lightbulbs) - Yellow
• Sunrise/Sunset - Orangish Red to Yellow
• Midday - White
• Flash - White
• Moonlight - Bluish to Faint Yellow
• Cloudy Sky - Bluish

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Did you know that light has temperature? Most of us have noticed that light seems to have different colors based on different times of day, weather conditions, and if it is natural or artificial light. Well, those color differences are measured by temperature. The Kelvin scale measures the amount of heat reflected by different light sources under controlled conditions. Because real-world lighting is not under controlled conditions, the actual color temperature of light varies widely.

The Kelvin scale generally used with photography ranges from red to white and then through blue. This covers a visible light spectrum and not the entire light spectrum. An easy way to remember the progression of light colors is the acronym “Roy G Biv”. This stands for “red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.” This does not match exactly the way light colors behave in photography but it is a good place to start.

Green tends to show up only occasionally in lighting situations with “white light” occupying green’s place most of the time.

Contrary to what colors we tend to think of as “hot” and “cold”, red is actually a cooler temperature than blue according to Kelvin scale. Still, in photographic terms, we refer to bluish light tint photographs as “cool” and reddish light tint photographs as “warm”.

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While very few people get the chance to go on Safari or stalk Kodiak bears in Alaska, most anyone can go to a zoo. The zoo is a wonderful location to take images of exotic animals without high costs and in relative safety. Zoo also afford photographers a chance to get very close to wild animals for close up photography without a lot of equipment. If you keep a few basic techniques in mind you can make your zoo photos shine.

• What to Bring
  When packing your photography gear for a day at the zoo you should keep in mind that you will probably be doing a lot of walking. Carrying a lot of heavy gear will make your day more tiring than rewarding. Some zoos also disallow the use of items such as tripods in order to discourage photographers from monopolizing the best viewing stations for long periods of time.

  Suggested Equipment
  • Camera with zoom capability (if using a SLR/DSLR a 300mm lens is preferable)
  • Flash (with tilt head if possible)
  • Extra Batteries
  • Plenty of Film/Memory Cards
  • Camera Bag with Shoulder Straps

  Please note that camera phones are NOT well-suited for zoo photography.

• Etiquette
  There are rules of behavior to follow when taking photographs at a zoo.

  Your behavior does not affect only you. How you behave reflects directly on every other person with a camera. If you make life miserable for the other visitors, staff, and animals you affect the ability of other photographer’s to enjoy the zoo later on. If you are polite, friendly, and considerate you help to ensure that photography at zoos will remain permitted and perhaps be expanded.

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Valentine’s Day calls for special backgrounds. One great background for Valentine’s Day photography is a graffiti-style heart. It is super simple, quick, and cheap to make this background.

Supplies Needed
• Red Cotton Fabric
• Bleach
• Water
• Spray Bottle
• Sewing Supplies for Hem or Fusible Web
• Iron

1. Hem the Fabric
   Before you do anything else, hem the fabric to prevent raveling. You can do this by sewing a hem or by using fusible web to iron a hem. This is also a good time to add the hanging pocket if your background stand requires it.

2. Iron the Fabric
   Iron the fabric if needed to remove wrinkles. Wrinkles can interfere with your design.

3. Mix the Bleach
   In the spray bottle, mix 1/2 water and 1/2 bleach.

   Be careful not to spill or you risk ruining your clothes/carpet. Set the spray nozzle for about a 2″ spray pattern.

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The rule of thirds is one of the most basic composition guidelines in photography. The rule of thirds makes use of a natural tendency of the human eye to be more strongly drawn towards certain parts of an image.

What is the Rule of Thirds?
The rule of thirds is an imaginary tic-tac-toe board is drawn across an image to break it into nine equal squares. The four points where these lines intersect are strongest focal points. The lines themselves are the second strongest focal points.

How Do I Use It?
To use the rule of thirds you need to imagine the grid on all of your images as you compose them in the viewfinder. If you have an autofocus camera You can use the autofocus points as references to help you imaging the grid. If you use an LCD screen to compose your images you can make a rule of thirds grid out of a clear sheet of window cling material.

Another option is to draw the grid on your viewfinder (not lens) although this may not be easily removed and should be avoided if at all possible. With a little practice you will be able to effectively imagine the grid placement as you shoot.

Does it Matter Which Point I Use?
Which point or line you place your subject on does matter. While any of the points/lines will add emphasis to your subject, some are stronger than others.

When an object is alone in an image, the strongest position is the left hand line. An exception to this is for cultures where information is read right to left, in those cases the right hand line will be strongest.

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Capturing your Pet’s Personality in Photographs

How to take great pet photographs is a common question among pet owners. Our pets are vital parts of our lives. They grant us unconditional love and make us laugh. Some pets are “traditional”, such as cats and dogs. Other pets are more individual, from fish to snakes to rabbits. Whatever species the pet is, he/she is still a part of your family and to be included in many photographs.

Unfortunately, far too many pet portraits turn out with green/red eyes and have a “deer caught in the headlights” look to them. The pet’s personality gets lost. However, there are some wonderfully simply ways to improve your pet photos and capture your pet’s personality.

Avoiding Green/Red Eyes
Your pet’s eyes turn out red or green for the same reason humans get “red-eye”.

It is the flash reflecting off of the back of eye when the pupils are dilated. In pets, most come out green instead of red. However, pets with blue eyes often do get the traditional red-eye.

• Available light
  Wherever possible, take your pet’s photo in an area with lots of available light so you do not have to use a flash. A room with lots of windows, often a sun room or dining room, works wonderfully for this purpose.

• Control the flash
  If you must use flash, get the flash as far away from your lens as possible. If you can use a flash with a swivel head that is even better. It is the angle of the light hitting the back of the eyes that makes red/green eye so common. If you cannot remove your flash from your camera or use a bounce flash all is not lost. Get a piece of cheesecloth and tape it over your flash. This will diffuse the light from the flash and should reduce the chance of red/green eye. Bounce and diffused flash will also help eliminate glare from tanks when photographing fish or reptiles.

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When You Should (and Shouldn’t) Center Your Subjects

Centering your subject is taboo in some photographer circles. It is seen by many as an amateur mistake. However, while you should never just automatically center you subject without thinking, there are times and situations where centering your subject makes perfect sense.

Centering as a Composition Tool

Centering your subject means that your subject is in the general center of your frame. It does not mean that the subject is always exactly centered. In fact, some “centered” subjects can still be broken down to the rule of thirds by applying the rule of thirds to pieces of the subject rather than the whole subject. For example, the eyes of a portrait may work via the rule of thirds although the portrait subject is centered.

Centering can be used to draw attention to a subject, to create a sense of space, to create a sense of size, and to overcome location difficulties.

Drawing Attention to Your Subject
Centering is an effective way to draw attention to your subject when there are very few other items in the composition. When taking photographs of stand alone objects where background and foreground are not shown and the subject will nearly fill the frame, centering works to maintain focus on the subject itself. Portraits (animal and people) and illustrations are good examples of this. Also, centering can be used to good effect on the other end of the compositional spectrum when the composition is extremely busy. When there a lot of objects in a frame that compete for attention, centering a strong and different type object can draw attention to it. This works much like when you are working a jigsaw puzzle and are faced with many similar pieces. If you place a puzzle piece of different size, color, or shape in the middle of the group your eye will be drawn to that difference.

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Let’s Get Started

Starting out in photography is a wonderful time full of creativity and discovery. Unfortunately, for many “baby photographers” their first introduction to photography is a time of wrecked nerves, confusing advice from friends, and frustration as you learn a new camera and try to capture on film or digital media what you saw with your eye. Let me assure you, it does not have to be a traumatic experience. The following information will guide you through that first “baby photographer” phase and familiarize you with basic concepts so you will be ready to take your next steps with as few stumbles as possible. Even more experienced photographers will find good information so read on.

Composition
WordNet Search defines composition as “something that is created by arranging several things to form a unified whole”.

• That is exactly what it is. The composition of your photograph is the combination of elements coming together to create the whole image.

• Subject
  What is your photograph about? Without knowing the answer to this question you image will never work. Your subject is what you want the viewer to see first when they look at your image. It can be small or large, sometimes your subject will be a spider, other times it may be an entire mountain. No matter what your subject is, you must consciously choose a subject in order to make your image work.

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How to Keep Your Equipment and Yourself Intact During Winter Shooting

Cold weather presents numerous challenges to photographers and their equipment. From drained batteries to frostbit fingers, cold weather photography is a completely different prospect than hot weather shooting. While there are some simple solutions to most cold weather problems, these solutions may not be the ones you would first think about.

Equipment Problems

Condensation

What is Condensation?
Condensation is a photographer’s nightmare. Just like a pair of eyeglasses fogging up when changing temperatures rapidly, a camera lens (and the inside of the camera) can fog up with condensation. Condensation is water forming on surfaces that are significantly colder or warmer than the air surrounding it. Technically, this means that if your camera goes into an area where the air is warm condensation will form if the camera is colder than the dew point.

• The opposite is also true. If your camera goes into a cold air area and the camera is warmer than the dew point then condensation can form.

• How to Avoid Condensation?
  The basic way to avoid condensation is to gradually bring your camera through these extreme temperature changes by sealing it inside a bag containing air the same temperature as the camera is acclimatized to. This way, any condensation forms on the bag instead of the camera as the air and camera gradually equalize to the new environment. In practice, this usually results in the photographer freezing in his/her car because he/she doesn’t want to wait for the camera to cool off when he/she gets to the photo location.

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For generations, parents have searched out photographers who will take portraits of their precious children with baby animals. Easter and spring are the traditional time of year when this type of photography is especially desired and available. However, is mixing live baby animals with children a good idea? There is no doubt that the results can be wonderful images for the family and an extremely profitable sales routine for a photographer. Unfortunately, there are also risks for the children and the animals as well.

Benefits of Live Animal Props
Even though they are alive, animals are still technically props when it comes to portrait photography. There are some definite benefits to using live animals in your portraits.

• Instant attention of the child
• Ultimate realism in the portraits
• Parents are generally willing to pay a premium for the service
• Increases bookings with little advertising
• Much cheaper initial cost than fake animals
• They’re just so CUTE!

Disadvantages of Live Animal Props
Along with the benefits of live animal props comes some very serious disadvantages that must be considered.

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