“Fill The Frame” is one of the easiest rules of composition to describe but one of the hardest to execute. | Danny Schweers
Good, even great photographs may be found anywhere, at any time. There is no need to travel to get good photos. Washing dishes, mowing the yard, pumping gas, buying groceries — all of these are prime locations for wonderful images. Recognizing the photogenic in the ordinary can be challenging. When I travel, my eyes seem […]| Danny Schweers
I teach photography lessons in Wilmington, Delaware, privately and occasionally at the Delaware Art Museum. Above is an image from a portrait class at the museum. Before I honk my own horn, here are some links for you to explore. A listing here does NOT mean I recommend the teachers unless I specifically say so. […]| Danny Schweers
Illuminate the subject by hand — If you know how to shoot in Manual (M) Mode, you can use a flashlight to paint light onto our subjects. Cameras are on tripods for these exposures, which are often 20 seconds long. When done correctly, objects seem to emerge out of darkness, glowing. Light painting is a […]| Danny Schweers
Night is seldom really dark, especially near urban centers that glow with street lights, vehicle headlights, porch lights, and security lights. These lights make the sky glow (and make seeing the stars difficult). This means we can often take photographs outdoors at night and have details in the shadows. Also, camera manufacturers have made stunning […]| Danny Schweers
You can take better photographs if you learn to separate subject from background. There are many, many ways of doing this. Here are a few rules, and there are exceptions to all of them. 1. Fascinating subject and boring background. 2. Subject is whole and background is cut off. 3. Subject is larger than […]| Danny Schweers
Make images as light or dark as you want Many, perhaps most, professional photographers shoot in Manual Mode. Cameras in automatic and semi-automatic modes cannot guess what you want. If you want the image darker or lighter, or if you want to control the ISO, Shutter Speed, and Aperture all at once, then shoot in […]| Danny Schweers
Aperture offers some control of focus blur The third homework assignment I give students in my digital photography class at the Delaware Art Museum is to separate subject from background by using small aperture numbers; that is, apertures with little depth of field. The subject is in focus while the background is out of focus, […]| Danny Schweers
I worked many years using a copy camera to produce 12×18-inch litho negatives. I especially liked the way that high-contrast medium transformed gradual tones into hard-edged images. I like woodcuts and linoleum cuts for the same reason, especially the work of Cynthia Back, one of my former colleagues at the Washington Printmakers Gallery. Click here […]| Danny Schweers
Changing the shutter speed on your camera allows you to control motion blur — Releasing the shutter lets light into the camera for a fixed amount of time. I encourage you to try various shutter speeds, especially at the extremes of your camera. For most cameras, that is 30 seconds for the longest time (slowest […]| Danny Schweers
The idea behind “Lines to Corners” is a simple one: frame scenes so that lines point to one or more corners. Sometimes what goes to corners is not lines but things in a line. Below are some images using “Lines to Corners”. Eric Kim has an interesting discussion of diagonals. He favors images with one […]| Danny Schweers
When you compose an image using the Rule of Thirds, vertical elements in the viewfinder are placed one-third from the left or right edge of the frame, horizontal lines are placed one-third from the top or bottom, and sometimes both. If you do NOT have strong vertical or horizontal objects in the scene in front […]| Danny Schweers