Look at what's coming

Now here's another example of the ol' rule of thirds. In this particular case my wife's head is pretty much at the intersection of the top left hand intersection point.

But this post is about something else. Where the subjects of your photo should be looking. As a general rule, if the person (or animal) in your picture isn't looking directly at the camera then they should be looking into the frame.

In other words they should be looking towards the centre of the picture, not outside the frame. There's a couple of reasons for this. The first one is that when the person is looking into the frame the natural inclination of the viewer of the picture is to look at what the person in the pic is looking at.

Try it with the picture above. Your eye first of all goes to my wife's face and then follows her gaze out, and thus you look at the rest of the picture. It's more subliminal than product placement in movies!

The second reason is that when you have a person looking out of the frame, in other words they're placed in the edge of the picture and their face is looking towards the edge of the picture with lots of space behind them, they look very isolated.

No matter what the expression on their face they look separate from everything else happening in the picture. Disconnected. Isolated. Lonely. You often see that technique used in news photos. Think of a picture you've seen where somebody has lost a house or something like that. They will always be in the edge of the picture looking out of the frame with their house behind them. It makes them look sadder than if they had been photographed looking into the frame at their house.

In the case of animals it's pretty hard to make them look sad but it does make it look like you missed the moment. That you took too long to press the shutter and the animal has nearly moved out of the frame on you.

Have an experiment with this one. Take a couple of portraits of somebody you know with the same expression on their face. Try a smile to make the experiment really effective. Take the first shot with them in the left hand side of the frame facing right (ie into the picture). Now leave them where they are and move the framing of the camera so they are still facing in the same direction but now the wide open space is behind them and they are facing out of the frame.

I guarantee you the result will be completely different. When you've had a go at it try posting them to the Flickr Group and I will be happy to give you some advice.

Go to your corner

Here's another example of putting the subject in one of the corners of the frame. This is what is known in the biz as an environmental portrait.

It's called that because it shows the person who is the subject of your photograph in the environment in which they find themselves. Often it refers to local people at their place of work but it can also refer to travellers on holiday. All you need is something surrounding them to show where they are.

This image is of my wife Chiharu halfway up a little hill called Gokyo Ri high up in the Himalayas of Tibet. It's not very big - only 400m or so above the village below - but at over 5000 metres above sea level there's not a lot of oxygen up there and it's slow, hard work.

This is another example of remembering to look back over your shoulder at what's behind you because there just might be a photo in it. Of course I told my wife I was looking back to make sure she was alright - we'll just keep the real reason a secret between us shall we!

Anyway in framing this shot I obviously wanted to show where we were. So I needed to put Chiharu in one of the corners of the frame to fill the rest of it with supporting information. Firstly I wanted to have the village below in the frame because it showed where we had walked from. I also wanted to show those big towering mountains in the background as well. And of course the lake was a major consideration.

I deliberately chose a wide-angle lens to open up the perspective and placed the elements so as to give myself a foreground (Chiharu in that stunning yellow rain suit!), middle ground (the village of Gokyo) and background (the mountains beyond). That gives us our three dimensionality.

So there are a number of compositional elements here. We've got our rule of thirds, use of a wide-angle lens and the placing of the elements for a three dimensional effect. Now you know why it took us four hours to get to the top of the hill! I had a lot to think about. :)

Sticking to the edges

One thing I realise I don't talk to you all about nearly enough is composition. In this day of auto-everything cameras that will give you the right focus, the right exposure and just about make the right cup of tea for you, composition is the element that can lift your photography from the mundane to the exceptional.

First let me say that any of the rules of composition that I talk about from here on in are more guidelines than rules. You don't need to follow them but you need to understand them to know when you can break them for a special effect.

One of the first rules of photography states that you should never put the subject of your photo right smack bang in the middle of the frame. They call it target shooting and the reason why you should avoid it is because it's a very static way of looking at a picture. Your eye tends to fall on the thing in the middle and not look anywhere else.

So the first really important thing I want you to keep in mind is to keep your subject out of the middle of the frame. So where do you put it? A very popular compositional tool is the rule of thirds. Imagine your viewfinder divided up like a noughts and crosses (tic tac toe) board. Two lines down and two lines across. Where those lines intersect is where you should put your subject. At least that's how the rule goes.

I tend to stick things all the way to edge of the frame, in corners. With the elephant and mahout I wanted to give a sense of them being quite small in this huge landscape of Corbett National Park in India. So I put them all the way in the bottom left hand corner of the frame and left the rest of the frame blank - filled only with endless grass.

I've touched on this before but I like to leave lots of negative space in an image to give a sense of wide open spaces. By having the landscape run out of the frame it leaves you wondering just how far that nothingness goes on for.

By having the elephant and mahout quite small in the frame it really makes them look insignificant, which is ironic because we all know how big elephants really are.

So if you live in an area with lots of wide open spaces try taking a photographic subject and putting them towards the edge of the frame and have them surrounded by nothing to really emphasise the space.

Photographic Exhibition

For those of you who live here in far north Queensland I wanted to give you a heads up about a new photographic exhibition being launched on Friday night in Innisfail. The Cassowary Coast Camera Club had me down to give some of their members a two-day travel photography workshop before sending them all out to capture some 'Northern Light".

They then sent me through the images for me to choose the final selects and on Friday night I will be popping down to make a little speech and see the final prints for myself. So if you've got no plans on Friday night pop on down to say hello. Here's the official release:

Thirty images depicting the landscapes of the Cassowary Coast have been selected to exhibit in Innisfail’s Central Gallery.

The Cassowary Coast is blessed with both outstanding natural beauty and a wealth of emerging photographic talent. This exhibition blends these aspects to produce an exciting exhibition entitled ‘Northern Light’.

The photographers completed a two day course with renowned international travel photographer Mr Paul Dymond, whose work has appeared in publications such as the National Geographic, Lonely Planet guides and TIME magazine. The course covered all aspects of travel photography with a particular emphasis on the subject of ‘light’ and creating a variety of effects, moods and colours through its use. Participants also explored the relationships which exist between the lighting, the subject and composition of the image and the technical understanding necessary to control these elements.

Artists were then invited to submit work that made an original statement about life in the Cassowary Coast way and also interpreted the use of light in some form.

Join the photographers for the official exhibition launch being held at 5:30pm on Friday the 10 October, with an official opening by Cassowary Coast Regional Council Mayor Cr Bill Shannon and guest speaker Mr Paul Dymond.

The exhibition has been made possible through a grant from the Regional Arts Development Fund, a partnership between Arts Queensland and the Cassowary Coast Regional Council. The exhibition will be open from 9th to the 20th October and will coincide with the Innisfail Karnivale.

This is a great opportunity to explore the work and developing style of several emerging photographers in our community. The Cassowary Coast Camera Club meets once a month and welcomes new members. The club has formal meetings, workshops and exhibitions as well as photographic walks around the Tropical North. People of all ages and abilities are welcome.

Sometimes you gotta walk!

Earlier this year I worked on a major stock photo shoot for Lonely Planet Images and a major airline company. The airline is putting together an in-flight touch-screen destination guide to different parts of the world.

When you fly into a destination you will be able to read all about your destination and look at pretty pictures of the place you're about to land.

One of the places on my long list was Wallaman Falls. For those of you who don't know it it's the larges single drop waterfall in the whole of Australia. It's just outside the little town of Ingham, a couple of hours south of Cairns.

When you get to the lookout the view is spectacular. As you can see from the image above it really is a beautiful place, and again one of those situations where it's almost impossible to take a nice photo. The cliches sell. Advertisers like to use an image that when a viewer sees it they instantly know where it is. That's why this view of Wallaman, taken from the one and only lookout, gets used again and again.

But as a photographic artist you feel a need to expand your vision. To get something unique. And in this particular case in order to get that view you're going to have to get hot, sweaty and tire yourself out a bit because it involves walking all the way to the valley floor to shoot the waterfalls from the bottom!

If there was any more proof of the fact that landscape photography is not only weather dependant, but season dependant as well. I visited just after the wet season had finished. The water was flowing thick and fast and, as a result, there was spray everywhere. All over me, the cameras, the lenses! You get the picture.

But seeing as I'd just spent an hour walking down there and was probably going to take another couple getting back up the steep cliff again there was no way I was going back without a shot.

So I would whip my camera out in between bursts of waterfall spray and push the shutter like a madman. And lo and behold a couple turned out OK. This one ended up being chosen by my agent as well as the cliche shot, which goes to show that a little bit of effort won't always be worth it if the weather's not on your side, but sometimes lady luck smiles on you!

People photography

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the biggest ingredient for people photography is not what brand of camera you use, or how expensive your lens is, or even how good a photographer you are.

The biggest ingredient for people photography is your personality. There's a pretty famous saying that goes something along the lines of 'the camera reflects what the photographer is feeling.' In other words even though you're photographing something else, what appears in the picture is actually your personality and soul.

And I never really understood that statement. I mean I kind of got it but wasn't really 100% sure what it meant. Then I heard an interview with travel photographer Rick Sammon and it all made sense. He talked about how you could look at the face of somebody in a picture and you could imagine what the photographer was like.

Take this photograph here, taken at the Yosakoi Festival in Japan. Now what kind of a face do you think I was making as I approached this guy to take a photo? Look at the faces on the women in the background. Do you think I was frowning? Being quiet and respectful? Hell no. I had a big cheesy grin on my face that stretched from ear to ear and I was laughing along with him. And my face is reflected in the one he gave me for the camera.

To make your travel photography portraits really good you have to empathise with the people you are photographing. You have to want to know them, even if it is only for the briefest moment. You have to be prepared to open yourself up to have them let you in. If they are deliriously happy and laughing their heads off you can't approach them with a frown on your face because you're nervous about asking if you can take a picture. You have to be laughing and in on the joke with them.

And when you can adapt yourself to fit in with total strangers in totally unique situations, that's when you'll be on the road to creating some memorable travel portraits.

Reflecting on the situation

There are some times when you need a little help with the light. The colour might be lovely, as this sunset was here, but the position is just a little awkward.

As you can see from this shot it's right behind the boat out to sea. If I had just shot this image as was the people would have pretty much been a silhouette, as you can see from the dark shadows on the man's right hand leg.

So I needed to place a bit of light on them. But hang on, you're thinking. I don't really want to use flash in my travel photography. Especially those big ones you have to plug into the wall! I agree with you 100% and that's why I want to tell you about a little accessory that is the next best thing.

It's called a reflector. You can buy big round collapsible ones that come in different flavours - silver, gold, white, black and a translucent one. For travel photographers the silver and white tend to get used the most. They're like giant mirrors only not as harsh. They bounce light wherever you point the reflector.

In this photograph, which was taken on assignment for Coral Princess Cruises, I had a trusty assistant (another passenger on the boat!) stand just to the left of the couple. My trusty assistant is holding up a silver reflector in one hand and a glass of champagne in the other! I helped her to position it to shine the rays of sun set on to the faces of my models and suddenly my silhouette was gone and they had a lovely sunset glow on their faces.


It really is that easy. And not only that but it provides a great little conversation piece. When you pull one of these babies out to take someone's portrait they suddenly feel very important and really get to take part in the picture. Rope some relatives in to help light them up and pretty soon the whole family gets in on the act.

So when you have a backlit situation and you really don't want to (or can't) reach for the flash then the little ol' reflector is a great alternative.