Add a Measure of Creative Depth to Your Photography

I would venture to guess that most photographers are most content when they are simply having fun with their camera. Maybe on vacation, or possibly just on a simple walkabout, capturing the world around us provides not only an easy creative outlet, but it also captures special moments within our lives. That is the way it should be, just have fun with it, then use the photographs to revisit those special life adventures.

Sometimes though as a photographer, I need to find a more meaningful outlet, to allow creative instincts an opportunity to explore more thoroughly the photographic possibilities waiting for discovery. That is when I begin to look more closely at how I can best use this tool called a camera to capture the world around me in ways that is less an exact reproduction of what I see, and more of a creation of what I feel. Doing so helps to generate a greater creative depth to the images I want to capture.

How to do this is open to interpretation because everyone contributes their personal insights into what they want to accomplish. Even so there are some common ways to apply creative depth to your photography.

One of the best ways is to learn how to use off camera flash. There are literally hundreds of videos and articles out there explaining the X's and O's of the technique, so I will not go into that discussion here. Instead let's explore some of the reasons why this type of photography can add creative depth to you photographs. First of all, any photographer worth his or her salt knows that light is the most important element in a photograph.

Quality light can turn an ordinary object or situation into a work of art. Natural light of course is the most commonly used, however when you begin to use off camera flash you start to explore the realm of controlling the light. With off camera flash you can control the intensity, the angle or direction, the color, and timing of the moment. You can throw in a little fill light, or contribute the maximum amount of light required for a shoot. It can be used with people, places, or objects, and it can be combined with the natural ambient light, it can even be made to look like natural light. In short, you become the master of the lighting moment. This allows you to visualize how you want the image to appear, the shadows, the reflections, the back light, the boldness or subtleness of the light becomes yours to control.

Another way to add creative depth is to take your camera off AUTO or Program Mode and learn how to manipulate exposure. Use the +/- exposure compensation tool on your camera to add or remove light from your composition. This allows you to darken or lighten natural light and to apply a specific tonality to a specific area of your composition. Contrary to popular belief, you do not have to capture the world exactly the way you see it. You have the ability to interject your desire onto your photograph.

A third way is to use post production software to enhance your photographs. This is not cheating, this is simply allowing you to project your vision into your photograph to create from what might be an ordinary image, an image with power and eye catching ability. Ansel Adams, probably the most famous American photographer of all time, applied this same concept to his photographs except he did not use a computer (they didn't exist then), he did it in the darkroom using various kinds of print papers and print exposure techniques. There are countless how to videos and articles available on Photoshop and Light Room, so there really is no excuse for not learning how to do this. Even very basic, routine applications can improve almost any photograph and allow you to create your vision.

Although I attempt to capture in camera the image I visualize as closely as I can, almost all of my images undergo some post processing adjustments, however small, however slight they may actually be. One thing I have also learned over the years is to not be afraid to break the rules. Breaking the photographic rules will sometimes lead to an amazing revelation about photography and the results can be spectacular.

Adding a measure of creative depth to your photographs is a personal adventure almost anyone can learn how to do. It is more a matter of desiring to discover the limits of your own creative instincts and have a willingness to try something new. Much of it comes from within and all you are doing is applying your inner visions to the tools you have available.

Capturing a Deep Woods Photo

One of the most difficult kinds of photographs to capture is a photo taken within a deep woods, especially when the prevailing background color is green. In most cases you end up with an image with a harsh green tint cast across the entire frame. This is just the nature of light and requires a bit of creative white balance tweaking to prevent. Even so, a photo with that one prevailing color tint can in its own right become an interesting image. Most of the time though, I tend to photograph the deep woods with the intent of converting the image into a black and white.

Deep woods settings do tend to lend themselves well to black and white, however, depending on the kind of light that is filtering through the green canopy, this too can be tricky. Often you will encounter a wide range of contrasts ranging from very dark shadowed areas to very bright sunlit areas. This range more often than not becomes the problem as the camera simply cannot deal with that wide of a range of contrast. You will lose a great deal of detail in either the light or dark areas with one or the other being blown out.

Most times I will shoot with a circular polarized attached to my lens. This helps to reduce the glare and allows for a certain amount of control over the lighting. I will also usually expose for the brightest areas and let everything else simply fall where it wants to within the exposure. I do this by shooting on Aperture Priority and then using the +/- exposure compensation to bring the brightly lit areas into an exposure range where detail becomes apparent. Then during post processing I will bump the mid-tones and dark areas up a bit to bring the image exposure more inline across the full spectrum of what was captured.

HDR is of course another option, where you take a series of images using different exposure values and allowing the software to blend them into a finished, more evenly exposed image. As this blog is mostly for novice and less experienced photographers, I'll leave the HDR discussion on the table for another time, but I will say HDR, although it has its place, is better suited for certain kinds of lighting situations like inside a Cathedral. The idea with a photograph in my opinion is to make it look natural and HDR, unless it is expertly crafted, can often make the image appear a bit "Over Cooked".

Many times, photographers at all levels will make the assumption that whenever they are photographing something, they must capture the scene as though it is an exact replication of what was seen. Yes, sometimes this actually does work, however, creative photography allows for you the photographer to capture less about what you see visually, and more about what you felt while you were there. This is open to interpretation by each photographer, but photographing the deep woods is a perfect opportunity to explore this concept.

What you want to accomplish is to create an image that imparts that sense of place and wonder. The Deep woods is often filled with both, but you have to not only look for it, you must feel for it as well. Sometimes it is just a momentary glimpse, the way a tree hangs out over a creek, they way a large boulder fills the frame, or how the trees themselves line up...or any other number of ways.

Photographing the deep woods can be one of the most inspiring and challenging of photographic opportunities. Just keep open the idea of capturing what you feel and look for those compositions that reveal the essence of the woods you encounter.

What The Ansel Adams Style Project Taught Me

When I started one of the most interesting photographic projects I've ever tried, The Ansel Adams Style Project, I wasn't sure where it would lead, but discovered along the way just how important a project like this can become. I never believed I would ever attain the prowess of the name sake of this adventure, but this project proved itself not only fun and rewarding, but instructional and revealing. What the venture taught me will be carried forward in my seemingly never ending quest to capture that one perfect image and hopefully provided a measure of inspiration to continue pursuing this fascinating form of photography known as Black and White.

I've always been a huge fan of black and white photography having had my early development as a photographer heavily influenced by its nuances. More often than not though most of the time in more recent years I simply would take color images and realize later how they would actually look better as a black and white, then convert them. The Ansel Adams style project forced me to look at the world through a black and white filter to do what Ansel learned during his development as a photographer, to visualize the outcome before ever snapping the shutter.

Visualization. A process of knowing the results before they occur. It is probably the most difficult aspect of photography for most people to fully grasp. Even experienced and technically competent photographers often struggle with its significance. Yet, it is one aspect I have attempted to refine over the years, not always successfully, but in a manner where I begin to experience the excitement of creating what I see in my minds eye.

Along with Visualization, I've always tried to live within the creative confinement of the art form, looking for light in all of its forms. Doing so sometimes causes one to drift toward being, dare I say, a bit depressed, because, well I do not always find the inspiration to create what resides within all artists. Searching for such things can become a bit futile when attempt after attempt falls short of expectations...and then...all of sudden, it falls into place. One such moment occurred during this project when I hiked into Shanty Hollow and discovered to my delight one of the most dramatic moments of light I've ever encountered. These are the events that make it all worth the effort, when stage, moment, and light converge to present the delicate flavors of nature in a magnificent encounter.

Worth all the effort? Actually, the effort came naturally, what was revealed was just how important it is to try something new every once in a while, to jump start creative instincts, to reopen the imagination,and to even relive and re-experience what the great masters might have accomplished. 

What I outwardly gained from this project I can only share in a feeble attempt at writing about it. What was truly gained resides inward in a deeper context of revelation and accomplishment. Rarely am I moved by the photographs I take, yet somehow when I view the haunting image taken within Shanty Hollow, I understand more fully why I started the project in the first place.

The Ansel Adams project started as a "let's see what turns up" kind of adventure. It finished as one of the most inspirational and exciting projects I've ever attempted. Even though I've set it aside as an exclusive project for now, it's really not over, for I will continue to explore this fascinating form of photography. Who knows, maybe that one great photograph I've been chasing will be generated from this ancient form of photography captured in a most unlikely place.

The Ansel Adams Project