You Can Click!

We all come across hundreds of pictures everyday. On the streets, on the internet, newspapers.. Everywhere! We quickly assume that the photographers who click these amazing photos must be exceptionally trained and carrying equipment worth thousands. Maybe 10 years ago that would have been a relevant thought, but the recent rush in cheap technology has made it possible for everyone to create fascinating images, sitting at home!
All you need is a decent digital (film?) camera and a reasonably fast computer, and you're all set!

Here at YouCanClick, you'll learn all the skills necessary to surprise your friends and family, and also to make a living by selling stock photography and photo blogging!

Stay Tuned!

The Basics: Rule Of Thirds

Turning everyday snapshots to great pictures!

The Rule of Thirds is one of the most basic compositional rules that is used in every visual art form (Photography, Advertising, Design, Painting etc.)

It's actually is often overlooked by amateur photographers who don't realize that by applying this rule, the simplest of shots can be rendered extremely visually appealing and artsy!

The basic principle behind the rule of thirds is to imagine breaking an image down into thirds (both horizontally and vertically) so that you have 9 parts. (See the picture)

As you’re taking an image you do this in your mind through your viewfinder or in the LCD display that you use to frame your shot.

With this grid in mind the ‘rule of thirds’ now identifies four important parts of the image that you should consider placing points of interest in as you frame your image.

Moreover, it also gives you four ‘lines’ that are useful positions for the key elements of your photo.

The theory behind this is that if you place points of interest on the intersections or along the lines, your photo becomes more balanced and will enable a viewer of the image to interact with it more naturally. Scientific studies have shown that when viewing images that people’s eyes usually go to one of the intersection points most naturally rather than the center of the shot - hence the rule of thirds works with this natural way of viewing an image rather than working against it!

Below, are a few more pictures. See if you can identify the Rule of Thirds in action in each of them!

Now, some of you may point out the fourth image (the water drop). Right! The drop is in the dead center of the image, hence transgressing the rule. But that's how it is with certain subjects! Each angle/composition gives a different view of the scene, so sometimes it's good to follow what "looks" appropriate.

After all, rules are meant to be broken! So don't always stick to this rule, because as with everything in art : There are no rules!

Just Remember: If it looks good to you, it'll look good to a lot of other people!

Capturing a Water Drop

The 5 minute tutorial!

Materials required-

A bucket full of water, a tripod(optional), a camera (Preferably SLR) with manual focus and flash. Oh and yea, if you ever paid attention to the kinematics classes in school (!!), it won’t take more than a few minutes to master this technique!

Arrangement

Place the bucket at shown in the picture (here I used another empty bucket placed upside down underneath it so I don't have to bend down to see through the view finder, and also so that I could easily fix and use the tripod)

Remember to shoot at an angle to the background, otherwise the result will be something like-

Focus

This is a very important step. To focus your camera to produce crystal clear pictures, keep a pen where the water drops are falling at about 1cm above the water level, and focus. Most photographers suggest manual focus in this but I preferred focusing automatically first and then manually making minor adjustments. Once you have your focus, don’t swap to AF mode, otherwise your camera will get confused and de-focus it! (yes, camera’s are dumb!)

Camera Settings

Always have the flash on (unless you have very strong studio-like artificial light). On most cameras this will limit your shutter speed to 1/200s, which I found adequate. But if you can have strong artificial light sources, I’d suggest going for a 1/500s shutter speed. This will give you a crystal clear image, usable for large blow ups! Aperture also has to be small. I shot these at f/13, but anything above f/9 will work (if you have smaller aperture don’t stick to f/9. That is for cameras which don’t feature smaller apertures!). If the camera you use doesn’t have that small an aperture control, worry not! With the shutter speed at 1/200 and the ISO at 50-100, pleasing results can be had.

Once all of the above is achieved, you’re all set to go… well.. almost!

The most important step in capturing a water drop is eventually timing. Ever wondered why they taught you those three equations of motion? Well, if you really learnt them back in high school, put yourself to a test!

Basically, when you’ve setup the camera, stop looking through the viewfinder. Fix your composition, take a few test shots and then just back off from the view finder and observe the water drop. If you have the shutter speed at 1/200, you’ll probably be fine clicking when the drop is about half way through its journey (Kinematics=3/4th the time of the journey)

Once check to be made so you don’t scream over hundreds of out of focus pictures is the hand test. I happened to click 66 pictures out of focus, which looked pretty neat on the camera’s screen, but were useless when expanded on my computer, like the one below..

To fix this, place your hand right behind to the falling water drop (not touching)and click a picture of the drop. See closely and ensure that your hand is OUT OF FOCUS. A droplet is roughly 0.5-1cm thick and even a very small focus fault can leave you nowhere.

Time to Shoot!

Now that you have everything in place, click according to your will!! There are many phases of a falling drop, and many more angles at which you can capture them (Warning:Don’t go more than 45 degrees vertical or you’ll see small scattered flashes in the middle of your drop, like in the one below).

Experiment with your composition, use different colored buckets for different colored drops. You can use a variety of backgrounds too. Try blowing the drop when its falling to give a breezy effect. And, if you’re insane like me, put an iron grind blend of water in a plastic bag, make a pin-hole in the bag, and use a magnet to pull the small grains of iron just before they splash! Photography is all about thinking differently, and if you can think it, you can do it!

Do share your experiences with water shooting!!

Keep Clicking,
Arjun