Dear Elisabeth,
nice to hear that you are getting into the great hobby of photography. I started with photography at about the age of 14 and a couple of friends did photography, too. I studied biology and a lot of the students had cameras and were using them frequently. Now, if I see young people most of them are not interesting in photography. They have their smartphones (which can be great tools also for photography) but they don't do the step into photography as a hobby.
What I like about photography is that it helps you to see the world that surrounds you more consciously and that you get eyes for beautiy - often where no ones else sees it.
But now to your photography - your next steps towards a great photographer:
When I did first steps in photography it was analog photography. I used slides and when I pressed the release button all I could do about the photo was done - and I received the result - the feedback if I was successful - after a few days when the potman brought the letter with the slides from the lab.
Today things are different an you have a lot of options to change the look of your photos - either in the camera or in post-processing. You can change the settings of the computer within your camera that generates the JPG files - and you have much more options to improve things afterwards. Thus a first step could be to have a look at your camera and what settings you can make. I have Pentax cameras and they give me a lot of options: I can select colour profiles, grades of sharpness and contrast, options to avoid highlight clipping or that help me to get shaddows a little bit lighted up. The first years of digital photography I tried to improve these settings - but now I became a RAW shooter - I am no longer interested in JPG files that are processed by the camera anymore as a good photo needs the settings right to the point - and no camera will do that. I use the DxO software which I like very much - but I saw that the freeware RawTherapee improved a lot during the last years and became a nice tool.
If you are doing postprocessing you can not just improve the quality of the colours or to some extend also sharpness - you can also crop the photo, adjust the horizon and bring the things you are just learning about (rule of thirds etc.), bring symmetries to the point, remove not wanted elements by cropping, adjust contrast or even generate pseudo HDR photos that get a better distribution of brightness over your photo - to brigthen up shaddows or dark parts and make bright parts (e.g. a pale sky) darker and more intensiv.
It's on you to go into extreme settings - there is no rule that a photo always have to reflect the reality - you can use your digital photos as templates for digital art and impressive views on the world.
A look at the clock at the church tower revealed a problem of your photos: you were out at the wrong time! Around noon the light is worst of day. It's much better to start early in the morning or late in the evening - best times are the golden hour before sunset or after sunrise or the blue hour before sunrise or after sunset.
Regarding the aperture I only close as far ys you did when I need a deep deepness of field. If you close aperture you have parts near by and far away within the DOF - the zone of sharpness - but the sharpness is overall reduced by an effect called diffraction. For an APS-C camera with 16 MP the effect fo diffraction is lowest arounf f=8.0. But as a photographer I would try to make the decision for the aperture on the needs of the object - and often it is better to decide for one object to let it be sharp - and have everything else not sharp - so open the aperture as much as possible! If you focus on a main object things become more clear and less confusing.
I noticed that you were trying to respect hte rule of thirds in a couple of photos. What is possible depends on your camera - you could either change the focus point to your object if your camera offers the selection of multiple focus point - or you take the central point - make a measurement at your object, keep the releas button half pressed to stroe the settings - and select the crop for your photo and take it after the proportions and borders are like you want them.
What aperture did you use - to me it look like a big aperture (low number - f=2.8 or so) - or your camera did not offer a focus so close to the lens - there a limits for macro photos depending on the lens. Looking at the photo: why not portrait format - turn the camera by 90° and you get your object better covered and have not a big extend of a space without information or beauty.
A look at 8169 - do you see the face within the front of the house with its own symmetry? crop the photo and let the symmetry make the phot an eye-catcher. Rule: find the symmetry and bring it straight in your photo! (same for 8178)
8172: It is a good idea to give the photo more deepness by having things in the front - but the fence does not work good and the flowers are to far away - I would try to cover the flowers better. Rule: get as close as possible to your object! It should fill your photo or be at least the biggest part within it.
Rule: a look through not sharp structures in the front give the photo more of deepness - you tried it in 8193 - but here the structure in the front covers part of the object. A step to the right may have solved the problem.
8219 is nice - but I would crop it - to much background - try to find a crop with a few sharp flowers in the front - maybe you will even be able to respect the rule of thirds.
same for 8222
8230 is nice - in postprocessing you may could improve it (intensity of colours ...)
8236 is very nice - but if posssible it youd have been better to take the crop a little bit more to the right - the number would be a nice eqe catcher according the golden ratio (rule of thirds) - it would give the photo a better harmony.
8238 is nice - but why did you cut the flowers a the bottom? A liitle bit more down with the camera would have been better. I like to take the angle always a little wider than necessary for the intniton of my photo - by this way I have some space for corrections by cropping.
To avoid this need I should use a tripod. Many people say that their photography improved a lot after they started to use a tripod - as they were forced to make conscious decisions about the content and the relation of it in the photo - it was a step from point-and shoot towards photography. I use a tripod not very often - but many photos I do in a way like using a tripod - changing positon, looking through the viewfinder very closely - and press the releas button after I am 100 % satisfied.
8251 is nice - why not making th sky dramatic by post-prcessing?
8261 is a nice view on the church tower - it would be possible to get rid of the wires in postprocessing. I would do it in this photo - I like wires only if the beginning or at least a structure where they are fixed is visible in the photo - otherwise they disturb.
No shame - people woh think that they know anything and have no need to learn anymore are nearly dead - there is always room for improvement - not just for young people.
More experinced photographers can give you ideas and rules how to improve - but maybe even more important is your own experience -and looking at good photos (and asking yourself, why this photo is a good one). On dpreview you will find a lot of very good photos. I have Bing installed to give me the desktop photo on my computer - I am often surprised about the phtotgrapic ideas I find there - a good source to improve your skills in seeing - and getting inspiration for your own photography.
Best regards
Holger
Dear Holger,
I thank you very much for such a detailed and wonderful reply to my questions. Your feedback in truly appreciated and taken into account. I will try to work on all your suggestions and be certain to not go out during such harsh lights.
But I do have one question in that matter: What happens when you're stuck in those harsh hours, see a shot you like and only have that chance to take it? What's the best tip to still getting a picture worth keeping?
Dear Elisabeth,
all the tips are general rules - there may be situations where they are not important or where you have no chance to respect them.
If I have to take photos in harsh light it depends on what kind of photos you want to take.
- portraits in harsh sunlight will not just cause harsh shadows but also may has the effect that people have to close their eyes (twinkle). You can try to get into shadow (under some trees) and you will find some soft light there.
Maybe you want to take photos in a town - there, you can take into consideration the harsh shadows as part of your photo. My Pentax K5 and also K-S1 has an option to add some shadow correction and mechanism to avoid highlight clipping - I put them on and so the dark shadows won't be that dark anymore and you can see what's within them. The strongest setting of this feature may result into artificial look photos - if your camera offers something like this I would try to do some tests.
This photo was taken around noon - I don't think that the shadows destroy the photo even though there would be times of the day where the light may add some more "magic" to the photo.
This scene in a town on the mediterranean island Menorca. The shadow lightening feature of my camera was set to maximum:
If you want to take some macros shoots there can't be too much light - but you may want to cover the object from direct and harsh sunlight - for this reason my umbrella I may take with me for a walk will be a white one - I can use it as cover for rain or sun - and also as a diffusor or reflector of light (and it helped to exclude wind a little, too).
I would also try to shoot RAW and not JPG - if a shadow is a big black area in your photo most of the time you will be able to make some kind of pseudo-HDR in post-processing and light up the structures within the shadow.
Maybe even HDR (series of many photos with different exposure times (overexposed, underexposed, normally exposed calculated into one single photo)). You can do this with normal bracketing and doing the calculations on your computer or have a camera that does this when it calculates the JPG - like many Pentax cameras do.
Sometimes we take photos not just to produce a perfect piece of art but to do some kind of documentation - just to show our friends at home what we discovered - so there never will be a time of day or year where you should leave your camera at home. Maybe it is even your intention to use the harsh light for a certain statement you want to make with your photo.
Sometimes it is possible to avoid not favourable aspects of a time of day or a certain situation. e.g. if you want to take some photos at bad weather. Often a nearly white sky makes the photos look bad - but if you try to avoid to have some sky on your photos - just take photos of a town, of people, trees, ... - you maybe surprised about nice looking photos you took at soft light of a day full of clouds.
But if you have a chance to be out with your camera at the golden or the blue our - take it!
Here are a few examples of photos that would not work without the magic of this special light:
The best you can do is taking photos as often as you can do. Profession comes with doing and reflecting the things you did. The internet is a great source of growing and becoming more professional. Maybe you want to share your photos with us and you will find some people on this or other forums that will give some feedback - and here sometimes a bad feedback helps better than flummery. I also look quite frequently at youtube to find some video clips teaching aspects of photography. It's so easy to get into some new techniques and improvements these days!
Best regards7
Holger
I realised after all your feedbacks that I have to work a lot on really focusing what I want to show in an image. Sometimes while yes, I would like the entire landscape to be clear and sharp... Still ask myself, what is the focal point of the image? Right?
I hope I understood all your teachings. You must forgive me for the technical terms of photography is still very foreign to me. I try everyday to understand aperture, DoF, shutter speed and ect more and more but even after four years I still don't think I've moved past to a new level of photography. Haha I suppose I am more embarrassed for taking so long to hone my skills even with having such a beautiful camera.
But as I've founded out by all you wonderfully helpful people, dpreview is a great place to come asking for guidance! So I thank you all
