Creativity

Hey Photo-bloggers, 

We've been diving into the amazing 12 elements of a photograph based on The Photographic Exhibitions Committee's standards. We have gone over impact and technical excellence and today we will discuss one of my favorites and in my opinion, the most important, creativity!

Creativity to me is taking a form of medium mixing it together to express an idea, message, or emotion. When we talked about impact we mentioned something similar, where we intended to create a piece that gave the viewer a strong impression of emotion. Creativity is similar to that and can work hand in hand with impact because we use creativity to express impact. I have found that many of the 12 elements of a photograph can play hand and hand with each other and in fact, a photograph is only truly strong when it has all the pieces.

Here are some examples of my creativity this week:

Sometimes for me, my muse is gone on vacation but I was able find some interesting shots this week that anyone can manage in their backyard. The top is of our cat. I love this because I played with the lighting and illuminated her whiskers. In the bottom picture, I laid in the grass and angled the camera to get an almost mystical view of the yard.

The one thing I love the most about being creative is that anyone and everyone has a creative flare and each person brings something different to their art. You can not go wrong with your creativity and no matter how young or how old you may be you can always be creative.

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Hey guy,
For those of you that check in every week I apologize for this week's post being pushed back a week, I was actually dealing with some health issues and could not get to the computer in time to upload these amazing pictures.
Next week we will be diving into Style and how it can affect your photo!
I have decided to switch my uploading days from Fridays to Saturdays. I hope this works out for everyone so no one misses out!
Hope to see you next week!
~Amanda

Technical Excellence

The second element in The Photographic Exhibitions Committee (PEC) of PPA's 12 elements of being an amazing photographer is Technical excellence. This usually means the print quality of the photo. Some think this is the physical quality of the print (such as those who deal in film and develop their own photographs). I deal strictly in digital so we do post production editing such as touch ups, getting all the imperfections out of the image, and creating sharpness. Some even go as far as photo manipulation by using programs such as photoshop that allow them to artificially create amazing and crazy scenes. 

At R.E.A.L. Photography we try to keep our images as realistic as possible and try to stay away from photo manipulation. That being said, we do touch up our photos and get the images as sharp as possible. I use lightroom first and then transition to photoshop if there is any big projects to fix. 

Two of my favorite ways of getting a sharper picture without using sharpness is to bump up the clarity and vibrance. Clarity can sometimes make the image darker without meaning too but it also clears up the image, and vibrancy enhances the color without over saturating the color.

Sometimes you need to bump up the sharpness because there is no other way to get fine details. Sharpness is great in small doses but be careful. It can cause a lot of grain in the background that you wouldn't noticed until after you print or blog up the picture. 

Try to fiddle with the luminance instead. This feature is a god send in my opinion. It reduces background noise that causes the graininess and blurs just enough while also sharpening the features of the subject. 

Fixing up the images isn't the only steps to make the images technically perfect. You have to print them properly. Some people think that going to Sears or Walmart is the cheapest way to go but sometimes this can cause your print quality to start lacking. As a photographer I do not recommend going to places like this. However, if you are starting up and need a place that is cheap but also has a good quality I would recommend Shutterfly. They have many more options than other places and allow for full customizations. 

Hope these tips helped up your photography game and maybe your Photography Technical Excellence will reach a 10 out of 10!

Check back next Saturday for Element 3: Creativity!

Impact

To have impact according to Dictonary.com is "to have an impact or effect on; influence; alter", but for a photographer impact is more of a strong impression on the viewer. Some type of emotion, be it happiness, anger, sadness, loneliness, joy, pride, etc. According to the Photographic Exhibitions Committee (PEC) of PPA, impact is one of the 12 elements that creates a successful piece of art, even photography. There can also be impact within the other 12 elements of photography as well.

Anyone can take a successful photograph, but capturing an impactful photo can be quite a challenge. My version of impact (keeping in mind my low budget, time frame, and space) is actually one I took a few years ago. It doesn't have the best quality but the impact for me is huge.

To me this image expresses a sense of loneliness but yet a light in the darkness. Hope when all may be lost. From an aesthetic point of view I found that focusing on the bright part of the wick and allowing only the top part of the candle to shine brought about this emotion.

Another wonderful aspect of impact is that each viewer sees the image differently. Some may not see my image as impactful like I do, but maybe this image:

Missouri Capitol Building- 2016

is more impactful bringing a sense of pride or wonderment. I took this picture for a school photography class a year ago. The nightshot light from all angles gives an odd look many don't see. Another image that spoke to me was this one:

Old barn from Fulton State Hospital

A sense of sadness, due to the buildings old exterior comes to mind.

All these images have a different impact for different people. You do not have to go far or be a super professional photographer to capture something impactful. Let me know what you guys think about how impactful my photos are, what I could change, some creative ideas, and maybe add some of your own.

Next weekend I will talk about Technical excellence and what that means for your photography.

impact. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged. Retrieved August 6, 2017 from Dictionary.com website http://www.dictionary.com/browse/impact