Photo details #1


A Slippery Slope

In my last blog post I talked about how keeping an eye on the details in a photograph can make all the difference between a passable and a great photo. It's something I try to apply to my work both during the shoot and in the post processing. I also find it hard not to pick up on such things when viewing others images. I can totally understand however photographers just starting out having much on their minds and not noticing the little details.


Beyond the subject

As I said previously, the background is probably one of the areas most overlooked and something I notice quite regularly are "wonky" pictures. Whilst I believe there are no real set rules in photography and that photographing at an angle can work, I also believe that doing so can often be tricky to pull off and needs to appear intentional. Anything else to me just looks sloppy. 
I recently saw a selection of wedding pictures that had been posted and was shocked to see a lot of the outside set piece shots were at a slight angle (either that or the building had a major subsidence problem! Lol). Even the classic bride looking out the window was slightly askew. 
It becomes even more of an issue when an image involves a body of water as apart from being good for water skiing, sloping seas, lakes etc just look totally wrong!


Missed it in the viewfinder?

With the array of tools available in post processing there isn't really any excuse for releasing images without correcting problems that might have been overlooked during shooting and can be easily corrected. It's a case of carefully examining the whole picture and recognising possible problems within it. 
It's usually obvious when elements of a picture should be straight, but when it comes to pictures with strong converging vertices and 2 or 3 point perspectives, then often there are not going to be any pure vertical or horizontal lines. However care still needs to be taken to ensure projected vanishing points are correctly placed to make the image appear upright.

It's a small thing that can make a picture look more polished. :)

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