Practice cropping the components of photos

Photographers sometimes have to set up the canvas, not like an artist, which means being aware of different compositions.

Composition contains elements of 1. lights, 2. colors, 3. texture (details of the surface), 4. moments (what moment could be significant), 5. shape (creates dynamics and harmony), 6. perspective (A photographer or subject's points of view. ex. Eye level to a subject, such as the same eye level as a baby in baby portrait.)

It takes time to master all, and I have not learned all elements correctly, yet. But today, I focus on showing how to practice cropping the 4. Moments and 6. Perspective (especially angle) in your daily life moments. 

Let's get started.

First of all, grab any frame you have. If you don't have a frame, get a thick paper and cut inside by leaving 2- 3 cm all the corner of the paper.

Now, you go around your home (or outside), and put a frame, like covering objects, over what you see in front.

Next, slowly move the frame to up, down, right, and left. It could be diagonal. Once you find the best angle and perspective, grab your phone and take photos along with the frame.

That's it. Super easy.

Your eyes won't catch the moment right away, but the more you practice, the more you get used to seeing the best angle and perspective of the scene. It means the speed of you determining which objects are included gets faster, and you can take more photos, and more variety of photos can come out.

This is a photo from the morning. I thought that my usual morning routine, checking SNS while making a coffee could be a “scene” and added flowers onto the kitchen table.

This is from one of the Saturday mornings. I cooked cacao banana flour-less pancake and did figure drawing while eating them.

My grandma used to use this purse for a long time. After she passed away, I’ve been using this purse. surprisingly,It’s made for my camera in size wise. And it still has a space left. Love it.

Now, you know how to, so practice with your real life scenes; after cooking, or during cooking, having a tea, after shopping, during running, in receiving a package, etc.…

Anything you think normal or even a scene you don’t notice can be photogenic.

So, here I leave examples of photos I took, only the food photos made for my breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Please ignore the colors and white balance, but focus on angles and objects with food.

Hope you will practice and find your own way of photo shooting : )

Thank you so much for reading, and see you in the next post.

Snapshot -practice by seeing the view from the other side-

I'd rather see than being seen. That's for sure I knew. But it was a good experience with a professional photographer. Communication and getting to know about the person you take are important for the portrait photography. 

Thank you, my friend. All credits: Andri Tambunan

Photography: Andri Tambunan
Edit: harumi 

How to edit a portrait photo like vintage style

This post is about Portrait. But beside of portrait photo techniques, I'd like to cover 'how to edit a portrait photo like vintage style.' This editing works out mainly in the scene along with flowers or the forest. 
(*The technical side of shooting the portrait, please give me time, and I will post about the topic. )

Here, the photo above is my sister, and we had this shooting at the grandma's house last month. 
I like her smiling, but also her eyes look at the lens with the look "I know how you do." It was just naturally collaborated with my sister. Love it. 

After posting the original photo on Instagram, maybe this photo could be right in the vintage style. 

So here how I did. (Please click the right side of the photo below to see other adjustment tools)

Used VSCO

1. Contrast
I usually like high variations, but this time skipped contrast. It's because the original photo has the strong color differences in its antithesis, and this photo would want to go with the low-tone vintage look.  So I got them even -2.0 to make her and black tops look softer. 

2. Sharpen/Clarity
Those are important in a portrait shot. I like high sharpen and low clarity personally. But again, because of the original photo had a good resolution in it, so just left Sharpen +4.0 and clarity is as usual, between +2.5 and +3.5. 

3. Saturation/White Balance
Those are easy. Make sure that you always control those two elements for colder or warmer look. Again, if you could adjust 'Saturation' and 'White balance' for cooler/warmer looking, you can make any types of photo styles. 
This time is about vintage look, so saturation is -1.0 (did not go over beyond since the filter and contrast gave enough greyish tone. ) 
In White Balance, green was a little bit went beyond that I usually do, and it's also connected to the next step. 

4. Skin Tone
After editing so much to make the photo look greyish, greenish, and low-tone, we cannot just leave without adjusting the face color of the person. 
So when you adjust Saturation/White Balance, remember that changing Skin-Tone comes as a combo set. 

5. Fade/Grain
Finally, Fade (!).  Fade dramatically works out the portrait vintage look photo. The tools provided a photo softness and polished in the way of "polled off." 
I actually (well, at least for me) challenged to +5.0. Adding Fade is my nervous point in editing. It's because it could ruin colors, contrast, or even the feeling of the object's character. But sometimes have to try this out drastically to break our comfortable zone. And I don't think I perfectly got this done. But I am happy that I could try to go beyond my comfort area. 

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Lastly, let's go review.  
1. Contrast could be the negative number if a model outfit is too dark or the original photo has the strong color sense. 
2. High Sharpen is a key to define the face, but Clarity could kill the softness of the portrait face. 
3. Control Saturation and White Balance and keep your eyes on the balance between the filter strength and those adjustments. 
4. Use Skin Tone always after Saturation and White Balance to modify a model's skin color. (It's ultimate priority to make her/him look in a certain way.) 
5. Level of Fade is under your preference. Use Fade for the portrait that gives the sense of the softness in the end. 

Thank you so much for reading. Hope you got learnt something from reviewing the photo with me. 

See you in the next post :) 

How to edit a photo taken by your phone (clear light look)

Hi there, again! 

As I promised in the last post, I would like to guide you 'how to edit a photo taken by your phone with a bright/clear light look. 
This mainly works out for the nature scene or food at the cafe. 

For a bright/clear look, I usually use 1) Photoshop mobile app. 
The app works out pretty well on enhance and make a picture clearer. 
So it's not focused on for Instagrammed looks or vintage style. 
It's for the situation that you took a photo where no light and only the natural light is available. 
In the situation, you still can make your photo at least the decent level to share with someone. 

So let's get started. 

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I took the photo here last week when we had lunch at a Japanese restaurant. It was a beautiful atmosphere around the old traditional house. I sneakily took a picture of outside garden below from the room I was eating. 

This looks very ordinary photo taken by a mobile phone. For the nature photo including a building is actually an excellent component to define light and contrast on a picture. 
To add lights on greens, contrast, and white balance can be done on Photoshop. 

before editing demonstration, let me give you a tip on an angle. 

Angle
When you want to take a photo of a part of natures, include a pillar of a part of the building on the bottom or the left side of a photo frame, but do not make them focused in the structure. It just an optional object to pull out the bright green side/blue side of the primary purpose, which is natures. 

Although the photo above is from the corner, I personally like the edge from the bottom and look up at the trees because it gives a picture has the feeling that audiences are inside the forest. 

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Edit
Let's edit the original photo. 
Here is the process of editing on Photoshop Express. Please take a look. 

Shadow: -50
Black: -70
White: -104
Tint: -27
Exposure: 8
Clarity: 45
 

Tip1: Enhance
First of all, Photoshop has the tool of Enhance. I set up that it automatically applies to an uploaded photo onto the app. This time, I did not use the device because Enhance actually deleted the colors of different colors of greens. 

Tip2: Filter
Next, choose your favorite filter. I usually use 'Koi.' It gives automatically adjusted contrast, shadow/light, and white balance.
But here is a warning part. Filter level is auto adjustment setting, so you need to adjust by yourself if it's too bright or too dark to make your photo your style. 

This photo below was done by the automatic setting.  As compared with the #1 photos of the editing process, you can see the automatic setting filter is too blight and kills the greens by lights, and also a whole definition of the photo is broad. 

The right side: Self-adjusted
The left side: Automatic adjustment

Tip 3: Crop
An advice here is that 'Crop.'  As mentioned above, having a pillar or additional object with a snapshot nature scene provides a picture of the sense that you sneak peak the moment, and audiences feel they are in that. 

When the photo includes a pillar or something objects, I'd recommend to add them on the bottom or the left side of the frame. 

In the original photo, I had the winder frame and pillars from the left side through the right side. The perspective, which the image is getting open to the right, is psychologically useful since the movement of human or objects from left to right means from the past to the future. 

However, I cropped them off and left the bottom side and a little bit the left side. It's because the primary purpose here is the traditional green garden outside, and pull out the beautiful lights and colors. So I left only the limited parts of the pillars and the window frame. 

Tip4: Exposure
Exposure is a handy tool in a nature photo, particularly in a lot of greenish pictures. It's because greens are the opposite color of the sunshine orange color. So this creates a sharp contrast, and lights give greens shiny in their way. 

However, Exposure does not work out well in a content of no contrast or definition in the original photo. Let's say that the bright sunlight with the beach sands. It becomes just a "bright" photo. No playful space on that. 

This time, I added Exposure because greens are the primary object and the sunlight perfectly looked from the behind leaves. So basically, I pulled the sunshine light out to stand them out. 
 

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Lastly, let's go review... 
1. Include an additional object on the left side or the bottom to feel inside the scene.
2. Use Enhance to polish your photo first. BUT not necessary in case it brews the colors off. 
3. Don't trust a Filter 100% and always your eyes are the last key.
4. Crop a photo in the perspective of getting open from the left side to the right side. 
5. Have Exposure (bright light) onto the whole picture to lighten up the primary object's color. And only use it for a photo already has contrasts. 
 

If you have any questions, suggestions, or photo style you want to learn, please email me. 

Thank you so much for reading. : ) See you in the next post! 

Photos are available to be shared!

1. Austin, TX, USA

2. Berlin, Germany

3. Tokeshi, Yomitan son, Okinawa

4. Uza, Yomitan son, Okinawa

5. Onna son, Okinawa

6. Onna son, Okinawa

7. Naha, Okinawa

8. Senaha, Yomitan-son, Okinawa

9. Zakimi Castle Park, Yomitan-son, Okinawa

10. Zakimi Castle Park, Yomitan-son, Okinawa

11. Kirishima, Kagoshima.

12. Taipei City, Taiwan

In the past three years, I've obsessed with flower/plant photography. I always liked flowers and plants for little ages. 

After moving to Okinawa, I started taking photos of flowers on the street or someone's backyard. Okinawa is the place where naturally flowers and plants are grown, and they are so matching with the colors of the island. 

While I am living here, everywhere I traveled to, my attention goes to flowers and plants in the city. 

After accumulating flower photos, I thought that they can be visible to people, and can deliver the beautiful side of them. 

So, here all photos are available to be shared. If they catch you, please contact me (celebration.of.apricot@gmail.com), and I will send data for free.
Also, if you would like to have them as a card or a large size of a printed version, please contact me as well. I will coordinate and provide in a specific condition you are thinking. 

Thank you for reading the post and if you have any comments, suggestions, or inquiries, please leave a comment below or contact me through Email. I will respond to it. 

:)