What Makes A Photo Come Alive

• A beautiful subject that you just can't take your eyes off 

• Background and foreground blurred-out sublimely, drawing the eye to your subject

• Leading-lines, balanced-elements, color-harmony - all meshing together, seamlessly

A good photograph has one or more of these going for it.

A great photograph has all-of-the-above, working together, in a symphony-for-our-eyes.

But the ingredient that makes a photograph go from great to unforgettable is something that captures the most fleeting of things - the one quality that moves us, makes us human.

Emotion.

So as you compose your next picture, and you see the form, shape, and texture of your muse fall into place, breathe life into the frame by filling it up with the heart of Emotion.

Happy Photographing!

A MILLION TIME-MACHINES...ALL AROUND

'If only I could go back in time...'

Every single time you've had that thought, it's almost always a specific moment in time you want to go back to - that thrilling rush of invincibility you felt on your very first road-trip with your friends; the light blush of sweet-warm you held in your heart, taking The Vows of True-Love; that gentle hush you whispered, as you gazed into the eyes of your first-born.

While you might think that these moments are now but distant memories - magical markers of times all passed-by, there is a key that unlocks time-travel.

A photograph.

That imprint of time-itself, penned by the greatest of scribes - Light.

So as you look through your camera's lens, and you click away at that smile, that mile, know that you're capturing portals of posterity - ones that you can return to over and over again, every time you pick up and peer into your pictures.

Happy Photographing!

How You Can Turn Day Into Night

The sun blazes in the sky. Light blinds your eye. And yet, there is this beautiful bit of something in that moment that you'd love to hold onto, forever : you want to freeze-frame it into a photograph.

So, you try, and try, and try. Then you find out that you just cannot do it.

Too. Much. Light.

While light is almost always your best-friend, when it comes to photography,  there are those rare occasions, when you can do with less of it. One evening, in March, was one such time for me.

4PM. Lakeside. The sun was still up in the sky; still very bright. Every once in a while, I'd catch a silvery ripple of light, over the waves. It would glisten gently for just a few seconds, and then it would be gone. Only to reappear, gleaming again, in some other part of the lake.

That sparkle on the water was what I wanted to capture. So, with the Av shooting-mode, and f-stop set to 4.0, I clicked my camera.

A splash of bright-white was all I got.

"Can't do it." I thought. 

Too. Much. Light.

I was about to turn away, to look at other interesting subjects to photograph. But that rippling sheen would just keep coming back, at the corners of my eyes. It was almost like it was calling for a second-look.

So I looked once more. And I started thinking - 'If decreasing the f-stop increases light coming onto the sensor, then to decrease the light coming in, I should start...'

f4.0 to f4.5 to f5.0 to f5.6 to f6.3...I kept increasing the f-stop. And I kept clicking away.

The sky started to get darker. The waves began showing up slowly. And then...with the aperture set to it's smallest opening - f32, the lake shimmered with starshine! 

And as a hidden bonus, with this high of an f-stop, everything from the near-end of the lake, to the trees in the distance, all the way to the sun above, all of it came out in focus (zero background-blur!).

So the next time you look around, and you see a slice of magic in the moment that you have to take with you, but you find yourself awash with light, know that you have a trick to turn day to night - a trick to disappear bright light.

Happy Photographing!

3 Tips To Get Great Photos

If I could put everything I've learned about photography into three basics, that will immediately bump up the quality of your pictures, it would be these:

1. TAKE your camera! (and your lens(es))

You have that DSLR you've always wanted. You've got the perfect prime-lens, the snazziest zoom-lens. It's time to head out. And you're thinking "What a load to carry! Just this one time, I simply want to enjoy the moment - not go hauling this weight around, wandering, and clicking away."

Every time you wonder - 'should I or shouldn't I ?', know that the answer is always the same - 'TAKE IT!'

All the great light, the beautiful color, that one special look on a face - none of it can be captured as well as you can with your dedicated camera and your equipment.

2. TURN your dial to Av (Aperture Value)

The three sides of 'The Triangle' that makes a picture come out as your eye sees it are :

• f-Stop (that controls the width of your lens' opening or aperture)
• Shutter-Speed (the time for which your lens' aperture is open)
• ISO (your camera's sensitivity to light)

Of these, the simplest one you can control is f-Stop. And the trickiest to set, quickly, for fast-moving-subjects, is Shutter-Speed.

By setting your shooting-mode to Av (or Aperture Value), you are taking control of f-Stop , and your camera does the hard-work of calculating the correct Shutter-Speed.

3. SET your f-Stop to the lowest value

The lower the f-Stop, the wider your lens' aperture (or 'opening'), and the greater the amount of light you're letting in.

So go right ahead and dial the f-Stop value all the way down - you will literally feel the light streaming in!

And as a bonus, with the lowest f-Stop value, you get the most background-blur (or 'bokeh'), drawing the eye to your subject.

Time and again, these three tips have helped me get great photos - I'm sure they'll help you too.

Happy Photographing!

"Time flies...

...when you're having fun."

And to me, fun is : flipping through Stephen King's 'Nightmares & Dreamscapes', writing 300-words of story - everyday, watching 'Mad-Max : Fury Road' on opening weekend, cruising through open fields on a blue-sky day, sifting through a million pictures, to find and finesse the truthful few, and listening to the drip-drop-drip of the drizzling rain.

On some days (like the past few days), everything I wished I could do, I actually do - and that, makes me want to un-cork the wine-bottle, and sing "It's a wonderful world!"

Here's hoping each of you is toasting your fun.

Cheers!!

When not photographing...

...I love to be filming.

Story-boarding, setting up the shots, rolling with the camera, and then the fun-part : looking through the footage, assembling the rough-cut, piecing together the narrative while looking for that one thing that's the heart of a story - emotion.

This is where I end up discovering something completely different from what I had in mind - something that's closer to the soul of what I was trying to tell. 

And when all of the hours spent  polishing and improving the piece helps connect my intent with people's expectations, when it resonates, in some small way, it makes it all worthwhile, it inspires me to take a leap - into the scary, exciting unknown of The Next Big Project.

Until that time, here's what I spent my last few nights and weekends making:

Next up, my first experience photographing a dance recital...

Open For Business!

Getting to this day has been a long, long journey for me.

It started over ten years ago, with a vague interest to do 'creative' work - what that meant, I had no idea! Just that it had to be something creative. To work that restlessness off, I enrolled in a mix of classes and studied Creative Writing, Film-Production, Sound-Design, and Photography.

And as I learned more, I wanted to do more, and do better.

Every spare minute I had, I wanted to write, photograph, film, make-music - as best as I could.

So I kept moving in and out of each area, getting more experience, improving my skills - always working towards the day when I'd be able to offer up my services professionally.

Today I take a small step to making that a reality.

Today, I bring to you, everything I've learned about light, camera, and lenses, with Pallemoni Photography : A Natural-Light Photography Business.