In your quest for epic photographs, don’t ignore what’s directly in front of you. Even a pair of wet jeans drying on a porch beam can offer a chance at great expression. As photographers, we tend to ignore the everyday world and keep our attention on spectacular vistas, epic sunsets, and floral scenes. Rubbish! In this image, a strong perspective and good composition transform the everyday into something much more rich. The colors in the image are reduced to two: green and blue. The shadows on the jeans set up a strong diagonal line that gets reinforced by the puffy white clouds. Minding the negative space keeps the eye moving around the jeans much like the gentle breezes these pants flew in. The best ideas are sometimes right nearby.     © 2007 Rick Wright, Philadelphia DPA Instructor

4th of July celebrations are always fun to photograph, especially the fireworks. But how do you take a meter reading of fireworks? They don’t hang around long enough. Although they look tricky, fireworks actually expose themselves. With your camera mounted on a tripod, set your ISO to 100 and your aperture at f5.6. All you have to do is keep your shutter open long enough to capture two to four fireworks bursts. You can use a bulb setting or set the shutter speed at five to ten seconds.  The fireworks will take care of the rest. If you leave the shutter open too long, multiple bursts will stack up on top of each other, overexposing the shot. © 2007 Chuck Place, Los Angeles DPA Instructor This particular image was produced in St. Augustine, Florida. I used part of the old Castillo de San Marcos and some palm trees to give the image a sense of place. I metered the fort, which was lit with artificial light, picking an exposure of f5.6, to expose the fireworks, and a shutter speed of five seconds, to expose the fort properly. Each exposure gave me different groupings of fireworks with the same properly exposed fort in the foreground. I just picked the best group of explosions.

Yes, it may seem simple enough, all you have to remember to do is " take the lens cap off".  But Wait, maybe you don′t want it to be so simple. Imagine what you can achieve if you′re willing to shake things up a bit. Try this: With your camera on a tripod and the shutter set to B for bulb,  you can easily obtain multiple exposures of fireworks. First, hit the shutter.  The shutter will open...but with a lens cap on, no light will enter the camera. Then, as you hear the dull thud of the launcher and see the streaking fuse heading to the heights, you can pretty well judge when a big burst will happen. So, just before that explosion of shape and color, and with that shutter still open (on bulb), remove the lens cap and capture just the climax of the  pyrotechnic.  Then, cover the lens and wait for the next launch, repeating the process until the entire field of the photo is filled.  Obviously, some experimentation will be required, but you′ll have a blast with this one, cobbling together an unending variety of color, motion and dazling sparkles. And don′t forget that you have the option to point the camera at different areas of the sky. © 2007 Frank Siteman, Boston DPA Instructor

I rarely shoot sunsets and even more rarely, silhouettes. While covering the California coastal town of Carpinteria for a local magazine, however, I found myself on the beach at sunset. Normally, I like to shoot subjects lit with sunset light, not the actual sunset, but the lifeguard tower had caught my attention. A young woman was sitting on the edge of the tower reading a book.  When she stood up to watch the sun setting, I knew I had a good image. Moving a few feet to the side to place the sun partially behind the tower created a starburst.  Composing the view down the beach while placing the silhouette of the lifeguard tower in the right third of the image gave me a greater feeling of depth. My model only stayed in that position for a couple frames, but it was long enough to give me one of the stronger images of the entire assignment.   © 2007 Chuck Place, Los Angeles DPA Instructor

While shooting a job for National Geographic Traveler Magazine in Cancun, Mexico, I arranged to shoot a sailboard instructor at one of the beach hotels. I had brought along with me an Ewa-marine underwater housing for my camera and decided to shoot in the water, using the nearby hotel as a background. © 2007 Chuck Place, Los Angeles DPA Instructor Sitting in three feet of water, I pre-set the exposure on my camera and arranged for the instructor to sail between myself and the afternoon sun. Light passing through a brightly colored sail is always more saturated that light reflected off a front lit sail. I made sure I had a fast enough shutter speed, about 1/250 of a second, to stop the action and fired off some frames every time I felt the sail pass in front of the sun. Professional photography is often a lot of work, but sometimes it’s also just plain fun.

There is a certain light that happens only on a summer evening. You know what I′m talking about, that light that makes everything glow. The "magic hour", whatever you choose to call it. Many things happen at this time of day. Wildlife becomes more active. Insects hatch on trout streams. And your cousin who hasn′t caught a fish all day finally fools a trout into taking his fly. When all these elements present themselves, be ready and you′ll come away with some memorable images. When photographing someone with a fish, on a lake or a stream, bring them close to water level. If they are wearing sunglasses have them take them off. Are they wearing a hat? Raise the bill a little so you can see their face. Is the sun at their back? Use a fill flash. Focus on the fish and recompose the image, let the person fall a little out of focus. Include the background by using a wider lens and getting closer to your subject, it gives the photo a sense of place. © 2007 Michael Dvorak, Minneapolis DPA Instructor Think of your photo as a small narrative of the moment. It may seem like a lot to think about, but the more you do it the more it just becomes second nature. And remember, these are just tips not rules.

Tip:  Approach your potential subjects with a smile and ask if they wouldn’t mind if you took some photos of them. If you get a positive response, before you begin your image making, talk with your subject to make him or her feel relaxed. When you eventually raise the camera to your eye, you’ll be greeted with a warm smile. If it’s sunny, use a flash to soften the contrast and reveal detail in the shadow areas. If your camera doesn’t have flash capability, look for a shady area and try to eliminate bright areas in the background. What makes photographing so wonderful in the spring is people are coming out of winter hibernation and enjoying the great outdoors. This opens the door to making them more friendly and increases the potential of finding many subjects in the park.   © 2007 Russ Burden, Denver DPA Instructor © 2007 Russ Burden, Denver DPA Instructor © 2007 Russ Burden, Denver DPA Instructor

Patience is one of the most difficult yet rewarding virtues in making photographs.  Hanging in while waiting for the light to settle down, literally, allows one to work in warmer light, with light that has direction.  Add the preciousness of those last minutes of daylight and you have the makings for the extraordinary.  This can work with the light behind...or in front of you.   © 2007 Frank Siteman, Boston DPA Instructor

Most people want to turn this photo upside down, we are so accustomed to viewing faces in the "correct" angle. But the boy was about to go down a water slide, and was literally hanging in the opening getting blasted by the water as he prepared to let go and shoot down the enclosed slide. The "Radial Blur" tool in Photoshop enhanced the feeling of swirling down this chute. © 2007 Michael Hart, Houston DPA Instructor

The old Kodak box instructions that said to have the sun behind you should be discarded! Backlight gives definition, and you don′t have Uncle Harry or Baby Mark squinting like crazy at you. But keep in mind that bright, specular reflections on the water will throw your in-camera metering system off-balance, and you will need to open up/increase exposure to compensate. And give your subject "room to look;" in the above there is more room in front of the child than behind. It also illustrates "the rule of thirds..." © 2007 Michael Hart, Houston DPA Instructor