Toss the Rules on their Ear
or How to Play with all those Cool Settings

Sometimes its worth punting sound photographic advice and trumpeting your own creative notes.

While shooting during a lovely summer day in NY′s Central Park, the common advice would suggest a slow ISO of 100, sticking with gorgeous saturated colors, and keeping the bright sun to your back.

NONSENSE! Why not have a little fun and see what kind of trouble you can get into with some radical settings. I shifted my ISO from slow 100 to super fast 3200, abandoned color for a SEPIA setting, and shot many photographs directly at the sun. I also flipped my Panasonic camera′s aspect ratio to PANORAMIC.

Did I get into some trouble with these shots? Yes. Did I get into some serious fun? Absolutely. Because of these settings in combination, I produced some Old World looking images of a fairly old park.

Moving the dials around in this way can often lead you to new ways of thinking and seeing out in the field. The ISO 3200 gave me some chunky grain and grit.