Photography Hacks

This has been written for a photography group that I participate in, called Birmingham Flickrmeets, where annually we hold a “contraptions meetup” where we would experiment with forms of photography that perhaps we wouldn’t otherwise consider. This made me think about projects and hacks that could be done at using little or no expenditure at all.

The industry has zero interest in promoting this kind of project, there is no benefit for them to promote people to spend less money. However for the typical photographer, being able to try new techniques without a huge investment is useful. When I started exploring photography I did not want to make huge financial commitments into equipment in subject areas I wasn’t sure I had an interest in, so often finding hacks became a fun challenge, often forcing me to really think about the photography.

Hacks for Portrait and Product Photography

In the first of these posts, I’m going to explore the hacks involved in portraiture and street photography. Sometimes you may find you’re out and about and just need that little extra zing, or perhaps you want to try something before you make a big financial commitment.

Make Your Own Reflector

The Rules of Photography

Here are just some of the rules of photography:

1) Rule of thirds
2) Always leave space for subjects to move into
3) Fill the frame
4) Use a fast shutter speed for action shots
5) Portraits need telephoto lenses
6) Don’t use direct flash
7) Shoot from low down, high up, just anything but eye level
8) Don’t shoot landscapes at midday
9) Avoid shooting into direct sunlight
10) Don’t blow out the highlights

That you can break, photography is an art form, as such we should avoid seeing rules as hard and fast laws, and instead as guidelines that often make for the best aesthetics. Great photographic works often stand out by breaking the rules.

This is a series where through analysing photographs that have defied convention to produce powerful results, which have been highly praised and awarded, we will show you how to have some fun breaking rules.

For this first article I shall discuss possibly the most often talked about "rules", which pertains to composition. We often ridicule those who mindlessly point the camera and shoot with the subject slap bang in the middle, but should we not also ask the same questions for those who unquestioningly put all our subjects on the thirds of a frame.

'Oh wow nice hat!'

‘Oh wow nice hat! I think we should encourage more people to wear hats again…’ that’s what lead to this photo.

Welcome to our blog

Welcome to Ken and Chao’s photography blog, and we love to take photographs, and despite being professionals, we also want to use our experience to help you have more fun with your hobby. We also feel that informing people about photography is beneficial for the art of photography as a whole.

As the blog develops, there will be a series of guides, anecdotes, and mini-projects for you to have a go with. We know not everybody will be at the same skill level, so we apologise in advance that not everything we post will be to everyone’s taste. Nonetheless we hope you will follow us and enjoy the blog.