Author Archives: Clare Denman

How to Get Your Photographs Noticed When You’re Getting Started

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Thinking of the best way to get yourself noticed as a photographer can be scary, and a bit daunting, where to upload your photos, should you try and approach galleries right away??

If you have to think whether it is a good idea to approach galleries, then you aren’t quite ready for that, you aren’t confident enough in your work just yet and that’s fine.

Here are some good first steps to take to make it seem more manageable and less daunting:

  • Create your own style, don’t try and copy photographers work you admire. By all means look at them for inspiration, but be yourself and it makes your work more memorable.
  • A first good step is setting up an Instagram and/or Facebook page for your photos; this is a good way to get people to see your work and doesn’t cost you a penny. If you feel nervous about this set the page to private until you feel confident enough to make it public and invite your friends to like your account/page. There are also a lot of forums out there, where you can upload your images and connect with people doing the same thing as you.
  • The next step is to set up your own website or blog (this step can be done with the previous step). You can have a blog for free or if you want a more professional feel, you should go straight for the .com. This will cost you a little but it looks a lot more professional, and depending on your budget you could sell prints of your work on your site. There are also websites out there were you can sell your prints and the company prints and sends them for you, this could be a good thing but you can’t rely purely on them for your work to sell. You still need to market yourself.
  • By this point, you will look a lot more professional and established when you approach galleries about your work, another good step if you are planning approaching them in person is to get some business cards printed.

 

“A good photograph is one that communicates a fact, touches the heart and leaves the viewer a changed person for having seen it. It is, in a word, effective.”

Irving Penn

Good luck and don’t forget to check out any of our photo editing software (PortraitPro, LandscapePro, PortraitPro Body and Smart Photo Editor), that will help your photos be their very best, and all are currently on offer with 50% off.

How to Steal Man Ray’s Portrait Style

Man Ray is one of the great first iconic photographers; his portrait style has something magical about it even to this day. He was one of the first artists that started to use photography as an art form.

He was revolutionary with his photographic techniques, including double exposure (which we will look at in a future blog) and early experiments with color, though black and white is what he is well known for.

Man Ray’s portraits were often around shoulder length, though there are some full length, you can see old photos of his that he would ‘crop’ by making what he wanted the photo to be.

This is a quick tutorial into how to turn your photos into his signature portrait style.

shape sliders

After marking up the photo in PortraitPro Body, I play around with the sliders a little bit, to see what looks best, the only setting I changed on mine was the Curves one, in this image you can’t see the difference too much.

face body

Don’t worry too much about the color and look of the make up, we are concentrating more on striking features, as this image will be made black and white in a minute.

black and white

In the picture settings, I move the slider to fully black and white, then move the others back and forth to get the lighting that I want.

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This is the photo I export from PortraitPro Body and import into Smart Photo Editor.

cropped photo

The first thing that I do in Smart Photo Editor is crop down the size of the photo (the crop tool is on the right hand side.

object removal photo

After cropping the image to your chosen look, the background needed work on, a out of focus light grey background is what we are aiming for, it my photo there was somethings in the background that I needed to get removed to have that nice out of focus background. I used the Object Removal Tool which is found on the right hand side of the screen. As you can see, I have edited quite a few pieces. Don’t worry if like mine it doesn’t look great, we just want to remove the defining features.

select area

Next we are adding an effect to the background, you do this by selecting the Select Area button on the RHS, click on background, then color in what you want to add an effect to, on your left hand side of the screen, you can adjust the size of your selection tool.

Don’t worry if you go too far over, you can correct this easily by the erase from selection button on the right.

Click the Confirm Selection and Browse Effects button on the left when you have finished.

blurred background

The effect I chose was called ‘Blur’, you can change the strength of the effects you choose but I kept mine as full.

This created a lovely blurry effect with a slightly shadow look from the darker part of my background.

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Here is my end result of a Man Ray style portrait.

Hope you have enjoyed this tutorial and try out PortraitPro Body and Smart Photo Editor, they are both currently 50% off in the sale.

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Camera Tips for the Perfect Photo

 

It is now officially spring, what is better than finally putting on your walking shoes and a warm coat, grabbing your tripod and obviously your camera and getting outside to capture the first moments of spring.

Whether it’s a photo of morning dew, of a newly born lamb or the sunrise it is revitalising to get out into the spring sun and enjoy the fresh air. What better way than to get some experimenting done out in the great outdoors.

Camera tips to remember to get that perfect shot

  • Shutter speed – is used to control motion, the faster the shutter speed the fast speed being what you are trying to capture is moving
  • If you are taking photos using a long shutter time, remember to use your tripod
  • Subject matter/where you shoot from – check that you have the best angle you can get
  • Lighting – this is very important, to get the right lighting might mean having to get up early or stay up late, but it will be worth it
  • Filters if needed – a great filter for landscapes is polarising lens filter
  • Practise – this goes without saying

Don’t forget you can then edit your photos with PortraitPro or LandscapeProimage-2