Capture Great Cityscape Pictures

Vancouver - Credit: kennymatic

Stockholm - Credit: Olof S

Beauty in the concrete jungle  Landscape photography has never been more popular than now as more and more people get caught by the photography bug. Not only that, but more of us are travelling widely and the great tendency is to capture visual images of the places we visited. Other than taking breathtaking pictures of mountains, rivers and beaches, another area where you can capture fascinating and captivating photos is in the cities.

City landscape photography can be a very rewarding venture. There's a gazillion of photographic possibilities for those with great imagination and creativity. Below is a contributing article introducing to beginners how, what and where to look for great city landscape shots that can make your picture worth more than a thousdand words! Read on...  

New York - Credit: mudpig

     
The Kremlin, Moscow - Credit:  josef stuefer

Landscapes of the City: An Introduction

Beautiful city landscapes grace the cover of glossy picture books, millions of postcards sold in tourist shops throughout town, and vivid, oversized posters that you place on your wall. Carefully planned-out, intricate landscapes are not just for nature and the countryside anymore; most cultures today find some sense of beauty in the bustling, concrete world of the city and in the diverse, busy people who live there.

For this reason, grand, expansive skylines and intimate portraits of a street corner are capturing the hearts of city and country lovers alike. City landscape photographs are not difficult to create, and are sure to be appreciated by everyone who sees them.

Why spend your time in a detailed photographic study of a city? One major reason people do this is that of tourism. Capturing a cityscape on film glorifies the city in question (at least, in most cases!) and makes people remember it. It may inspire tourists to travel there for the first time, or may remind potential return visitors of the charm of the town they visited. This is the reason for all the books, postcards, posters, coffee mugs, and countless other images that signify a city.

If you take a stroll around a tourist center of a town, it is hard NOT to notice all the city landscape photography around you.

The more these images travel around the country and the continents, the more they will inspire visitors to do their own traveling. Images often feature famous landmarks and signature architecture because these are the most commonly visited sites in a city.

If you are taking your photographs specifically for tourism purposes, make sure to take advantage of digital technology to filter and clean up the images so that they are flattering. Go ahead and make Broadway Street a little cleaner than it really is. Take out those slight shadows that distract from the church steeple. This type of cosmetic altering is important if you’re really trying to sell the city.

  Eiffel Tower, Paris -  Credit: Al Janni

Taj Mahal -  Credit: crazy foolish4u

Capturing the spirit of a city

Not all city landscape photographers make their art for business or tourist reasons. Some simply want to capture the spirit of a city they admire, perhaps their hometown. These photographs usually focus on the simple and characteristic beauty of a city.

City landscape photography is also commonly used for charity purposes. You could use your photography to draw attention to a specific problem found in one or several cities. For example, you could focus your scenes on areas of the town where problems like hunger, disease, or poverty are common.

The city landscape is still the main attraction; you are simply using this to draw attention to something that goes on here. In this sense you are not photographing just a city, but a society.

Your reasons for doing your art will likely determine what you choose to photograph, but there are many options. You could stick to the major monuments and tourist attractions of a city, like the Eiffel Tower, the Empire State Building, or the Taj Mahal. These attractions are well-visited and admired both for their histories and for aesthetic reasons. However, you are definitely not the first to have this idea. The tourist attractions will produce beautiful photographs, but your pictures will likely look similar to thousands of pictures taken before yours.

    Petronas Twin Towers, Kuala Lumpur - Credit: Joga (left)
     and St Petersburg - Credit: jimg944

Other good subjects are locations or buildings that capture the spirit of a city. These are not always the same as the tourist attractions just discussed. Ask yourself where locals in the city like to go. This could be a beautiful marina, a quaint historical area, or just a funky bohemian street. Find the areas that are important to locals. These could be religious, historical, economic, or stylish.

As far as what you will need for city landscape photography, let’s start with the right equipment. Take into account the scope of your shots, how much you want to include, and the time of day.

Have a good idea of what kind of picture you want to take. Do you want an elevated viewpoint or do you want to be right down in the street? Make sure you get the information you need ahead of time. What will the weather be like at that time of day? Will there be many people around? What will the light be like?

Carefully considering these points will offer you the best chance to capture a signature landscape piece of your favorite city. Put it on a few postcards and posters, and you are on your way to sharing this sentiment with others who will soon get to know and appreciate the city you love.

Chia-Yi City Park, Taiwan - Credit: rla579

Hiroshima Castle, Japan - Credit: ori2uru

   
Article supplied by Roy Barker. These tips will be handy for both the amateur photographer and someone starting a photography business . They are guides or tips for you to experiment with and enjoy the journey.

Take Better Pictures with Your Digital Camera

    Photo credit: zoutedrop 

By Dan Feildman

Be smart with photography  Photography is both about knowing how to use a camera and also knowing how to make decisions. Today's media projects images that can be difficult to understand, and learning photography can help you to understand what you're being shown every day on television, on the internet, and in movies.

Photography is a good way to occupy your time, especially if you are a teenager, as it is fun and harmless. Besides that, it's a great way to bring a community together for a project, such as photographing activities and gatherings.

      Photo credit: Buglugs  

     Photo credit: pointnshoot 

When you buy a digital camera, you have to know how to take care of it to keep it in its best condition. In order to have the clearest photos possible, you must make sure to regularly clean your optic lens and keep from leaving fingerprints on it. If this happens, parts of your pictures will be blurry, and dirt can build up over time. Not all cleaning products are suitable for a camera lens, so make sure that you don't use tissue paper, any household cleaning solutions, and definitely not saliva. Instead, you should buy the proper products at a camera store, in order to keep your camera at its best.

Understanding how your camera focuses will help you get better pictures. Just about all digital cameras these days have autofocus with two-step shutter release.

In dark lighting, you will notice that when you press the button halfway down, a red light appears for a moment, but not in areas that are lighter. Then, when you press the button down fully, there is a flash. When you hold down the button halfway, that focuses the image, and when you depress it fully, the camera takes the focused image. If you want the subject of your photograph not to be in the center but still focused, first center them in the middle of the picture and focus the frame by pressing down halfway. Without removing your finger, reframe the picture with your subject in the right position, and take the picture. Your subject will still be focused.

One aspect of taking a pleasing photograph is depth of field. When you look at a picture, you will notice that all the area surrounding the focused subject is also focused. This area is called depth of field. In order to change the way the depth of field in a picture is seen, focused, and lit, you must change the width of your lens. The wider the lens is, the smaller the depth of field will be. To decrease the depth of field you can also move closer to your subject. To increase it, you can use a smaller lens or move further away from your subject.

A great technique that helps photographers create eye-catching pictures is the rule of thirds. This is a composition technique, create a pleasing balance between the different objects in a photograph. In order to use the rule, divide your screen into six different parts: three horizontal sections, and three vertical. The focal points, where the eye is attracted when it first looks at a picture, are where the lines intersect. Placing the subjects of your pictures at or near the focal points can help create a balanced and attractive picture.

Landscape photos are very popular and can be very nice-looking. The whole photograph will need to be in focus, unlike some pictures where only a certain part is in focus. In order to have the picture completely focused, you'll need to have a short focal length. This will create a larger depth of field, and everything will be focused. In order to creating a pleasing balance between land and sky, or water and sky, you can use the rule of thirds. Furthermore, if you want a sense of three dimensions, you can have a subject in the foreground.

A tripod is a good investment in photography, especially if you want to take panoramic pictures. You'll have to set your tripod in a place where you can swivel the camera smoothly from left to right, and not up and down. You will have to figure out where you want your pictures to overlap, so that you don't have huge gaps in your resulting picture. Once you figure that out, you can swivel your camera in one direction, clockwise or counterclockwise, to take the pictures you want. Once you're done, all you have to do is put them together with a simple graphics program or photo-editing software.

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