Michelle K Wood Photography

Great photos take great planning. Not necessarily elaborate or complicated, but definitely great attention to detail. Here are some tips for planning three popular styles of photography, closeups, landscapes, and portraits. Closeups – bokeh. The whole point behind a closeup is the attention to the detail of your subject. You can emphasize that by creating a nice background blur so the background does not draw attention away from your subject. Be close to your subject and use a low f-stop (wide-open aperture) to create nice bokeh/blur. The other thing you can do with a closeup is to fill the frame with the subject so you don't have to worry about background at all. Landscape – leading lines. Landscapes are an opportunity to take the viewer on an adventure, to explore all the nooks and crannies laid out before them. Try for an anchoring detail in the foreground and leading lines to extend through the adventure. Landscapes typically don't want bokeh/blur, so use a high f-stop...

 Many photographers think (or are told) they have to choose or define their style right out of the gate. Why is that, I wonder? It's good to define yourself and your work, but let it be an organic process to begin, don't force yourself into a box. In my opinion, the best way to define your style is to shoot for a while – six months to a year is a reasonable period of time – and then look back over your portfolio and pick out the common elements. These will show you the things you're drawn to, probably the things you like, and the things that will let you stand out and shine as a photographer. This is exactly what I did recently, and here's my short list. For starters, I'm a 'photorealism' shooter. You will see in my photos just about what I saw with my eyes when I took the photo. I am a very 'light' editor, just a little lightening (exposure compensation), brightening (contrast), sharpening, and sometimes cropping, is usually the extent of my edi...