“Photography is the story I fail to put into words” (Destin Sparks)
The camera is the SAVE button for the mind’s eye. (Roger Kingston)
Photography is art. Art is describing what’s in your mind without saying words.
All this and more is very true, and with each breaking of the dawn, the importance of photography in the digital world cannot be over emphasized. Briefly about photography, the word was coined out from two Greek words “Photos” and “graphes” which mean light and lines. Photography is defined as the painting/drawing of images with light on lines (this lines are both horizontal and vertical there producing a graph with little boxes called pixels). Notice that all this can only be done with light, no matter how small depending on the photograph’s aim, light is of uttermost importance in photography.
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With the advent of selfie sticks compatible smart phones, camera phones (is there a difference between Smart phones and camera phones? Well I think that’s a conversation for another day) and all the features it is designed with, such as numerous photos editing applications downloadable at the Google play store to choose from, selfie photography has been on the rise on social media. In the first instance, a client interested in buying a smart phone mostly is not interested in the operating system of the phone, whether it’s a 7.0 android OS or a 4.2 OS.
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The first thing he/she checks for is how many mega pixels is the front and the back camera? On the long run this is what he uses to determine the bargaining power of the price with the seller. Well if this is so then to be able to get it right both in the pre-photography and post-photography I believe all users need to acquire basic skills on photography. Else, you’d get it wrong on so many levels, end up taking a beautiful image but ruin it while trying to edit in one of your photo-editing software.
In this article, we would be discussing about how to get that great selfie with your smart phone in terms of in this particular order,
-Lighting.
-Background.
-Angle of shot.
-Framing.
-Distance.
-Focus.
LIGHTING
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Lighting in photography makes up 50% of what makes up a good photography without which every other components wouldn’t be. It is a powerful tool whether in professional or selfie photography, this tool can change the temperature and mood which eventually interrupts the message of the entire image. In other words, lighting can be used however the photographer decides to tell his story. In selfie photography, lighting can be managed from the source. Lighting up an object using candle light would not give the same mood as when the source is a headlights of a car. Lighting is a very broad and deep topic that we not going to be delving into now, we’d hardly be scratching the surface of this topic about lighting since we talking about selfie photography, ( still, there’s a lot that can be achieved when one understands lighting selfie photography deeply). The most popular kind of selfie is usually achieved using ambiance light (Sunlight) but to tell the story perfectly, a few concepts when finely managed can create in depth and precise understanding of the message in each shot. These concepts include;
-Direction of light
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Depending where the shadow is intended to fall on the image, the light ought to fall fully in front of the image at 450 on either sides of the object. For example, taking a selfie in the sunlight, the sun is already elevated giving us the perfect headlight we need, but facing the sun directly would make the lighting too harsh and in some cases faces of the individuals in the picture begin to squint which can ruin the final image and eventually the story is misunderstood. In using the sunlight as a light source, things needed to know on how to manage the sunlight manually is by knowing the time of the day.
-Distance
Light travels in a straight line, but as it travels it spreads out to cover a wider region. The further away the source of light is from the object the more lit the image would be.
-Density
Light is heavier from the source but as it travels further into space, it become less dense. The effect of light density in photography depends on the ISO of the camera device which is responsible for the sensitivity of the camera to light. This feature determines how the camera responds to light, if the light is denser than the ISO can handle the image comes out over-exposed or under-exposed if the light is less than the ISO can pick out images. Using a smart phone, one cannot control the ISO of the camera effectively even though some of this gadget come with this feature, but in cases of over-exposure, moving away from the source of light would help correct this or better still use a light diffuser (place a screen few meters away from the light source)
-Temperature
In photography there are primarily two sources, Sun, and electrical lighting from various devices. The light temperature of 5000K produces cool colors (bluish white) while the lower colors from 2700-3000K produces warm colors (yellowish white through red) and daylight temperature of 5000K-6500K. Note that the higher the temperature the whiter the color.
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Advisably, it is better to take pictures out door when the sun is still rising or after 4pm when the sun is setting. At Noon the sun produces more warm reddish color because of the less blue in the sunlight. All colors/shade of light are gotten from white light as the temperature drops different shades of colors are produced.
So next time when you about to take that selfie, put all this into consideration if you want to get that perfect selfie.
