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Creative Photography - 3 Experiments to Try

By Autumn Lockwood

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 15Mar2010 Word count: 615 Viewed: 453 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

Though many people don't realize it, photographs are a vastly flexible art medium. There is absolutely no reason you should ever feel limited to shooting what's in front of you or documenting reality. Just as with painting or sculpting, there is plenty of room to exert your influence on the way your photographs turn out. With that in mind, let's talk about some fun things to do with your photographs that may not be covered in the traditional "point and shoot" order of things.

1.Find a New Angle

One of the most common things done in photography is the eye or head level height in which photos are taken. While this makes perfect sense, it may not necessarily be the best angle for what you're shooting or the statement you want to make.

Take a day and shoot pictures entirely from the ground or knee level and see how the different height will completely change your pictures. If you're feeling really lucky, try shooting entirely from your hip without double-checking the focus or the framing - you may end up with a lot of throw-away images, but you also might end up with something you could have never captured with a traditional method of shooting.

2. Increase Your Films Development Time

All film has a recommended development time at any given temperature. For instance, when developing 400 speed film in chemicals that are 70 degrees, you would allow the film to soak for 7 minutes before rinsing it (this is in no way a recommendation or a standard, check with your developer and film manufacturers for the recommended times). What many people don't realize is that the longer the film develops, the more stark the contrast becomes. The darks get darker and the lights get lighter.

If you're fortunate enough to develop your own film, try pushing your film an extra two or three minutes and see how it affects the final product. While it's easy to push your film too far into an overly contrasty mess, a little extra time can sometimes create a stunning result by adding extra contrast to important areas of your photograph.

3. Use the Bulb Setting

Any film (and most digital) cameras with manual settings will give you the choice to set your shutter speed to bulb or "B.". Simply put, this setting will make your camera shutter stay open for as long as you have the button pressed and is a terrific way to capture some images you may not have thought possible. Unfortunately the bulb setting won't work in daylight since it will overexpose the image, but in a dark environment it can create lots of new photo opportunities.

Place your camera on a tripod facing the night sky and leave your shutter open for 5 minutes (using a cable release) so you can capture the stars moving as the earth rotates. You can also hold the shutter open while a friend dances around with a flashlight then snap a flash before closing it and you'll have a perfect shot of them surrounded by streams of light. This setting takes a lot of practice but can produce incredible results.

The next time you're feeling adventurous, remember these three photo experiments. For these experiments all you need is a cable release and a single lens reflex (SLR) camera or a digital SLR (DSLR) camera and you're all set. Just remember that you should only do experiments with photographs you're willing to lose - your daughter's wedding might not be the best time to try shooting everything from the hip. At the end of the day all that matters is that you have fun and create images that are beautiful, truthful, and important to you.

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