Rich's Photography Stuff

All about the Photos

Welcome to a page all about my photographs. If you want to view some of my most recent pics, then be sure to check out my Flickr Page. I also have shared a bunch of free pics from my old point and click camera at PhotoWA.com.au. Further more if you want to learn hos I turn some very average photos into shit hot ones using Photoshop or are after some tips on using a digital SLR, be sure to have a look at RichPhotoTips.com.

I just finished a site where I am sharing a whole bunch of my pictures from Western Australia. I have put them all in the public domain, so if you like any of them, you are welcome to download and use them for whatever you wish. I hope you enjoy browsing my Photos from Western Australia.

A lot of people comment on my photos and ask how I take them, which camera I use etc. I have never studied photography and consider myself a self taught amateur when it comes to photos, but none the less I get some good shots out so I will try and write down some basics for you.

Camera Choice... expensive or not?

I would love to get my hands on a digital SLR camera someday, but at the moment I am quite happy with my little consumer line Canon camera. It costs about $250 AU and does pretty much everything I want, and I can take it everywhere in my pocket. Plus, I won't lose the plot if it gets damaged, stolen or lost. So that's tip number one. Buy a camera you can afford to lose, or you won't get your camera to all the places you want to photograph. I see far too many people walking around with ridiculous looking cameras who have no idea how to use them. If you are a pro, then go for it, otherwise just get a cheapie. I would recommend getting one with the M function on it. This will let you manually set the aperture and shutter speed which is great if you want to start experimenting with things like overcast lighting situations, waterfalls etc.

If you do want to buy a camera, then definitely buy one a few weeks before you go travelling so you can work out how to use it. This is really important as you won't want to risk your photos once in these awesome locations for the sake of experimentation. I also have seen a massive difference between the pics I took when I first got my camera and the ones I take now. I never use the "AUTO" mode and almost never use the flash, setting up most of my shots manually. I definitely recommend working this stuff out if you want to get good pics.

How can I make my pictures stand out?

Every time we go to a famous photographable monument or statue or whatever, I think to myself "what am I not seeing, or how can I photograph this differently?". Sometimes, it helps to get some foreground in the shot to give your photo depth too. I like trying different angles to give a different perspective, or just being a little artistic. I guess this stuff is kind of obvious and I am no expert in this field by any stretch of the imagination, but it certainly gives your photos a more individual flavour if you experiment with these things.

The main thing that I think is worth mentioning is the editing I do to the picture afterwards in Photoshop. I adjust the colour, balance out the highlights and shadows, crop the bits I want and display the picture the way I want. This can often turn an average photo into one you would expect to find in a magazine. If you want to find out more about this, I have set up a website which details how I edit my photos, and you can find all this at my Photo Tips site, which also looks at some basic digital camera functions as well.

There are also a bunch of other free programs which you can use to do simple things like crop the picture, rotate and straighten, or change the colour strength in the shot. The two powerful tools I use in Photoshop however are "levels" and "shadows/highlights". These functions brighten the dark parts of your photo without making the light parts lighter, or vice versa. This is especially useful when you have a dark object against a bright sky for example.

What about Video?

I have also lately been leaning more towards video, as you can catch sounds and motion as well as pictures. This can give the person watching a greater sense of being there and often brings back stronger memories from those times. If you want to get into more serious video work (which is where it gets exciting), then the hobby eats up a lot of your free time and can sometimes be very frustrating, however I love it and continue to spend more and more time working on it. Plus when you go to the big tourist attractions, every man and his dog has a camera, often there are ridiculous foot long digital SLR's floating around - but there are not many video cameras.

I think with video sharing websites like YouTube becoming ever more popular, film and video is certainly being utilised more and more so definitely get into it while there are not many people doing it! At some stage I hope to set up a site which explains how to get started with converting and editing your video footage, so stay tuned... too many projects and too little time =) Feel free to have a look at my video page for the latest and the greatest vids from me.