Your World is as Big as You Make it, Post #2.

I’m not going to lie. I feel pretty cool when I carry this thing. It’s a whole lot bigger than your phone, it does a lot better than your phone, and it’s just awesome to play with… A DSLR camera is the best camera to have, from just starting out to becoming a pro photographer or short filmmaker. I personally learned how great these cameras were when I joined my high school’s yearbook class.

Never in my life did I notice how much work really went behind operating one of these cameras. In class, I learned different photo compositions, techniques, how to use Photoshop, field of focus, and other technical camera stuff… Although this was only my yearbook class, taking photos in a school is really hard. If you don’t learn different ways to make a photo interesting, then all of your photos within a 164+ page book would look pretty boring and similar. Especially if all of the photos were of a student with the school’s brick walls in the background or of the identical looking classrooms. Trust me, once you saw one boring classroom photo, you’ve seen them all…

With photography and film, you need to keep your observer pleased. People will pay attention to your story if you have a great picture that builds interest or has character, the same goes for any moving visual projected onto a screen. No matter what you're using a camera for, photo compositions should be taught to you. Even if you just enjoy taking snapchats. Don’t keep taking selfies that your friends will skip over, make them interesting so they will want to keep looking at your story or Instagram feed… Some good composition I enjoy are; 

The rule of thirds: Most cameras have a grid-like screen that will pop up. By learning how to position the subject properly within the four main interceptions of the grid lines, the picture will become very pleasing to the eye.

Repetition: wherever you are, usually there will be some sort of pattern or reoccurring object placed accordingly. Especially with man-made objects like buildings, street lights, the placement of construction cones, beer nozzles at a bar, or the way tiles are laid on the ground (example to your right of repetition).

Those are the two main compositions that I enjoy using, the most but other important ones you should know include; worm's eye view, bird's eye view, action shots, leading lines, symmetry, and patterns, depths, framing, and cropping just to name a few… If it helps you can even join a photo club, most schools, and colleges (like Delta) have them… And hey, maybe you could get paid for your work as I did when taking photos for G’s pizzeria (Fun Fact: All photos but one maybe two from their current menu and online ordering menus were takin by myself)!

However, the main reason a filmmaker would like to have some photo composition knowledge, allows the creator to better tell their story with better and more interesting camera angles. As well as, to expand the world they live in. As most independent filmmakers are limited in which locations they can and cannot film at or in. Sometimes the best photographers can take a picture at the same place you could take one and it would look absolutely different.

You don’t want to have an hour and a half long movie of the same single shot or of the same location. With limited locations and resources, you have to create a big world on a little budget. Don’t show your audience that same classroom, or that same brick wall. Yearbook or film will get boring right away. Try going to your local park and making it look like a never ending forest, make that pond turn into a lake, make that corner store into a little delightful coffee shop. With an open mind, you can have endless possibilities of different scenes and locations. Let your mind go wild!

(Here are two random pictures of shots I took on a spontaneous photography walk around the city of Saginaw. One picture could be a scene of a possible bar fight in a dark alley. The other photo was taken at the Saginaw Children’s Zoo. Most people would probably never recognize this location as it was taken from a faraway distance behind the building, but this could be an awesome establishing shot for an old warehouse on a lake or swamp).