Vertextra

A lot of people think that photography is the easiest and somehow the most pretentious profession in the world. All you have to do is hold up a high-end camera, and start clicking away; and with the advent of digital smartphones, the task has become abundantly easier.

However, there is more to photography than that, believe it or not. You might scoff at the idea that people actually study photography at schools, colleges and universities, they specialize in it, they graduate with degrees in photography and they make a living doing it.

For a lot of people, this may be unfathomable. How can someone make a living holding a camera and doing the exact same thing that everyone else can do just as well? Well, trust us guys, the job isn’t that easy.

If you ever go to an art gallery, you’ll probably get the same feeling. A spattering of random paint on a white canvas with a price tag of a few million dollars; which more often than not gets sold quicker than you’d expect. Now, either these people are running a brilliantly duplicitous scam, or there is more to this than meets the eye.

Today, let us talk about some of the principle rules of photography and see how each one aids in making the image more picturesque by drawing the wayward eye to the photograph and connecting with the viewer in a unique way.

Lighting is perhaps the most crucial aspect of photography. Many amateurs beguile themselves into thinking that they know all there is to know about lighting. Just shine a bright light straight onto whatever you wish to shoot and snap away. That simple!

No. It’s not that simple.

The best lighting for any situation depends on what you wish to capture in your photograph. Is it a landscape, a building, a sunset, a mountain range, a bedroom, an indoor pool, an outdoor pool, a food court, a restaurant, an interstate junction?

Which angle is the photo being taken from? Is it from a height, from underneath, through a window?

Or perhaps it’s a person you’re shooting. In that case, what kind of person is it? What are the circumstances; is it a waitress serving tables, a policeman with his guard dog standing watch outside, a mountaineer scaling a peak or a bodybuilder posing on stage?

Every one of these scenarios requires different lighting, different angles, different lenses and different techniques in order to get the best possible picture.