Modest photography describes a photography movement that revolves around reducing photography to its bare basics in hopes of improving and solidifying these basic skills. This is because one of the easiest ways to improve photography is by taking simple photos of interesting subjects – the M.O. of modest photography.
How To Do Modest Photography?
Find an Interesting Subject to Photograph
Interesting subjects are the key to creating high quality modest photography.
Luckily for budding modest photographers, interesting subjects can be found in your everyday life, from a stormy landscape, to a simple street scene, to a flower in your garden or local event place.
Just take a walk around your local neighborhood with your equipment, and you’re sure to find something interesting to photograph.
Look For Good Quality Light
Something that has a big effect on how your photograph looks is the quality of light that is hitting your subject. There are two aspects of lighting that you need to pay attention to – the color of the light and how harsh the light is.
Colored light can create unnatural effects on skin tone and other natural colours that can throw off modest photography.
Harsh light is also something to look out for as it creates clean but unappealing shadows, that would look much more aesthetically pleasing if cast by a soft or diffused light source.
Stick To The Rule of Thirds
Across all types of photography, from landscape to business photography, composition refers to how the elements in the photograph are arranged.
The key to good composition is the ‘rule of thirds’. The rule of thirds works by splitting an image into thirds both horizontally and vertically, so you end up with 9 sections.
In many good landscape photographs, you will see the photographer places the horizon in the top third of the photo, while the landscape takes up the bottom two thirds of the photo.
As well as placing elements along the thirds lines, you can also try and put your main point of focus so that it falls on the intersection of two of the thirds lines.
Use Correct Shutter Speeds
Blurry photos can be a problem, with the key to reducing blur caused by camera shake is being to use a fast shutter speed.
To ensure a fast shutter speed, put your camera in the shutter priority shooting mode.
As a general rule, the shutter speed should be 1 over the 35mm equivalent focal length.
For example, a full frame camera with a 50mm lens would need 1/50s shutter speed for a sharp handheld photo and a 50mm lens on a camera with an APS-C sized sensor has a 35mm equivalent focal length of 75mm, and so would need 1/75s shutter speed for a sharp handheld photo.
The actual shutter speed you need will depend on your handholding ability.
To try and give the camera more support when shooting handheld, hold the camera up against your eye, use both hands to grip the camera, and push your elbows in against your chest.
If using a fast shutter speed makes your photos too dark, try increasing your camera’s ISO setting, or using a wider aperture. This will allow more light to reach the camera’s sensor without having to reduce the shutter speed.
If you are photographing a person or nearby object you can also use flash to provide enough light for a fast shutter speed.
How To Protect Your Modest Photography
Once you’re happy with your modest photography, the next step in any photographers’ process would be to protect their work before they publish it.
In terms of security, watermarking can’t be beat, allowing you to safeguard your work from any potential content thieves and protect your copyright on all work you publish online.
Watermarking is also highly regarded as one of the best ways to establish an easily identifiable brand online.
Much like how a painter adds their signature to a painting, watermarking with a custom watermark can help potential clients identify your work, helping your photography stand out in the sea of content on the internet.
The only downside to the process is that watermarking can be difficult without professional photo editing knowledge.
Luckily, WaterMarquee is here to help!
While there are a few tools online that allow watermarking, no tool can match the free bulk watermarking offered by WaterMarquee.
With this service you can watermark up to five images at a time, entirely free of charge! So what are you waiting for, protect your modest photography and build your brand with WaterMarquee today!
