Sometimes in street photography you can create some kind of extra feel just by changing the angle and making it a bit more interesting, play around, use different lighting, different angles, you might be surprised with the results.

Exposure: 1/200 Aperture: f/7.1 Focal Length: 18 mm ISO: 200

A friends son at the recent polo match, he was trying to get out of the sun, shy but cute little boy.

I like the black and white effect with the grainyness, gives it a old vs new kind of feel. I tend to like B&W for youngsters.

I used lanatirs method of effective black and white conversion rather than just desaturating

Exposure: 1/1600 Aperture: f/4.5 Focal Length: 70 mm Exposure Bias: 2/3 EV ISO: 1250

Also recropped with space at the right to give the little fella somewhere to roam in. Cropping kids very tightly makes them seem rather too stationary.

Action photography is something I’ve always been interested in. Capturing the moment, getting a sense of the action.

It looks hard, and well after trying it I have to say it is.

You need good light, preferably a long expensive FAST lens with VR/IS and you have to stand/sit in the sun (Unless you have those super canngih 30,000RM lenses then you can sit in the clubhouse and shoot with your beer by your side).

I recommend setting Spot Exposure Metering for the subject, boost up the EV compensation about +0.33 or 0.7 and use continuous or servo focusing (AF-C for Nikon, not sure what it’s called on Canon Servo-mode I think).

I used Shutter Priority (S for Nikon or Tv on Canon) at about 1/1000ms.

If you have a slow lens though normal focusing might work better.

As I don’t have a telephoto lens I literally had to stand in the middle of the action and had to crop some shots to bring them ‘closer’ (I was using an 18-70mm lens).

I didn’t manage to get any panning shots..or any nice bokeh (depth of focus) on the horses due to lens capability, it would have been nice to blur out the distracting backgrounds.

I could freeze the shots quite nicely and clearly though with the above settings.

Have to save up for that 70-200mm VR…poison poison (Costs about RM6000).

Anyway less talk more photos.

Personally I’d say when it comes to photographing landscapes and still life I’m already pretty good, I naturally understand the composition for buildings, scenery and things that don’t have facial expressions.

When it come to people, I’m a beginner, I rarely pointed my Canon A70 at people, shooting people was never very interesting for me, only during parties, then I seemed to have a talent for the candid shot, capturing the moment rather than cheesy smiles and pre-posed stances.

From this I branched into street photography, which is candid for me, to bring out the true feeling, eye contact is good but not in a posed way as demonstrated by Lanatir below, you can have a eye contact portrait without it looked manufactured.

I like to try and capture some kind of emotion, capture a peice of the moment, not just some people facing the camera and smiling over and over.

I like to feel something when I look at the picture, not just go next..next..next..

For me this the essence of capturing an event, the same goes for weddings, nowdays this style has a label it’s called photojournalism style..for me, I just call it real.

I like to use a narrow depth of focus to give a real pop to the subject.

You can capture many emotions in this manner, when people don’t expect it, boredom, frustration, happiness, laughter, waiting etc..

This is my first effort of event style photography with my new SLR camera, so I have a lot to learn still, these are just my few tips from past experience.

It’s good to use SLOW flash setting to make people stand out, and any motion in the background will be blurred.

I also like to frame the subject with other people, or some objects like a glass to bring them out and add interest.

These were all taken with a very cheap prime Nikon Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D AF.

They aren’t the best pictures in the world, but I’m just starting out..

I hope my learning journey can help you too.

All were processed from RAW last night, my RAW workflow is still a bit hit and miss, I need to work on that.

That’s all for now

You can view the whole set here.

Ah photographing the moon, something we don’t often have chance to do unless we have super telephoto lenses!

The moon was huge and bright last night so I took a few shots of it, sadly the moon itself isn’t clear but the silvery effect of the sky came out very nicely giving a spooky haunted feel to the shot.

It was my first try using my new Manfrotto 190ProDB Tripod with 141RC 3-way Pan/Tilt head.

Exposure: 4 sec Aperture: f/5.6 Focal Length: 60 mm ISO: 320

This was my first time shooting in RAW and processing to TIFF then jpeg for web.