English Language Teaching in Japan and Asia

There are of course lots of great books written on this, but there's nothing better than trial and error; practice makes perfect; and try, try, and try again.

Sunrise at Nagoya Port

f8, 1/640, iso100, 300mm

J.M. Schmidt, author

f11, 1/125, iso100, 60mm

• Simple Tutorials
• www.ablyth.winjeel.com
• http://photo.net/
• www.dynaxdigital.com
• More Photography Basics

Some examples from another of my portfolios (click below)

Rule of thirds, click on this picture

> Come right up close, or zoom in close	> Almost never put the horizon in the middle
> In my opinion, best to put faces to the right in the third-third, or filling the right two-thirds of the frame; allow overlap (usually plenty), as seen near the top of the page. Usually, you'll want to have the subject looking left.	> And leaving some empty areas can give a nicer, cleaner look, too.
> Choose a subject, and decide the theme. Or just find something pretty and DOF-out all other details.	> Frame your subjects. This is an unusual example, as triangle shapes are used. You'd usually look for rectangular shapes to frame / box people's faces.

Also, an interesting note, since we're used to reading from left to right, our eyes also scan pictures from left to right. However, many Asian cultures don't scan pictures this way. Asian people tend to identify the subject, then look around at the context it is in, then refer back to the subject, so their style of photography (compositions) is a little different. I feel there seems to be more environment / setting in the picture, and the subject tends to be dead centre, or close to (not following our rule of thirds).

Avoid background distractions like junk in a 'beautiful' scene, loiterers who aren't needed in the picture, sign posts, and so forth.

At first, don't try 'being artistic', you'll get some horrid results. Try all the cliché shots, first. If you can do them, and well, then you can say you've got the basics, and you'll be already thinking of new improvements on how to do these better than others. THAT's how you improve and become an eventual leader in any particular genre (and not just in photography, either; your workplace I'm sure is no different).

So, if you like flowers for instance, try looking at how flower photos are done by the best photographers, and try to emulate them. I don't think you're plagiarising, as you don't have the same flower they have, and you're not trying to profit (financially or in reputation), you're just learning. Same goes with nudes, landscape, street / candid and so on. Do what you can, and see what results you can get.

Of course questions are welcomed here. You can upload your pictures here on the Foto Forum, and ask for comments and feedback on the forums. Also see 101 Tips and Tricks in the How to take photos section.