Professional still life photographers like Elvis Dzebic are often seen as people who were simply born with a lot of talent, a natural affinity for the work that they do. While it is certainly true that they have a lot of talent, Dzebic believes that anyone with a camera, some patience, and a desire to succeed can become really good. Still life photography is about seeing beauty where others see boring, and showcasing that on an image. It is about taking a dried up leaf fallen from a tree, and turning it into a thing of beauty. To achieve this, he has developed seven top tips to follow for the perfect shot.
Elvis Dzebic’s 7 Top Tips
- Make sure that you plan properly. Think about what you want to do an achieve. Plan your shot long before you reach for your camera. Create a sketch of how you want the shot to be set up, decide where the light is going to come from, and so on. This is your blueprint and you will have to refer back to it regularly.
- Set the shot up so that it looks like you envisioned it when you made your sketch. Place the object where you wanted it and look at it from every angle. Move it around so that it looks exactly how you actually want it to look, and make sure you adjust the light as well.
- Focus on your frame. It is very important to create a frame that works, one in which you can see form even though a photography is essentially a two-dimensional image. You can also create a frame within a frame, which is really eye-catching.
- Play around with your white balance. You have to make sure that it is appropriate for the lighting conditions you will be using. If you use tungsten lightning, you have to make sure that your white balance is suitable for that.
- Take hundreds of pictures. This, according to Elvis, is perhaps the most important thing of all. Because photographic technology is now digital, there is no longer such a thing as taking too many shots. You don’t have to worry about filling your film anymore, spending hours in the dark room only to find that none of the pictures look the way you wanted them to. Instead, you can take as many shots as you want and review them on your screen.
- Take a look at your shots every once in a while. This will tell you whether you need to take a different angle, whether your lighting is right, whether the subject comes to life, and, mainly, whether what you’re doing is actually working.
- Transfer all your shots to the photo editing software you want to use and take the time to choose your best images, editing them as appropriate. Post-production is as important as taking the shot, one simply cannot exist without the other. This is also the part that most find the least exciting, but you should see it as an opportunity to put the finish touches on a masterpiece.
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