When it comes to businesses and idea pitching what comes to the rescue would be mood boards. These are simply collages of certain images, text samples, and objects in a composition. They can be random, but this is business, so it must be topical or you’ll just be spewing nonsense. The best way to make a mood board is to first know what it is you’re doing; that’s a given, and since you know what you’re doing you need to know this thing called: grouping. Grouping is putting items that go together,… together. Even if your mood board has a purpose without organization by grouping subjects together it will still look like nonsense. So group relevant topics together and it will look presentable.
Programs/Tools
So how do you make a mood board? Well you and literally build a mood board on the wall or on the floor; it will look terrible, but you could still make one like that if you choose. Some good tools to make some would be:
Powerpoint
Keynote (Apple’s powerpoint)
Google slides (googles free powerpoint)
InDesign (oldschool methods)
Pintrest (oldschool methods)
Personally I mostly use powerpoint, because it can organize my points using slides (also I use windows so I don’t use keynote). Google slides is just like powerpoint but it’s free and you don’t have to worry about saving documents because it’s saved in a cloud. And I don’t use pintrest or InDesign.
So remember this. In order to make a mood board, you need to get ideas together on a “board” but the best mood board is one that’s well organized. And remember you can use the programs I’ve mentioned but you don’t have to use them, you can literally do it on a wall (but I would advise not really doing it that way).
Advanced photography includes many things like; panorama, HDR, and professional grade black/white photos. Wait, HDR, panorama. What even is!? Fear not, we can find this out together.
HDR
HDR stands for High Dynamic Range, the dynamic range is difference between the lightest light and the darkest dark in a photo. In a photo, if your subject exceeds the dynamic range, either the highlights can wash away the whites, or the darks can turn into black masses. That’s what HDR technology is used for, to turn the photo from under/overexposed to the higher dynamic photos. How it works is basically combining two (or even nine) photos together in a software with HDR tools to make one great looking picture. Now the pictures need to be the same exact thing with varying exposure. No moving objects (including the camera, so it’s best to use a tripod), then blend the photos together with the software.
UnderexposedGood exposuretoo over exposed
Which will get this upon combination.
Better
Panoramic
Panorama is the wide picture. It’s one thing to take out your phone and take a picture with the panorama setting on (like some casual tourist). But to look professional here’s how you do it with a professional camera.
For a good panorama it’s best to use 4-5 images depending on space, but they need to be full-length so the best way to do this would be to look for key objects. Use the rule of thirds for this. Get a picture, look to the right of the grid for any key objects, and move the camera to the other side with the key item from the right to a similar spot on the left. Repeat this a couple more times and merge these photos in photoshop using the panoramic option and you should be able to make a wide looking picture that looks like this.
Black and white photos
Get your phone take a picture and set it to black and white, right? Nope. How about send it to photoshop, and drop the hue/saturation? Yes, but there’s more to it than that. When it comes to black and white photos there’s more to it than just taking a picture and setting it to black and white, there’s also light factor and tone balancing in order to get what you want to stand out. Monochrome photography uses black and white (and other colors like cyan, or sepia) for artistic creation.
Well that’s a few of the things to use when it comes to professional photography. Now get out there and start warping space with your image capturing dodads.
So you want to take pictures? What kind? That is the million dollar question. When it comes to photography, there are certain variables to consider when doing any photo. Which are…
When it comes to photography there are many different cameras at your disposal. DSLR (digital single lens reflex) cameras, point-and-shoot cameras, camcorders, and… cell phones.
DSLR cameras are the ones that are mostly used in the professional world. These cameras exist in a wide variety with inter-changeable lenses for different shots. Inside the body is a mirror that reflects light coming in from lens up into an optical viewfinder, by way of prisms (for higher end models), or a series of mirrors (in lower end models). Which is how you can see what you’re shooting through the lens. When you press the shutter button the mirror flips out the way and incoming light shoots through to the image sensor. The shots are done in real-time, so unlike mirror-less cameras, which are the point-and-shoot type, there is no lag because the camera is designed not to have a sensor transfer data elsewhere on the camera. However because of this you wont be able to preview your image settings through the optical viewfinder like in mirrorless cameras.
What else these cameras have that others don’t is…
Can take in more light for those dark areas.
Faster auto-focusing technology.
And interchangeable lenses
Speaking of interchangeable lenses, these cameras also use other accessories like…
tripods, for stability
a strap
SD cards, for memory storage
filters for different areas
blowers/rags to remove dust
Mirrorless cameras do the same thing as DSLRs (which is take pictures). However they are very different in design. Both types can show the scenes through camera lenses as you compose the picture, but the mirrorless cameras use the live view capture by the sensor to create an electronic viewfinder image. The electronic viewfinder is sharper and more responsive than the optical viewfinder and can offer different customization options that you can’t get in an optical viewfinder. These vary in between cameras but include, the ability to show advanced exposure aids like histogram and waveform monitor right in the viewfinder. Mirrorless cameras have improved auto focusing and can balance out more features like eye detection, but DSLR still lead with its real time eye detection tracking.
Although DSLR cameras still surpass mirrorless ones with battery life in the near future they will improve them overtime. But until then DSLR wins that round.
Camcorders, basically combines video cameras and video cassette recorders. The earliest camcorders were recording analog signals and were tape-based, and in 2006 it was replaced with digital recording with SD cards and internal flash memory, and micro DVD. they have a built-in microphone and thus can take crisper audio.
Smart phones…
Basically for those who aren’t serious about photography, just saying.
The best camera phones are the google-pixel-4’s, Huawei P30 pro, and the Samsung galaxy S10 pro. The google pixel has a phase detection auto-focus, and dual-pixel phase detection auto-focus, have 64/128 GB of storage. While phones have settings and filters to give you the feeling of pro cameras, the best that they’re used for is… social media.
The exposure triangle is basically the foundation of a photo.
ISO
Aperture
Shutter speed
Also known as…
How much light exposure you need for the area you’re in?
low ISO, way under exposed
High ISO, way over exposed
Good enough
how blurry the background is
Can on focus but the extinguisher isn’t.Extinguisher is more visible
To ghostly moving objects
Moving fan
To a not so moving fan
While there is a wright and a wrong way of doing these things these different settings can do many other things. Just play with the different settings to get what you want.
Henry Iglesia 