But before we share our first GroovyTip, let’s chat a little bit about your pictures. It really doesn’t matter if you love how your photos turn out, if you think they are just ok, or if you don’t like anything that comes out of your camera. The most important tip we can give you is to simply get out there and try new things, get inspired by others, and don’t be afraid to copy ideas from other photographers, including us! If you haven’t yet, go check out Flickr or even take a peek at the various photos on the GroovyDoodle blog.

To improve your own pictures, we encourage you to keep a folder of photos you’d like to try to recreate, or search around for pics similar to yours to see how you might improve ones you’re already taking. Make notes on how you think the photos you like were taken, how you tried to take them to match the result, then get out there and try it again! We’ll assume you’re using a digital camera of some variety, so try as much as you want, it’s essentially free. And if you see something you like and just can’t figure out how to recreate it, send it to us. Who knows? It may be the next GroovyTip!

So with that, here’s our first article…

GroovyTip: Get Up-close!

You know the pictures we’re talking about – All those pictures of flowers, or bugs, or some cool root growing out of a rock. You take picture after picture but something about your shots just doesn’t look as nice as you’d like.

You don’t have to have a super-fancy SLR camera to get close to your subject. You probably have a setting on your camera you’re not even aware of that will help you do it. It’s usually referred to as “macro-mode”, or sometimes people call it “flower mode” since the icon to use this mode on your camera is usually represented by a flower, like so: . If you look at the dial on your camera, even a point and shoot, it most likely has this setting and looks like this:

Macro-Mode

The macro-mode will usually allow you to focus with your camera physically closer to your subject than you can normally get with any of the other automatic modes. However, one of the challenges with using the macro-mode is an increased sensitivity to camera shake. Because you’re closer than you would be taking a picture of a person just sitting, any shaking you introduce from just holding your camera will be amplified in your pictures. To work around this you have two choices: use something to stabilize the camera while shooting (like a tripod) or add more light.

A tripod is a useful tool that you can use for more than just macro photography. You don’t need something super-fancy, and you can get by with something as simple as a little inexpensive table-top tripod or even a something like a Gorilla Pod or MonsterPod. The benefit of a tripod is that you can use your camera’s built-in timer, slow down your shutter speed, and really get some sharp, crystal clear images even in lower light.

Your other option for getting around camera shake is to add more light to the scene, which for most people means using the automatic built-in flash that will be enabled with your macro-mode. But you’ve got something else that will help add some light to the subject – something that’s completely free and we personally find looks better than flash for lighting macro pics anyway. Yup, that giant fireball in the sky provides all the light you need to put your macro-mode to perfect use with little worry of blur.

So now that we’ve got the blur out of the way, let’s talk about macro composition. When shooting macro, most people have the tendency to park right over the top of their subject to take pictures because they are used to standing right in front of people to take their pictures. And just like with people, this tends to result in flat looking images. Below are a couple example shots we took with a simple Olympus point-and-shoot:

Click for larger image

Click for larger image

Notice the picture on the left is taken straight on, from far enough away to get the whole flower into the frame. The picture looks ok, but not very interesting. By getting close-up, we end up with the image on the right. It looks like a completely different flower!

Here’s another example of a typical shot of a small group of flowers:

Click for larger image

Click for larger image

With the photo on the right, instead of shooting the entire cluster of flowers we got close-up and focused on just one, but still used the others as a nice backdrop.

Lastly, sometimes it’s not just getting close that makes the shot, but also playing with the angle that you’re shooting from a bit. In the photos below we’ve already isolated a single flower, but the one on the left is kind of blah. With the one on the right we got just a little closer and adjusted the angle, and totally changed the look of the picture:

Click for larger image

Click for larger image

So, now that you’ve discovered this new-found power with your camera, go put it to use! It may be too cold to shoot flowers outside, but there are lots of things to shoot inside too!

Here’s what Curt had to say…

I knew we would get nothing less than spectacular photo’s and you delivered. We are already picking out items for the next one.

Thanks!

Here are some of our favorites…