Pierre Steenberg

Play with Perspective

May 04, 2014 • Leave a Comment

On safari we encounter animals, that is why we go on safari. Typically, people photograph these animals in the same way. They want the perfect shot. That perfect shot is often defined as the shot where the entire animal fills the frame. They often leave a bit of space around the animal and there you have the perfect shot. These shots are nice to ha...

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Shooting at night

April 27, 2014 • Leave a Comment

Who says we can't shoot at night? Because we don't see well at night does not mean that the camera can't. Night shooting can be a lot of fun and yield some nice results. Night shooting obviously means very low light which necessitates a tripod. There are three difficulties inherent in night shooting: Focus - the light can be so low that you cannot...

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Return to familiar grounds

April 20, 2014 • Leave a Comment

Someone once said that serious amateur photographers make better images than professional photographers. He went on to explain that amateur photographers often go back to the same scene many times until the light is right and they get the shot they want while professionals cannot afford to "waste" the time to shoot the same scene over and over. Whi...

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Work the scene

April 13, 2014 • Leave a Comment

One scene can produce multiple different shots, therefore work the scene. I found Death Valley difficult to shoot at first. I just did not "see" the shots. It can happen that we hit a wall, creativity disappears and vision is lost. What then, what do we do? We have come to the scene at great expense and we don't want to leave without producing good...

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We love bad weather!

April 06, 2014 • Leave a Comment

Generally people do not like bad weather. Photographers are a different breed. We love bad weather. Bad weather could mean drama, unusual light, and something different. Before you go out there during a storm or some other inclement weather think safety first. Last November I was shooting with a workshop with pro-photographer Don Smith (www.donsmit...

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Landscape does not always refer to Grandscape

March 30, 2014 • Leave a Comment

Last week we looked at composition. One of the points made was that we often like to include something of interest right in the foreground. We want the viewer to start there and moving into the image. Many people mistakenly think that landscapes have to be grandscapes. In some sense, they think, there must be some grand scene; a scene that wows. Pl...

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Composition

March 23, 2014 • Leave a Comment

Non-photographers just shoot. Photographers think about where they place what in the image. Well how do photographers move mountains or trees or streams to place them where they want them? We cannot move those objects but we can change the perspective, the position, and relationships between those items by moving ourselves and by using different le...

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Learning the Basics: Part 2 (for beginners)

March 16, 2014 • Leave a Comment

Another part of the technical aspect of photography is exposure (how bright or dark the image is). F-Stops and shutter speeds do not only impact focus and motion but exposure. A large F-Stop (big hole in the lens) allows a lot of light through while a small F-Stop allows less light through. This obviously impacts how bright or dark the image is goi...

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Learning the Basics: Part 1 (for beginners)

March 09, 2014 • Leave a Comment

So what are F-Stops? How do shutter speeds impact the image? Photography has two sides to it: the creative side dealing with vision (seeing the shots and composing art) and the technical side (being able to manipulate your gear to achieve the shot you envisaged). I will write about vision and composition in future. Today we are beginning to tackle...

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Tell a Story

March 02, 2014 • Leave a Comment

Have you ever looked at a photograph which evoked question after question? Have you ever looked at a photograph that made you think? Have you ever looked at a photograph that made you wonder and left you deep in thought? The reason why some photographs do that to you while others do not is because they tell a story or they ask questions. It has be...

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