Improve Photography

Few things are more fun to photograph than fireworks, which is probably why it is the most commonly photographed night scene. Most photographers never venture out into the world of night photography, but anyone who owns a camera has shot pictures of fireworks at some point in their life.. For that very reason, you might [...]

      Note from Jim:  I have to apologize to the 46% of the Improve Photography community that lives outside the United States.  This website has seen visitors from 170 countries in the last couple months.  I know that you obviously don’t celebrate the Fourth of July like we do in America, but these [...]

Doing photography of lightning can be one of the most fun experiences a landscape photographer will have.  Last week, Sean Allen from Florida sent in a question asking for some tips on how to take pictures of lightning.  I wasn’t surprised to be getting this question from someone in Florida, because the Florida lightning storms [...]

One of the great challenges in photography is capturing something different from what everybody else is shooting. It is for this very reason that I look for new and innovative ways to capture a scene at night or with a different perspective. In past articles I have highlighted night photography because fewer people know how [...]

In this free photography video tutorial, I take you with me to a landscape photography shoot in Idaho and walk you through how I made my photo… step-by-step.   I did this shoot this last weekend, June 18, 2011 on public land in southern Idaho.  In addition to the video, this article explains some more details on [...]

While shooting in Nauvoo, I found a beautiful stone bridge built by Mormon pioneers over 150 years ago.  The small rock bridge included a small waterfall underneath it, so I knew it was time to take out the camera and start shooting. Unfortunately, as soon as I got underneath the bridge and waded into the [...]

On my mega-long road trip last week, I stopped to do photography in the beautiful city of Nauvoo, Illinois.  The city is full of rich history which is related to my religion, so it was an especially important shoot to me. I planned to wake up at 5AM to get out and shoot the sunrise, [...]

I listened to an interesting discussion on Kerry Garrison’s audio podcast this last week. The topic was balance in photographic composition.  I thought the principle they were teaching would also be helpful for you all, so today’s post is an example of how balance in photographic composition can improve your landscape photography. I took the photo [...]

This is a guest post by Silvio de Pecher, an Italian photographer who runs a website in which he frequently teaches night photography (in Italian). Shoot low ISO. There is a special value called natural ISO that transmits the minimum possible amplification on the sensor. It is generally 100 ISO for Canon and 200 ISO for Nikon. Shooting at this [...]

Landscape photographers are snobs about shooting times.  We only shoot in the morning or evening and we turn up our noses to anyone who shoots during the day.  While it is certainly true that morning and evening are the most favorable times for shooting landscapes, I think most landscape photographers don’t shoot during the day [...]