Improve Photography

Note from Jim: I saw the video below last week as it was being passed around Pinterest (follow my photography boards here).  I have never written about street photography and photographing strangers before, so I contacted the creator of the video and asked him to share his best tips for photographing strangers here on Improve [...]

I shot another family portrait tonight.  It took me half way through the shoot before I remembered to change my shooting style.  While I am generally focused on the photography and getting the shot, when I shoot family portraits I have to remind myself that the Mom  of the family (the one I am trying [...]

Posing your models or other subjects in portrait photography can actually be quite difficult.  Difficult, and important.  I find that the clients often choose the shots they like the most according to the pose and how the pose makes them look rather than how good the photography is. This post is in response to a [...]

If you follow @ImprovePhoto on Twitter, you may have seen the photo featured on this page two weeks ago when I tweeted my shoot.  A few of you asked questions about the shoot, so I thought it would be an interesting article for today. First of all, I was a bit disappointed with the shoot. [...]

I spend a significant amount of time just enjoying beautiful photography.  I look at great photos on flickr, on the websites of other photographers, and I always look at the websites of people who comment on the blog and include a link to their site.  In seeing all these photos, I am frequently surprised at [...]

I always teach my students that the light is the most important component of a good photo.  This always begs the question, “What makes good lighting?”  Generally, photographers say that good light is soft light.  That’s often true, and if you want soft light, I wrote an article on how to achieve soft light. Unfortunately, [...]

Since I live only a few minutes away from the beach, many of my portrait photography clients want their photo taken on the beach.  In response to a a question from one of the students in my online photography class, I wrote this list of 10 tips for sunset portrait photography. Sunset Portrait Tip #1: [...]

Creativity is a complex concept.  It involves making something new and out-of-the-ordinary.  It means avoiding the expected and typical.  With this in mind, many photographers attempt to take creative photographs by creating absolutely insane and ridiculous scenes and then snapping a picture of it.  I’m always amazed when I look at the top-voted pictures on [...]

I’ve noticed two things when I give my clients photos from a portrait shoot.  First, they don’t really care about the technical photography junk.  All they care about is whether or not they look good…and their definition of looking good is usually very different than my assessment of whether or not they look good. The [...]

I get it.  Depth of field is fun to play with and makes our pictures look amazing, but I’m here to say that more of a good thing is not always better. Look at the image featured on this page of my beautiful wife, Emily.  The depth-of-field adds to this image to make her stand [...]