After getting an email from someone who has visited this site, I asked them what they would like to see on the site. They said they thought some simple exercises or tasks for the beginner would be good. It can be hard to find inspiration sometimes, so I thought this was an excellent idea. Thanks Louise!
So the first task will test your eye for composition and the Rule of Thirds.
While this isn’t really a strict rule, it’s a good guideline to follow.
So what you need to do is this. Pick three different subjects, for example; a landscape, a portrait and maybe a subject that is moving. You don’t need to worry about any particular camera settings, this is just a composition exercise.
Follow the Rule of Thirds and take several photos of each subject, but try and stick to the guidelines. So check where your horizons are, for portraits check where the eyes are in the image, but try and make each picture different to the previous one.
If you have a zoom lens, then try a composition zoomed right out, try one zoomed in half way and try one zoomed right in. Try your camera in landscape orientation, and try it in portrait orientation and see what you end up with.
If you have a Flickr Account, join and add your pictures to the Photography Basics group and tag them “photographybasics task 1”. If you don’t have a Flickr account (it’s free to set up if you want one) then either post a link to your image in the comments of this post if you have the image on another web site.
This task should help you get used to looking at the image in the viewfinder or screen before pressing the shutter button to take the image and thinking a bit about the image you are about to take.
I look forward to seeing your images.