I bet you didn't know that 'Photoing' was a word. It is my short-cut word for photographing. I don't think you will find it in Merriam-Webster now but Merriam does adopt new words from time to time so if you'll take up the cause and add 'photoing' to your vocabulary maybe we can get it included in the dictionary in a few years.But what this blog is really about is an email I had from Isla Gringo. He suggested that I should do a series of blogs on "How to take a good picture for your blog." Oh my, that is a huge undertaking. Just go to Amazon.com and search for 'How To' photography books. You have lots of choices. So much has been written on that subject and I'm sure that it is much better than what I could do. One of my blogger friends, George Barr regularly writes in his blog, Behind the Lens, about finding images, composition and post processing. George has even put it all together in a book, Take Your Photography to the Next Level. I don't think I can improve on what George has to say.
Isla Gringo also mentioned that he had Photoshop but it was so hard to understand that he didn't use it. Ah....Now here is a place that I might be able to offer a suggestion. If you are going to use Photoshop then you need a tutorial and a good bit of time for the learning curve. My favorite down-to-earth, easy-to-use tutorial is Scott Kelby's, The Adobe Photoshop CS3 Book for Digital Photographers. If you are going to use Photoshop then you are committing to paying the Photoshop 'tax' of $200 every 18 months for the latest up-grade.
I don't think most bloggers want to commit so much time and money to images for their blog. But I think that doing some post processing on some of the blog images I see could improve them a lot. A lot of them need just a little more contrast and a bit of sharpening, maybe a little lightening or darkening or even some cropping if you aren't a died-in-wool full-frame guy. I still say that cropping is not a mortal sin! I'd like to suggest that those of you who want to improve your pictures but don't want to spend the time and money to Photoshop, take a look at Picasa. Take a look at the Getting Started Guide. Doesn't look too hard does it? It is a free download.
Okay, now that you have a way to edit your photos, don't go overboard. A little bit of editing goes a long way. Just because you can invert colors doesn't mean that you should!
So that's my advice on Photoing. Just go photoing and have fun. The more you shoot the more you learn.
This image was made at the Feria Sunday evening. It has nothing to do with the blog entry except I was just photoing and having fun.
