Proud Photography Blog

Unless you are a teenager who probably has never seen a film camera, you will probably have quite a few old photos that only exist as hard copies of images captured on film. These could be pictures from your school and college days or old black and white or even sepia prints of your parents and grandparents. Like all pictures, they will deteriorate with age and the old way for you to preserve them in to digitize them by scanning them into you computer or onto CDs or DVDs. Here are a few things you can do to ensure your scans are of the best quality and that you have saved the pictures in a way that matches what you plan to do with them.

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If there’s one thing every home and office must have, it is a calendar. Although we live in a world of computer calendars and organizers, online calendars, PDAs and mobile phone alerts, nothing will ever replace the printed calendar. One glance at it will tell you where you are in time and the notes you have made on it will remind you of important dates and things to be done. Nothing to switch on or buttons to press – its just there.

Calendars are of two basic types, the small self supporting desk types and the larger wall ones. There are many variations in these types – one page per week or one per month; just days and dates or space for noting things down. Whatever type you prefer, the one thing that will influence your choice is the art work or photographs on the calendar. Since this is such a major factor in a calendar’s appeal, why not try making your own photo calendar? Its easy.

The first thing to do is to choose the pictures you want to use. Its normally a good idea to choose a theme such as the family, holidays, the home, children, pets and so on and select your pictures around this theme. Read the rest of this entry »

Although, digital SLR cameras have redefined photography, until five years ago they were meant only for professionals. For the average person, they were quite exorbitantly priced. When Canon launched its EOS 300D five years ago, it shot to fame, as the 300D (Rebel) was preferred by many as an affordable solution.

After launching the 350D (Rebel XT) and the 400D (Rebel XTi), Canon hit upon the 450D, or the Rebel XSi, which gave exceptional photos at a cheaper price. When competitors responded by downgrading their existing cameras, Canon once again attempted to come to the fore with its downgraded model, the EOS 1000D, as it was known in Europe, and later came to be known as the Kiss F Digital or the Rebel XS in the U. S. Canon touted the Rebel XS as its entry level camera. In this review the 1000D is referred to as the XS.

The XS basically features a 10 megapixel APS-C size CMOS sensor. These sensors are comparatively smaller than the conventional 35mm sensors. Read the rest of this entry »

Photographing a pet is an act of love. Every pet owner wants pictures of his pet looking its best. The problem is that pets, even the best behaved of them, are not the most cooperative subjects for portraits – the may do as they are told, but they don’t understand what you are looking for.

This first thing to remember is that photographing your pets requires a lot of patience. There may be times when you have your camera ready and the pet is in exactly the right pose. But these are rare. Here are a few tips one how the get the best results when photographing your pets:

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Becoming a good photographer requires more that having a good camera, pointing it in the right direction and pressing a button. An aspiring professional or even a serious amateur needs to learn the both the science and art of photography. That’s where photography schools come into the picture (pun intended).

While most photography schools are oriented towards training the professional photographer, a serious hobbyist can also consider going to one to hone his skills and increase the pleasure he gets out of it.

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Digital photography has opened up a new world of action photographs. While most digital cameras have a high speed, action or sports mode which will help you to take great action shots, there are still some things you can do yourself to help improve the quality of your results.

•    When trying to take action shots of a sporting event, you have two options-
o     Follow the subject with the cameras and be ready to shoot when the moment of action occurs. This would be the best thing to do for a game like foot ball or hockey where action may occur anywhere on the field.
o    Keep the camera focused on the spot where the action will occur and shot when it happens. You could try this technique for games like basketball(focus on the basket) or Baseball (focus on the batter on on a base). Read the rest of this entry »

Although history tells us that the basic concept of a camera has been around since the 5th century B.C., it stayed just a theory for over two thousand years. The science of capturing images that could be stored began in 1830s when a Frenchman named Joseph Nicophore Niepce fitted a pewter plate coated with bitumen in a box and exposed it to light. The image that formed on the pewter plate was the first photograph.
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Professional photographers say that “If you can shoot food, you can shoot anything.” The main cause for this is the insufficient time you have to actually take your shots. From the time food is kept on the table its look starts deteriorating. Steam stops emerging from it, ice cream begins to melt, shiny food stops shining and so on. At times a photographer has time to take only 5 or 6 pictures before the food stops looking its best. Read the rest of this entry »

More than any other kinds of photographs, those of your children as they grow up are the ones that you will treasure the rest of you life. Don’t let this mean that every picture has to be perfect. If kids are not perfect, why should their pictures be? What you need to do is try not just to capture the ways your children look, but capture memories. Pictures of them doing things that you associate with them or candid ones which reveal a side the parents’ not normally see are the ones that have the most value are the years pass. So what is the best way to go about it? Read the rest of this entry »

Manipulating colors in photographs can hugely enhance the effect that the image creates. From simply making it more eye catching to adding feelings and emotions, everything is possible using software like Photoshop of its equivalents. The effects may be subtle as in toning down clashing colors or extreme as in applying a bright color to a specific area to make it stand out. Read the rest of this entry »