Find your style in photography - 4 - When Everything can be Beautiful

Hello friends! Let's continue with photography and talk about a different style.

Maybe you go around with your camera for hours looking for something worth to be captured, you get tired, you find think there's nothing and get stressed. Have you thought that, perhaps, you've not been paying real attention? Beauty is around us everywhere, the matter is that we have to see it with different eyes. Everyone knows that a flower, a puppy or a sunset is beautiful, but there are many other things that deserve our attention and that are beautiful for other reasons than simply visual.

Things tell us stories, everything you find in your way has something to say, an old building, an abandoned church, even old tools tell us about themselves. But, how do we make other people listen and find the beauty? Well, that's called "art". Art makes things talk by themselves and tell us their story, it gives real beauty even to a piece of wood, so sometimes it's not just about what we capture but how. 

There is something called perspective that we should take into account and which can bring a melancholic, sad, happy, romantic, etc. touch to our shots. Let's imagine an abandoned and ancient building, we have many ways to capture it and depending on that we'll get a result: time of the day, light, from where, close, far, perspective, clouded day, sunny day, among other possibilities. The matter is that we can find beauty wherever we go if we have a good eye, a good technique and artistic sense.

There some photographers who are special for that, they exactly know where, when and how. They don't need a beautiful thing itself to show beauty, they find and show it wherever they go and on whatever they capture. This is Lisa Wooten case, her shots capture beauty as she perfectly knows it is everywhere, and even when she is mostly a landscape photographer she gives us the fresh air of beauty, feelings and emotion on everything she captures. If you click on the images below you'll know what I'm about and you'll be able to know more about this fantastic artist. 

Find your style in photography - 3 - The Axis that Captures the Attention

Following the "Find your style in photography" issue, I want to talk about the importance of the axis (or point) that captures the viewer attention.

Some photographers have good works, but have a problem since they can't drive the viewer attention to a specific point in their composition. This is important both in fotography and in painting since if we don't get a certain balance the eye is lost in the set. I think I've talked a little bit about it before. No matter how beautiful a landscape may be, it can go unnoticed if we fail to create the imaginary lines that will take us to the spotlight. Sometimes it's an element (a boat, a tree, etc.), while sometimes it is simply where the horizon, buildings, a mountain or clouds intersect.

Generally, it is that balance and that point of attention which makes a good photo stand out over another. The eye needs to get out of the confusion, have a stimulus that takes it and direct it towards a point (not necessarily in the center) to appreciate the rest of the work. This phenomenon occurs in fractions of a second and it's not at the conscious level. Therefore, pay attention to balance / distraction, many times what could have been a fantastic capture becomes a common one for neglecting this.

As an example of this, I want to show you John Janicki's photographs, he's an incredible professional photographer and we can perfectly see what I'm talking about. He has a perfect sense of balance and  has the ability to take the viewer's eye exactly where he wants. Besides, he has a fantastic sense of composition that highlights the beauty of everything he captures. So, pay attention to his work to learn how to become a good photographer. I invite you to click on the images below to enlarge them and know more about this great artist.

Find your style in photography - 2 - Beyond Perfection

Some photographers show us reality in such an exquisite way that they make us wish things were like they show us. It is an elaborate hyperrealism that provides an added touch of beauty, which comes from their own eye and camera.

Let's see what are the most distinctive features of this type of work, regardless of the special talent of each artist:

1. The right moment: not any moment, just the perfect one.

2. The light that inspires exactly what we want it to: depending on the light we'll get different kind of emotions, sometimes we just find the proper moment for shooting while others we look for that.

3. Perfect element's combination: we have different elements or just one but, how and where do we place them? We'll get completely different results depending on the combination.

4. Perfect balance: balance is one of the most important things in photography, that makes the eye go in one direction or another,  gives relevance to the total composition or to certain elements and may change the general meaning.

5. Capture exactly what you want to capture: when we work outdoors it's possible that we capture what we can, but patient and an experienced eye take us where we and how we want. 

These simple tips usually make the difference between a simple landscape or a paradise one. Have you ever seen a photograph of an incredible place you've visited once but that appears to be more exciting and beautiful than what you've seen with your own eyes?, that's called "talent".

As an example of this, I want to show you Luigi Morbidelli's artworks. It's actually difficult to choose just one of his photograph as they are all beyond perfection. His work is error free and goes a step further by spicing the image with his own talent which adds beauty to everything he captures. Luigi is a landscape but also a food photographer and I can assure you that his photographs of food make what he shows more palatable than reality itself. If you click on the images you'll be able to enlarge them and see his complete gallery, which I strongly recommend. You can also know more about him at http://luigimorbidelli.wixsite.com/photography . Through his photos we can learn what  really a professional work is and how important are both talent and experience. Enjoy it!

Portraits that speak by themselves

Traditional themes never die since they are renewed by the technique used and by what they tell us. This is portraits' case. Artists have always been interested in perpetuating other people in their works, before photography technology there was no way to get someone to be remembered, but the most interesting thing about it is that due to portraits we are able to realize how faces have been changing over the course of history. 

Thanks to the portraits we can know what the idealization of beauty was at any given moment, which wasn't the same in the tenth century or in the sixteenth century, much less in the twenty-first century. We have an idea nos of what was worn, fashion, morphology and even the predominant expressions in a time that is not ours. It's like writing history but with pencils and paintings. Therefore, portraits have always existed and will always exist, whispering to the ear the secrets of a moment or circumstance of history and a character.

It is interesting to see how things have changed, not only in the portrait's subject but also in its realization. Personally, I feel great admiration for those artists who manage to make realistic portraits and are able to show up the emotions and feelings of a character through their eyes, for example, something that photography itself often can not get. 

Today, I want to show you Marina Pacurar's work, she is a traditional and digital artist specialized, but not limited, on portraits. She has a serie of portraits based on Games of Thrones' characters, which she used as well to create a Deck of Poker Cards ( https://www.etsy.com/shop/MarinaPacurar?ref=hdr_shop_menu ). One of the things that most caught my attention in her portraits, besides their great perfection, it was the expression that this artist gives them, they are live as they could speak and tell us how they feel and how they are, what is very difficult to achieve in fact. Click on the images below to enlarge them and to know more about this awesome artist who is able to make her portraits talk with their eyes and skin.

Find your style in photography - 1 - As gentle as a cool breeze in summer

We all know that there are so many styles of photographies as photographers, but the matter is: did you find your own style? as in painting, it will make you stand out from the others. 

Art often reflects not only what we see but what we are, not only by the elements that we show but how we do it. Through our camera we can get the same scene transmit different sensations depending on how we capture the image. Besides, we have post production tools which help us to get what we really want. But it isn't so easy as we think. Some say that if they had a good camera and photopshop they could get anything they want, but that's wrong..., we can't get it if we have no talent. You can spend endless hours in front of your computer without achieving what you want as it's not just a matter of working with technology but, as usual in art, to know how to do it and what we exactly want to get.

I want to show you Leif Sohlman's artworks as an example of this, he is a photographer mainly working with nature photography such as birds, animals and landscapes. He has a personal style, not only because he's mostly focused on nature but on the way he captures it. Sometimes it's difficult to know if his works are photographs or paintings since he adds his personal touch which brings us to an emotion that goes beyond the image itself. It's like a cool and gentle breeze in a special universe of nature where a peaceful environment takes us to pleasant sensations, even when it's sometimes broken by some details as a dramatic sky it simply reinforces the peaceful scene below.

His special mood on pictures makes us distinguish his ones among others. Leif is a perfect combination between great eye and great hand, he subsumes the right place and the perfect smooth that increases reality making it become magic. I invite you to click on the images below to enlarge them and know more about the fantastic work of this great artist.