If you are looking for a way to make your photography stand out, there are plenty of striking photography techniques you can experiment with.
From impressive light trails to fascinating tilt-shift photography, these are our top 8 photography techniques to give you a creative edge.
1. Tilt-Shift Photography
Tilt-shift is a cool photography technique that plays with perspective and scale. Tilt-shift can make a normal scene look like a miniature model.
The illusion is achieved by tilting the lens plane relative to the image plane, and shifting the movement of the lens parallel to the image plane. These days, you can get a range of tilt-shift lenses for cameras, as well as app filters to create the effect post-production.
Some of the resulting image is sharp while the rest is out of focus which makes for a striking and interesting photo.
2. Macro Photography
Macro photography captures a world that can be overlooked by the human eye. It is extreme close-up photography, giving you a closer look at plants and insects or interesting textures.
With a macro lens you’ll never run out of fascinating subjects. You can capture the smallest details of everyday objects with brilliant clarity and sharpness.
3. Bokeh
Bokeh is a beautiful photography technique to get acquainted with. The word bokeh comes from the Japanese word for blur. Bokeh occurs when the lights in the background of an image appear blurred and out-of-focus.
These lights will look like glowing balls of light. There are many creative ways to best use this effect and make a photograph really stand out.
4. Black & White Photography
Limiting yourself to black and white photography can be a challenging and rewarding process. Often photographers think that a good image is one that captures every last detail of a scene.
But choosing to capture a scene in black and white can add intensity and drama to a shot that might be otherwise forgettable.
Good black and white photography will pay careful consideration to shadows and lighting.
5. Long Exposure Photography
There are many interesting ways to take advantage of a longer exposure. A longer exposure blurs movement and, when combined with a steady camera on a tripod, can create stunning images.
A long exposure can turn a running stream into a silky, flowing ribbon or moving clouds into beautiful brushstrokes across a sky.
Combining the long exposure with a panning camera can produce a sharp subject and motion blur as well.
6. High-Speed Photography
High-speed photography allows the photographer to freeze a moment in time, capturing a movement that is otherwise too quick to the human eye.
Using a quick shutter speed on a fantastic DSLR, photographers can capture truly impressive images. You can also try this technique using the sports mode of a basic point-and-shoot camera.
7. Lens Filters
Just by fitting a filter on the end of your camera lens, you can change the look and feel of an image. There are plenty of lens filters to experiment with, including polarising filters, UV filters, and neutral density filters.
Infrared filters filter out all colours except red and infrared. A blue and yellow polarising lens will capture the intense blue of the ocean.
8. Light Trails
Light trails use long shutter speeds and moving light to create glowing trails. This is commonly seen in city photography. But the lights of traffic are not the only way to make impressive light trails.
Have your subjects dance or write words with torches, sparklers and glow sticks for interesting and dynamic light trail photography.
While you can get away with a few creative photography techniques with a basic compact camera, you'll go much further with a quality camera kit. Check out our huge range of cameras and accessories in our online store or head in-store for our expert advice.
