Street Photography | Another Entry, Projects & Plans...

© Safuan Shahril | Street Photography | Be My Valentine

Hi everybody! Ahhh I really need to stop taking photos of people from the back. I don't think it's a good way to take photos when it's about street photography. Because I don't know, it might be certain photos would look "OK" but probably most of them aren't really a good way to interpret the life in the streets.

So I hope you're all fine and how was your week? Anyway this week I started my half term break from college and you would think I have free time but not really to be honest. I got like assignments to finish by next week. So wish me luck! Don't worry, I will still go out shooting in my free time. :-)

Street Photography | Review & Analyse...

© Safuan Shahril | Street Photography | Abstract Personality

Hello all the lovable people out there! Yes, I'm back with another post even though my recent post was two days ago. So, how was your previous week? I hope it was good and maybe something good happen to you or something. 

Anyway, it's been a pretty good week for me and was really happy that I was shooting on the streets in Bristol as usual. This week it was awkwardly cold even though I was wearing three jackets on me. I don't know how to describe it but it was so cold in the mornings until it definitely affected my mood to take photographs. Yeah, I guess getting geared up for the winter properly makes a difference but when I usually hold my camera, I always keep my shooting hand out from my pocket just incase to react fast when it comes to taking photos. All of sudden, that one afternoon at lunch the lighting was good and I could not resist of not taking photos. I mean the shadows were strong, there were quite a lot of people, and the most important that the lighting was great. Plus, the sun did keep me warm enough. So it the end of the week I was a happy boy. 

So in this post I will be talking through each photos from this week; how I analyse my photos and why and what it interests me the most in each photo. Get ready and enjoy! : )

Street Photography | Shoot From the Hip Technique

  

Video by Eric Kim | Click here to check out Eric Kim's Work

Hello all the lovable people out there! Today I'm going to share this technique called shoot from the hip. About this technique is that it's a really popular technique used by modern street photographers. I probably assume that this have done with DSLRs. I wouldn't even dare doing this with film cameras. Haha it's common sense and I shouldn't have mention it. But hey! since you're reading this I thought you might find this useful. To sum it up, “shooting from the hip” it is holding your camera at waist-level, and shooting upwards without looking through the viewfinder. One of the reasons why this technique is widely popular is because it allows you to take much more candid images of people, as they do not see you shooting them with your eye through your viewfinder, and assume you aren't taking images. Another thing is that when shooting from the hip, you often get a much more interesting perspective as you shoot from a much lower perspective.

Street Photography | The Starting Line...

© Safuan Shahril | Street Photography | A Call

Hi everybody! It's Sunday and I would never thought I would write something on the weekend but hey I guess it might be your day ;). Anyway, how was your week? I hope you guys are well and my week has been pretty good. Last weekend, I was on my computer doing some research on street photography and all of sudden on Monday I brought my camera with me to college. I left my house early than I used to. Then once I got out of the bus, my hand went straight into my bag and brought out my camera but I only snapped a few because I was still struck by Monday Blues. However, once I finished college I spent at least an hour just taking pictures of the street. Pffftt... when I got home I wasn't happy with my results and at that time I felt determine to go on the streets the next day to take some more pictures. 

Haha... There you go my first day with street photography. Yes I'm falling in love with it at the moment and I'm probably going to do this for a bit longer. So, you would expect a lot of street photography posts in the future and tips to share. Since this post is about my first steps into street photography, I'm going to share what I learned from last week:-

Photoshop 101 | Black & White

© Safuan Shahril | House of Parliament | London

Hi everybody! As you know that the year 2011 is coming to an end but the best part we'll be looking forward to a new year of 2012. I'm sure everybody feels time flies away and us as a photographer would like to think we have learn and polished our skills in photography. But knowledge will never stop and we must learn new knowledge in order to succeed at what you want. So this post is going to be about quick ways to apply Black & White effect in Photoshop.


A quick glance through any photography or fashion magazine, or at the photos on social websites like Flickr, confirms that black and white photography is as popular as ever. With the coming of digital though, one important thing has changed. In the days of film photography, you shot on black and white film. Now, with digital cameras, you take photos in colour and then convert them to black and white.


Converting to black and white digitally has a number of advantages. With film, the black and white conversion essentially happened at the time of shooting. If you wanted to change the nature of the black and white conversion, you could only do it by placing a coloured filter on the lens (a red filter, for instance, makes blue skies much darker).


Now, by starting with a colour photo and converting it to black and white in Photoshop, you have complete control over the conversion. Darkening a blue sky is easy, once you know how, and you can decide exactly how dark you want it to be.


Most digital SLRs (and some compacts) have a black and white mode. The camera is making the conversion for you, and the results are usually poor, giving flat, washed out photos. Avoid this mode, and use the following techniques instead.

Photoshop 101 | Curves

Hi guys! It's been a very long absence from me. Let's just say that I got plenty work from college al'right. Okay so this will be my first tutorial/tips of editing in Photoshop. I'm sure most beginners in Photoshop will use the Levels tool when it comes to increasing the brightness or contrast of the photo and I admit it's a pretty useful tool in Photoshop. However, today I would like to talk about the Curves tool. Basically, Curves is another tool that you can increase the brightness or apply contrast to a photo, which is similar to the Levels tool. In addition, I believe the Curves tool can give a lot of control when it's about enhancing your photo in Photoshop. With curves you are able adjust the over - all contrast or tonal range, adjust the local contrast and adjust the colour. 

Overview

This is how the Curves tool looks like in Photoshop. As you can see I've point out each part of the Curves. The point form the top (right) to the bottom (left) affects the whites, highlights, midtones, shadows and the blacks of the photo. Therefore, by moving the positions of the point will create tone to the photo. Leaving the lines in the centre will not alter any effect to your photo.

You start by changing the brightness values by clicking once somewhere on the line. This will then be selected as a "point"; the point can now be moved by dragging the point to a different place within the grid; which causes the tonal value to change either lighter or darker depending on whether you drag it up or down. The reason it's a curve is so that the change blends smoothly throughout the photo. A sudden change in value can be noticed very easily. The increasingly gradual change of the brightness values on either side of the change gives a very smooth and lots of adjustment control.

Note: However, that you can't increase contrast in one region without decreasing it in another. The curves

tool recreates contrast. Therefore think of the image having a contrast budget and you need to decide how it best suits your photo.

Quick Tip

If you want to keep the effects on adjustment or in a separate layers to enable quick adjustment during the process, go to Layers > New Adjustment Layer > Curves and it will appear at you layers palette. 

         

Photography Tips | Improve your Photography

"Your First 10,000 photographs are your worst" - Henri Cartier-Bresson

See the quote above? Probably one of the most famous photography quotes of all time. You would probably understand straight away the quote when you first time read it and is it true? You decide. I started my photography nearly about two years ago and a lot has pretty change based on my skills of taking photos. Some people they don't' have the natural instinct to take photographs nicely first time. They would probably tent to say the camera does it's job but I totally disagree with the statement because "it's not the camera but the person behind the camera". The fact that YOU control the camera and shoot the photographs, you are the one that makes the photographs happen. I mean 2 years ago I entered a photography competition with my school by just using a

small Nikon point and shoot camera and the last thing you know it you realized that you were able to learn new things by just using a point and shoot camera. It's not about expensive equipments. It's not about having the best camera in the world if you can't understand how to make photographs properly. But experience and skill is key of making a photograph happen. I'm just going to list down 5 things that you can improve your photography skills:-