Photography Techniques

What Is Shutter Drag Photography? Shutter drag photography is a technique that combines a slow shutter speed with a flash to capture both motion and sharpness in a single shot. The ambient light records movement and blur, while the flash freezes the subject at one specific moment. The result you get is an image that feels dynamic and alive (lights streaks, motion trails, energy in the background) but with a sharp subject/subjects inside all of it. You will see/can use such sh

What Is Whip Pan Photography? In cinema, a whip pan is a fast camera movement used to create a streaked, blurry transition between scenes. In still photography, the idea is very similar, however, instead of transitioning between shots, you are using a slow shutter speed combined with a sudden camera movement to capture motion blur inside a single frame. The result is a photo that feels energetic and cinematic, where light stretches across the frame and the subject is frozen i

Soft Focus Photography Soft focus is when you intentionally reduce sharpness (just a little) to get a gentle, glowing image. It smooths out textures (especially skin), reduces contrast, and gives your photo a kind of, let’s say ‘ethereal’ look. It is often used in portraits, dreamy landscapes, artistic/fine art work, vintage-style shots or even editorial fashion photography It is not the same as being out of focus. Good soft focus still has structure in it. You can usually te

Median Stacking Photography Median stacking is basically a way of combining multiple photos of the same scene to remove anything that moves. People, cars, waves, clouds, birds → if it is not in the same place in every frame/shot you take, it fades away (well you will make it go away). What is left is a clean, quiet version of the scene that often never actually existed in real life. It is how photographers get those empty tourist spots for example (that are usually packed and

Abstract Firework Photography The new year is right around the corner, making this an optimal time to brush up on your firework photography skills. However this time, lets do something a bit different, lets focus more on ‘Abstract firework photography’, where you are not trying to show exactly what the fireworks looked like, you want to be using them as raw material to create shapes, textures, and motion that feel closer to painting than photography. A Different Approach Most

credits: Fujifilm The Golden Ratio Technique The Golden Ratio compositional technique is one of those ideas that sounds intimidating at first, but in practice it is really just a way to guide the viewer’s eye through an image in a smooth, natural flow. It has been used for centuries in art, architecture, design and of course photography. The Golden Ratio helps create balance that doesn’t feel forced. Instead of splitting a frame evenly, it places visual weight slightly off-ce

What is the Black Card Photography Technique? Black card photography is a technique that feels almost too simple once you understand it. The idea behind it is straightforward, instead of using an expensive graduated ND filter to balance the exposure between sky and foreground, you use a matte black card to manually control how much light hits different parts of the frame during the exposure. If you think about it, it is basically dodging and burning, but done in-camera while

What Is Panning Photography Panning is a technique were you are trying to match your camera’s motion to someone (/something) else’s movement, with the goal of hitting that perfect moment where everything lines up, the subject’s speed, your own rotation, your shutter etc. The key thing here is relative motion. Your subject stays sharp because, for a fraction of a second, you are essentially moving with them. Meanwhile, the world behind them sort of smears into streaks because

credits: Adobe What is duotone photography? Duotone is just what it sounds like, a photo that uses two tones/colours, typically one for the highlights and one for the shadows. It strips away the full-colour spectrum and replaces it with a simplified, stylised colour combo. In general you can use duotone photography with any scene and subject, however the most popular use cases are portraits, posters, album covers etc. How to create a duotone image Technically, you can just sh

What Is High-Key Lighting? High-key lighting is a style where everything in your photo, so the subject, background, and shadows, is evenly lit and bright. You reduce contrast as much as possible, so there are few (if any) deep shadows. In the end you get a photo that feels light, fresh, minimal in a sense, and often very polished. A lot of times you see it in fashion, beauty and product photography, but it also works outdoors, especially for landscapes and nature shots (a lot

What Is Exposure Stacking? Exposure stacking, sometimes called exposure blending, is when you take several photos of the same scene at different exposure levels (one brighter, one darker, one in between) and then you merge them into a single photo and you keep detail everywhere. Basically, instead of picking one “correct” exposure, you take a few and get the best parts from each. It is a very close cousin of HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography, which I have covered before, b

By Kuebi = Armin Kübelbeck - own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5618475 What Is Solarization? Solarization (also known as the Sabattier effect) happens when you partly expose a developing photo or film to light, then continue developing it. Instead of ruining the image completely (which exposure to light normally does), it reverses the tones in certain areas → blacks turn silvery, highlights go darker, and you get glowing outlines around s

credits: Canon What Is Time Stacking Photography? Time stacking is what happens when you take a bunch of photos of the same scene over a period of time and then combine them later into one single image. Instead of just one single moment, you get a picture that shows movement/change. It is very similar to long exposure, however instead of leaving your shutter open for a few minutes or hours, you take hundreds of quick shots and “stack” them together afterward. How It Works Thi

What Is Pinhole Photography? Pinhole photography is basically the most stripped-down form of photography possible. Instead of a lens, you use a tiny hole (literally a pin-sized opening) to let light hit your camera’s sensor (or film of course). It is how cameras started. Before lenses, there were camera obscuras, where photographers would project an image through a small hole onto a wall to then trace it. Modern pinhole photography is that same idea, just in ‘‘modern’’ camera

What Is Stroboscopic Flash Photography? In simple terms: instead of firing once, your flash fires multiple times during a single long exposure. Each flash burst freezes your subject in a new position, and all those bursts get recorded in one photo. How It Works You set your camera for a long exposure (say, one or two seconds), and then set your flash to stroboscopic mode, most speedlights have a setting called “Multi” or “Stroboscopic.” This now lets you control three key thi

What Is Defocused Firework Photography? Normally when you shoot fireworks, you are trying to get them super sharp, however you can actually do the opposite. If you throw the fireworks out of focus on purpose, they turn into abstract blobs of colour that look like flowers, jellyfish, or watercolour splashes in the sky. How To Do It

What Is Reverse Lens Macro Photography? Normally, your lens is built to focus on subjects a few meters away and beyond. But if you flip that lens around (literally mount it backwards) it works in reverse and suddenly lets you focus on things just a few centimetres from your camera. It is an old trick that photographers have been using for decades, and it is still one of the cheapest ways to try out macro without fancy/expensive gear. How to Do It Use a Reversing Ring (or DIY

What Is Prisming Photography? Prisming is when you shoot through a prism or another piece of glass to bend, distort, or reflect light into your photo. By holding a prism in front of your lens, you can add flares, rainbows, reflections, or even duplicate parts of your subject and all this straight in-camera. You are basically using optics to get results you can’t normally achieve. Portrait photographers love it for dreamy effects, but it works just as well for landscapes, stil

credits: Ilford What Is Trichrome Photography? Trichrome photography is a way of creating colour photographs using only black-and-white images. Sounds a little odd yes, but here is how it works: you take three separate photos of the same scene, each one through a different colour filter—> red, green, and blue. Later, you combine those three filtered shots into one full-color image. This method goes way back to the late 1800s, when photographers didn’t yet have true colour fil

What Is High-Speed Photography? High-speed photography is about freezing moments that normally just happen too fast for us to see. Things like a water balloon exploding, a strawberry hitting a glass of water, a droplet splashing into water etc. Basically stuff that (to the naked eye) is just a blur, but with the right technique, you can catch it in crisp detail. Two Main Ways to Do It There are two approaches, depending on your setup/surroundings: Fast shutter speeds (dayligh

What Is Refraction Photography? Refraction photography is basically using the way light bends through glass, water, or anything clear to...

What Is Multiple Exposure Photography? Multiple exposure is when you capture more than one image on the same frame, either in-camera or...

What Is a Cinemagraph? A cinemagraph is kind of a hybrid between photo and video. Imagine a still image where just one small part keeps...

What Is Tilt-Shift Photography? Tilt-shift photography is a technique that looks very technical (and it kind of is), but it opens the...

credits: Skylum What Is Clamshell Lighting? Clamshell lighting is a two-light setup where one light is placed above the subject and the...

What Is Spot Colour Photography? Spot colour is about keeping most of your image in black and white while leaving one subject or element...

What is Star Trail Photography? Basically, star trails are the result of long exposure photography capturing the Earth's rotation. The...

credits: Skylum What is Soft Focus exactly? Soft focus is when you intentionally reduce sharpness just a little to get a gentle, glowing...

What is Low Key Lighting? Last week we talked about high key lighting. Today, let’s talk low key: low key lighting is all about using...

What is zoom blur photography? Basically, zoom blur is creating a sense of motion and speed by literally zooming your lens in or out...

What is smoke art photography? It’s exactly what it sounds like—you take pictures of smoke. But not just any smoke. Usually it’s from...

So, what even is UV photography? Basically, it’s taking photos of light that we can’t see. Ultraviolet light sits just outside the...

What Is Double Exposure? At its core, double exposure is when you combine two different photos into a single image. You might blend a...

What’s Selective Colour Photography? It’s exactly what it sounds like—you take a photo and turn most of it black and white while keeping...

What Is Anamorphic Photography? Anamorphic photography comes from the world of filmmaking. Anamorphic lenses squeeze a wider field of...

What is Intentional Camera Movement? Most of the time, photography is about keeping the camera as still as possible. But Intentional...

What is Abstract Photography Abstract photography is when you remove context from an image so that it becomes about its form, colour,...

What Is The Freelensing Photography Technique ? Freelensing is when you hold your lens in front of your camera rather than mounting it,...

What Is the Brenizer Method? Named after photographer Ryan Brenizer, this method is basically a panoramic stitch for portraits. Instead...

What Is Focus Stacking? Focus stacking involves taking multiple photos at different focus points and blending them together in...

How to Nail a Silhouette Shot Find a Strong Light Source The best silhouettes happen when your subject is backlit—meaning the light is...

Michiel Alleman David Mc Elwee What Is Infrared Photography? Infrared (IR) photography captures light beyond the visible...