You can take cool photos even with a potatoe phone! It’s harder of course but still possible, it’s what you aiming at more than just the camera itself.
That’s a very nice picture:)
It’s definitely not a potato lol. I just wasn’t sure what the stance was on phone cameras vs “real” cameras.
My stance on photography is “the best camera is the one you have with you”.
On the other hand, I don’t find taking pictures with a phone to be particularly engaging.Personally I love film cameras most. Focussing by rotating the lens, the sound of the mirror slap, winding the film with a lever, and the moment when you get to see how your pics turned out days later are more than half the fun for me.
I can understand that. If I find myself getting really into photography, I might end up getting proper equipment but my Pixel 6a is good for now!
Haha of course not, it was more a statement that the moment and composure is more important than the tool
A camera is a camera, man! I like it, keep going. Experiment and develop your style.
Cropping / framing the picture is the most impactful instrument. In this case I would crop unnecessary information (noise) out of the photo:
- reduce amount of the sky,
- cut from below to keep building nicely aligned in lower 2/3,
- remove a bit from the left so that the car is not pooling attention and to reduce green colour.
Picture will completely shift it’s attention and mood.
Sometimes I even make few different framings as copies and get more than one story.
For better aesthetical effects on exterior scenery pictures, you might want to change the ratio of the frame to 2*3.
Alright. I’ll try that in the future :)
Personally when it comes to exterior shots I go for wider shots than 3x2. I’m talking like 3x1, 2x1, or 16x9. Mostly I like those wider shots because I feel they isolate the subject most for exteriors.
Here’s a quick and sloppy little crop at 2x1 I did of your picture. Unfortunately I’m away from my PC ATM so a better crop couldn’t happen but I think it shows what I’m trying to say.
Of course lately I’ve been really falling in love with 1x1 images but that’s a whole other ball pit.
Here’s a 1x1 edit if you’re curious. Also a bit haphazard due to being on my phone but I think I got the framing pretty close.
Edit: Keep up the good work and remember: the best camera is the one you have on you when you want to take pictures.
Alright. I’ll try some of those ratios in later shots. I do like 1x1 because it makes any picture look like an album cover lol.
NGL that’s another reason I really like 1x1.
Finally got back to my PC so I could do some fun editing
BTW would you be alright if I share this edit in my online album (DeviantArt page) provided I credit you as the original source for the non-edited image and provide a link here?
Edit: Slight clarification on where I’d share it.
I wouldn’t mind that! If you do that, could you link it here so I can look at it?
Thank you, here’s a link to my DeviantArt page specifically the upload of this image.
I’m still slowly working through my backlog of pictures to share there so there’s not a whole lot there currently.
Cool!
Looks very cool!!
Thank you!
As you’ve already heard in this thread, one of the bigger adages in photograph is “the best camera is the one you have with you”.
I’ll also add one more, but it doesn’t sound quite as catchy: the better the shot looks “in camera” the better the outcome.
What do I mean? Try your best to nail framing, composition, and exposure as you’re taking the photo. You can always adjust after the fact via cropping, bumping exposure, etc if you need to but if you can avoid, or minimize the amount of, this you’ll usually get a better end result. Modifying the photo after you take it is called post processing.
You recognized a good opportunity for a photo, which is a great first step. I personally like the aspect ratio (eg lots of sky, some foreground) but I find the cars in both corners distracting. That’s probably why you’re hearing so many suggestions to crop. I suspect if you walked a little bit closer you could have gotten both cars out of frame. This would also frame the pizza place a little tighter and you probably wouldn’t lose much sky.
Possible standing locations:
- standing on the same side of the car on the right thay you’re already on, but closer to it. You could probably aim over its trunk to put it out of frame
- standing behind the car to the right, assuming the driver wasn’t ready to back up
- standing on the far side of the car on the right, putting you closer to the building and the car behind you
The second building to the left is also a little distracting, but that might be harder to avoid. Move around! See if you can better isolate your subject unless you think something in the foreground or background is adding to the photo.
Speaking of post processing, I used magic eraser to see what it would look like:
I will keep those tips in mind :)