Making your images smaller while maintaining image quality for the web. Optimising images for the web lies somewhere between an art and a science. Images need to be sufficiently big that they are easy to see and do not appear pixelated or blurred, while not being so large that they slow down the page’s load time and interrupt visitors’ experiences of the website. Given that Google has announced that one of the factors in web search engine rankings is now…

Photographing Children in Natural Sunlight People often underestimate the importance of lighting when it comes to the overall look of a photograph especially when photographing children. There are a few basic lighting techniques and tips for photographing children when outdoors or on holiday, including front-lighting, back-lighting and shade. Many might assume that the brighter and more direct the light is, the better the picture, however, I disagree. Yes children can look great in strong sunlight but overall I prefer softer…

How to Photograph Water Lilies As summer begins, so do water lilies start to appear. As photographic subjects they are irresistible – glowing jewel colours and graceful shapes, and for the icing on the cake, you’ll sometimes get a reflection of all that beauty in the water below for double the impact! In some ways, because they are so lovely, it seems as if it’s almost impossible to go wrong when you photograph a water lily. But like everything else,…

How to look beyond the obvious to find great Photographs There will be some times when a photograph will leap out and hit you between the eyes in all its glory – but at other times you sense there is a possibility of a picture in a location, but have to search a little harder for it. I had one of those experiences on a walking holiday along the North Cornwall coastal path a couple of years ago.  It was…

Panning can be a great technique to try when you want to do something just a bit different!  A panned photo is one where the camera is moved in a straight line while the shutter is open.  This means you’ll need a fairly long shutter speed – as a starting point, try somewhere around 1/8 or 1/15 second, although the time needed will vary according to lots of factors including the brightness of the scene and your distance from the…

We have just written “a guide to evaluating photographs” for our tutors to aid them in constructively commenting on students work and thought it might be of interest to others We have also included a couple of photos which where taken from the MyPhotoSchool Facebook Page where students regularly post photos to get our feed back on them. 1. Always be positive and try to "encourage and motivate". The student is there to be motivated, not be punished ! This…