Hi!

It’s Jaymes again, and I’m thrilled to report that, despite the temperatures outside, I have not melted. Instead, I’ve spent my free time indoors, editing photos and reading an absorbing quasi-memoir (The Pleasure of Seeing: Conversations with Joel Meyerowitz on Sixty Years in the Life of Photography, in case anyone is interested in a pioneering photographer’s life and creative process). 

Anyway, in today’s newsletter, I have a few different items to share:

• The bi-weekly challenge
• My thoughts on the value of a tripod
• Two more photo critiques

So without further ado, let’s get started!

The dPS bi-weekly challenge: Composition

From Sime:

We've published an article recently to help you with your composition "Should You Photograph in Portrait or Landscape Orientation?" and we're extending that to this week's challenge.

This week you need to find two photographs of the same subject, one in portrait and one in landscape, and to help you do that, you should pop through and have a read of this article first.

ONE subject - TWO photos!

Remember to tag your post with #dpsweeklychallenge and #dPSPortraitOrLandscape on our weekly challenge page or on social media!

The pros and cons of a tripod (+ recommendations)

When I was first getting started in photography, quite a few years ago now, I was regularly encouraged to invest in a tripod. It was not advice that I took to heart, and I spent the better part of a decade working handheld.

Then, back in 2019, I wanted to do long-exposure night photography, so I finally bit the bullet. I purchased a lightweight travel tripod, and I immediately loved it. In fact, I’ve been using it semi-regularly ever since. 

The reason I tell you this is not because I think that you absolutely must own a tripod. It’s because I know from personal experience that a tripod has more benefits than are immediately clear - and it’s important to consider those benefits before you invest in, say, a new lens or a new camera. 

Here’s why a tripod might be valuable for your photography:

1. A tripod will keep your photos sharp in low light. This is the simplest reason to invest in a tripod, and it’s what encouraged me to first take tripods seriously. If you want to capture detailed photos in low light, then you have a few options, but for stationary subjects (e.g., architecture, interiors, landscapes), it’s often best to lower your shutter speed a substantial amount. And unless your camera is on a rock-solid support - that is, a tripod! - you’ll end up with nothing but blurry frames.
2. A tripod will help you use multi-shot techniques. A lot of handy techniques available to digital photographers involve capturing multiple photos with the same frame, then blending them together for an enhanced final image. I’m referring to techniques such as HDR and focus stacking, and while it’s possible to handhold your camera and get good results, a tripod will make these processes far easier!
3. A tripod will force you to slow down. This is a big one, and I think it’s very underappreciated by many photographers. Given the size of digital memory cards, we often get in the habit of taking photos left and right, without ever stopping to think about whether each image is worth taking. As a result, we fill up our hard drives with thousands of photos, many of which just aren’t so great! But since a tripod takes time to set up and get into position, it’ll slow you down enough that you’ll think twice before taking an uninteresting photo - and, as a result of this push toward selectivity, your photographic eye will improve.
4. A tripod will help you create better compositions. I find that when I set up my tripod and lock down my camera, I’m able to frame my images more effectively. Part of it has to do with the forced deliberation I mentioned in the previous point, but it also comes from the power of viewing a stable frame in my camera viewfinder. Since my camera is totally motionless, I’m able to look carefully around the viewfinder, considering any distractions or areas that just don’t work with the rest of the shot. Then I can recompose and shoot!

Now, the reasons I’ve listed for using a tripod are likely compelling, but they don’t apply to everyone and every situation! For instance, I would recommend against a tripod if:

• Extreme movement, speed, or flexibility is important to you. This is frequently the case for street photographers, wildlife photographers, sports photographers, and more. (That said, if you like the idea of a more stable camera but don’t think a tripod is the right move, a monopod is more of a compromise and may be worth considering.)
• You want to remain inconspicuous. A tripod draws attention, so if you’re hoping to do close-up candids, a tripod probably isn’t a good idea.
• You enjoy photographing casually or on the go. As I said, a tripod will slow you down, and while this can be a good thing, it can also be frustrating! If your goal is to photograph elements of interest in your daily life, on your travels, etc., a handheld approach is generally ideal.
• You want to photograph in tight spaces or in areas where tripods aren’t allowed. A tripod will take up significant space when fully extended, so it’s generally not suitable for photographs in, say, a restaurant. Also, bear in mind that some places don’t allow tripods (e.g., museums, malls, public plazas), so depending on your subjects of interest, you may find yourself unable to carry a tripod at all.

At the end of the day, whether a tripod works depends on you, so I encourage you to think about the tripod benefits and drawbacks I presented above, then make a decision based on your own shooting preferences!

Finally, for those of you who think a tripod might be worth purchasing but aren’t sure which model is right for you, we do have some excellent guides to help you out:

1. The Ultimate Guide to Buying a Tripod
2. 10 Best Tripods for Photography
3. 9 Best Tripods for Landscape Photography
4. 10 Best Travel Tripods You Can Buy

Two more photo critiques

We’ve had some great critique submissions coming in, and choosing just two to share was tough! Thank you to everyone who sent in images - even if I don’t get to yours in today’s newsletter, I’ll certainly add it to the pile for future critiques. 

(As always, for anyone who would like to submit images for critique in a future newsletter, just hit Reply to this message and send along a file or two! But make sure you mention that the images are indeed for critique in the email body or subject line, and please make sure the files are JPEGs and at least 1000 pixels on the long end!)

First, from Nosson S, we have a beautiful flower image:

What I like:

• I’m a big fan of the atmosphere you’ve captured here, Nosson - the foreground subject, the expansive background, the pops of color from those pink flowers, it all makes me feel like I’m standing right there as you took the picture.
• Relatedly, I like how you’ve chosen to go wide and capture not just the flower but the scene as a whole. I think you could have certainly created some beautiful images that focus solely on the flower (with the background blurred out), but your approach is also legitimate, and in this case, it conveys a sense of the context in which this flower lives.
• I like the light and the colors; it looks like you were working with side-backlight that’s been partially diffused by thin clouds, which gives the whole image a muted, intimate feel while also adding some three-dimensionality to the flower head.  

Ideas for improvement:

• One suggestion is to shoot so that more of the scene is in focus; you have all those beautiful elements in the background, but they’re fairly blurry, and I’d love to see more! It looks like you’ve used a relatively wide aperture, which has resulted in a thin depth of field (i.e., window of sharpness). Looking carefully at the flower, even the front hair strands are slightly out of focus - but if you were to narrow down your aperture, you could gain more sharpness throughout!
• The sky on the right-hand side and just above the mountains in the background is lacking detail; I don’t necessarily mind a pure white sky, myself, but in this case, I think it clashes slightly with the blues in the upper left corner. In other words, I’d prefer if the sky were totally white or highly detailed - one approach would be to adjust your framing slightly to cut out the blue portions of the sky, while another would be to selectively boost the exposure of the blue portions of the sky during post-processing. (Alternatively, you could ensure detail in the entire sky by underexposing in-camera and bringing back the shadow detail during post-processing.)
• I like your overall approach to framing the flower here, with the stem lying roughly along a rule-of-thirds gridline! However, I’d encourage you to try slightly different angle to create a smoother transition from the flower to the background; right now, the flower has an abrupt intersection with that darker hill in the background, but if you were to get slightly higher, you could position the flower so it’s below those trees in two-dimensional space and prevent that distracting overlap.

Second, we have a stunning landscape from Graeham K:

What I like:

• What a dramatic image, Graeham! The intense clouds, the dark pier, the waves breaking on the beach, even those dark rocks in the foreground - it reminds me of a Rembrandt landscape painting!
• I’m really liking how you composed this image; your choice to shoot from an angle, rather than looking straight out to sea, has resulted in a lot of diagonal lines that give the photo a sense of dynamism (which adds to the drama, I might add!). And the elements around the shoreline, like those scattered rocks, don’t feel like distractions to me; instead, they provide a sort of naturalness while also engaging the viewer’s eye. 
• I’m also loving the sense of depth here, which you’ve achieved by including plenty of detail in both the foreground and the background, clear transitions from near to far, and the leading line of the pier.
• Graeham, I hope you don’t mind me mentioning this, but you wrote in your email that you’re color blind, which can make it tough to edit colors without oversaturation. In terms of the colors, though, I think you’ve done a good job in general; you have a harmonious color palette (with a nice balance of greens in the water and yellows/oranges in the sand and sky), and the edit is quite striking as-is. I would be inclined to dial back the saturation a bit and perhaps cool down the temperature (right now, the image is on the warm side), but I’ll also point out that we all experience color slightly differently, and if the colors in the image feel right to you, perhaps it makes sense to keep them that way!

Ideas for improvement:

• One minor point: The horizon looks a bit crooked, so I’d recommend straightening it!
• You’ve captured a lot of nice detail in the sky; however, there are a couple of spots on the right that have lost detail due to overexposure. I’d try to recover the detail in post-processing, which might be possible (and if not and you were to reshoot this, I’d recommend underexposing to ensure the clouds all contain detail, then recovering the shadow detail in post-processing). 
• Relatedly, I’m noticing some loss of detail in the shadows, especially along the underside of the pier and in that large foreground rock. There’s a good chance you could recover this, especially if you shot in RAW! Personally, I don’t think it’s important to have detail everywhere in an image, but significant clipping can take away from a photo’s sense of reality. 
• I’m not sure how I feel about all those footprints in the bottom right corner; on the one hand, they provide some texture and interest, but on the other hand, they’re a bit messy - just something to think about!

Again, a big thank you to the folks who sent in images - and I hope you have a great week ahead!

Talk to you next Saturday,

Jaymes Dempsey (and the dPS team)