Turning bad photos in to good ones!

When I am not filming, I like to take photographs with my Nikon D60, I find that it helps to improve my composition and framing of shots...plus it is a lot cheaper to take a quick snap than to wait till the reccie stage of a shoot. Practice makes perfect (so they say) and it is a great exercise to hone the skills and keep an eye out for new ways to position a camera.

Stills photography is very much like shooting film photography...in fact, it is exactly the same apart from with stills you have a single picture and with film you have 25 stills in every second!

However, when taking a still, you need to have a good image as the viewer will scan every area of the picture for much longer - it will be subject to total scrutiny. In film, you can get a way with certain errors (to some extent). That does not mean you can be sloppy in production, but it does allow for certain 'natural' mistakes to be glossed over a little bit because the eye is distracted by the move of the camera, the action in the scene or the viewer is completely engaged in the dialogue.

With that in mind, how do you take a good photograph? Well to be honest, there are plenty of websites out there that can help you learn composition, framing, focus, lighting, etc. But the best way is to pick up your camera, go out and learn from your mistakes! It's simple, the longer you spend with a camera in your hand; the better you will be at improving the shots you take.
http://www.photo.net/ is a truly fantastic site that has tips and advice for all levels of photographers. Their learning section is extremely useful and you can get good advice on treating your photographs in post-production too.
The above photo comparison was not taken with my usual camera and so the picture had a lot of problems with it. When I was looking at the potential shot, I was trying to get the light to crack through the trees and give a lens flare across the image. Then I wanted some of the bracken to have flecks of light highlighting the foliage to make the scene magical and atmospheric.

Clearly when I looked at the pictures I had taken I was very disappointed. The image is under exposed, the lighting is minimal and fairly flat, the clarity of the image is not very good and the saturations of the colors are a bit lost. All-in-all, it was a nice idea that didn't work in the camera...but that does not mean you have to hope for better next time as you press the delete button. Have you ever considered reworking your images in post-production?

The big secret is that every single professional film you have ever seen has been treated/corrected in post in some way or another...films are NEVER released using the footage straight from the camera...so why can you not retouch your stills in the same way to get the effect you want?

This photograph was about 30 mins worth of work to correct to the finished image and I think it is much closer to what I had originally wanted in the camera.
Firstly I adjusted the exposure and increased the saturation...then I added a light layer to emulate rays of light shining through the trees and of course the all important lens flare (lens flares in post are massively over used these days and can make an image look tacky...but when used correctly, they can really sell the scene).
Then I used the dodge tool to pick out certain highlights on the bracken, by increasing your lights and darks, you are actually affecting the lighting in the scene and making the image less flat...and therefore, visually more interesting. Then I applied a quick warm filter and a bit of contrast and then hey presto!

What was once an image that was heading for the trash icon has now become an image that I really like. Most photos can be improved with a bit of post-production, so why not try reworking some of your old pictures to see if you can improve them? You might be pleasantly surprised!