1. the
Picture Hound’s
Guide to
( without professional tools! )
Rocking
those
Travel Photos
by Anne Chan - annectarsroom.net
2. Hi, I’m Anne, the Picture Hound;
also the dreamer and writer of Annectar’s Room.
I’m always searching for a perspective,
for every line, angle, every hue tells a story.
Like a beagle but sniffing for pictures 😜
An Introduction
I don’t own a DSLR camera but a humble point-and-shoot.
Neither am I adept at Adobe Photoshop.
One thing I have 😊 an affinity for core concepts
such as composition and lighting, and a MacBook with iPhoto.
iPhoto is what I used for enhancing the pictures you see on
the Picture Hound and the Francophile in Annectar’s Room.
3. a. PicMonkey.com
b. Fotor.com
c. BeFunky.com
d. Canva.com
Wait! Don’t be dismayed if you don’t use iPhoto ..
The features I use and will discuss are available on other photo editing software.
Some are free and really easy to use, they are:
Editing however is secondary (and I will get to it later).
You can only edit what is captured by the lens.
Sometimes the captured image is so good, it doesn’t need any editing;
other times it is bad, you could either delete or spend hours on the computer editing!
Let’s start with the basics now. What makes a Great photo?
The primary ingredients are:
Composition, Lighting and (of course!) a Story
4. Composition, the arrangement of elements in the picture, is the central
rocking factor. Good composition has clarity and strength.
1. Find a central point of interest, step in close or zoom in. Fill the frame.
Good photos are clear, clutter-free, with no wasted space.
2. Know the rule of thirds (or golden mean). Keeping your subject off center,
either to the left or right, tends to create a more dynamic, livelier
composition.
Take this picture for example:
the kookaburra is framed at the left
by pretty branches against a clear
blue sky. There is no distracting
element, just the bird and its home.
How to achieve Good Composition:
5. 3. Find leading lines. Linear elements (like train tracks, roadways, sand-bars,
tree branches, fence rows) lead the eye into your picture. These lines are
most effective as diagonals.
4. Layers: Foreground, Background and Frames. A frame is an element in
the foreground that lends depth to your picture. It may be a window,
doorway, one or more trees or branches, person, animal, or vehicle. This
element can go along one, two or three sides of a picture, or all around.
This picture shows the Velib
bicycles along a road in Paris.
The signature Haussmannian
buildings in the background,
rows of trees, and the bicycles
(foreground) add layers as
well as lead the eye.
6. 5. Lend scale. When capturing subjects of indeterminate size, say a
mountain, body of water, snowscape – add a sense of scale by including
something of known size, such as people, animals, trees or cars. Scale
allows viewers to understand the picture.
6. Change Angles. Shooting at eye level
may not yield a fresh or interesting
perspective. So move your body!
Get down on knees, stomach, back or
climb up on chairs, ladders, cars or
buildings to get that picture.
I laid on my back (almost!) to get this tall
imposing picture of the Notre Dame in
Paris, with the clouds behind kissing it!
I wouldn’t be able to achieve this if I had
merely stood and shot, no way! So move
around, tilt the camera !!
7. If you are more privileged i.e. you have a DSLR and are able to
play with different lenses, great !!! A few more tips …
7. Change the Focal Length. Wide-angled and telephoto lens can have
dramatic effects on composition. The more extreme the lens, the more
dramatic the effect. A wide-angle lens can create a sense of place, showing
a subject in context (in its entire environment). A telephoto lens does just
the opposite – cutting out excess elements, allowing you to focus on a
central subject. For this, telephotos can be good for taking portraits.
This portrait was taken by my
good friend, Andrew West (of
andrewwestphotography.com)
with a 500mm telephoto lens,
atop a 1.4x teleconverter at f5.6
The singer takes complete
center-stage with her back-
ground thrown off focus, only
soft glimmering lights remain
that illuminate her further.
8. 8. Control depth of field (DOF). DOF is the depth to which a scene stays
in focus. With shallow DOF, little more than the focal point (or subject)
of the composition remains sharp.
With long or deep DOF, elements at the front and back of your subjects
stay in focus too. Wide-angle lenses have deep DOF while telephotos
have shallow ones.
Telephotos also compress space, making distant objects appear closer to
you or to each other. They have a shallow depth of field, making them
useful for blurring the background (as in the portrait of the singer ).
Adjusting aperture is another way to control DOF. A wide aperture i.e.
low f-stop results in a shallow DOF while a narrow aperture i.e. high
f-stop results in a long DOF. Landscape compositions typically benefit
from a long DOF so all elements of desired scene are captured in focus.
9. Here comes one extreme lens called the ‘fisheye’ lens 😜
My same friend, Andrew,
took this photo of Raffles
Place, Singapore’s
financial core, using a
8mm circular fisheye lens.
Circular fisheyes have a
180° vertical angle of view,
and the horizontal and
It achieves extremely wide angles of view
by not producing images with straight
lines of perspective, opting instead
for a special mapping that gives
images a characteristic convex
non-rectilinear appearance.
diagonal angle of view are also 180°.
10. Lighting: Understand how to use light
Photography, is essentially, painting with light.
1. Front and top light. Front light is light coming in over your shoulder
when you shoot a scene – usable but may be dull for lack of depth.
Top light, or midday sun, is worse - casting unflattering shadows.
2. Side or ‘golden hour’ light.
Types of Light:
This exists in the hour after
sunrise and before sunset.
Rich in tone, its low angle
casts pleasing shadows that
give definition and depth to
subjects. Ideal for landscapes
and capturing street scenes
bathed in golden light.
(Shafts of morning light on Collioure)
11. Shafts of light cutting across scenes create an effect of light and shadow
“chiaroscuro” (Italian for “light-dark”) that lends a sense of volume and
depth to objects. Painters such as Rembrandt and Caravaggio exemplified
this effect in their art.
Remember to look for, work with and move around the subject to get the
best light – it’ll make your photos a work of art!
This photo taken in the early
evening achieves a chiaroscuro
effect - through the shadow
cast by the imposing Notre
Dame over all objects in its
path while those outside
(background) are totally
exposed to the evening sun.
12. 3. Backlight. Subjects in the foreground assume a dramatic silhouette when
set against a strong light from the opposite end of the camera such as a
sunrise or sunset. Shadows and silhouettes make for strong, graphic
images as they look poetic, and suggest mystery and drama.
4. Overcast light. Grey skies are particularly good for shooting portraits and
street scenes as light coming through cloud cover is diffuse and soft, free of
harsh reflections, rendering subtle tone and detail to faces and skin.
This poetic photo of the
kookaburra was taken with
the strong Aussie morning
sun as backlight.
So don’t be afraid to shoot
into the sun !!
13. Story: travel photos capture the experience of your journey,
the local people, your adventure and discoveries.
Rock those travel photos
by telling your story from your perspective!
After all, what really is more enduring than a good story?
Paris or Gotham City?
This haunting view
point of a gargoyle
gazing across the
Parisian sky is
pregnant with
possibilities. Is it
melancholy or menace?
14. Never a gargoyle more wistful
than this one! Was he pining
for his lover or planning an
escape? Though photographed
almost to death as subjects,
this peculiar angle makes the
gargoyle appear softer than
usual, looking wistful rather
than menacing.
What do the Parisians do on
a leisurely late Friday
afternoon? They skate, cycle,
run or walk, or simply sit
and soak in the sun along the
banks of the Seine river.
15. Editing: What happens in digital post-production
Commonly referred to as Photoshop
So you tried your best to get a great composition, the right lighting and
the story, however things don’t always go perfectly, just as in life.
Here’s where editing comes in ..
Types of Editing:
1. Crop / Straighten. Cropping is for just that bit of wasted space or
unwanted element(s) at the edge of the desired scene. Straightening - for
tilting the angle to either left or right till you’re happy with the image J
2. Exposure. Over-exposed images appear bleached out while under-exposed
images are too dark. In both cases, colour and tonal details are lost or
unclear. There are 3 basic controls to correct this:
• Highlights/Shadows/Contrast
• Levels
• Curves
16. a. Highlights are the brightest areas in a photo while shadows are the
darkest. Deepening highlights / lightening shadows in editing (sliding tab
to the right) avails tonal details that give an image depth and dimension.
Likewise, increasing contrast bolsters vibrancy and interest of the image.
See example of candy shop photo (next page) for how I controlled these
factors to get the image you see.
b. Levels control is a graph with 3 sliding adjustments (see page 17 and 19).
The one on far right is for highlights, middle for mid-tones and the left
for shadows. Adjust these till you get the desired effect before saving.
c. Curves control is also a graph ( page 18). Grab and drag the upper right
part of the diagonal to the left à see a dark photo get lighter. Grab and
drag the lower left part of the diagonal down to the right to increase
contrast. Feel free to experiment with the RGB channels – Red, Green,
Blue (just below) while you adjust the curves to your liking J
3. Colour balance / Saturation. Blue counters yellow, green counters red
and vice versa. (continued on page 21)
21. Likewise, yellow and red ‘warm up’
an image while blue and green ‘cool
down’ the image. Saturation works
alike contrast. Add saturation when
more warmth or texture is needed.
4. Effects such as Black White,
Sepia, Vignette, Matte (to name
just a few) can give your photo
just that extra uniqueness !
Some images just look better in black
and white, like this view of Paris from
the 2nd level of La Tour Eiffel (right).
Looking busy and nondescript in colour,
photo (above right) had both contrast/
saturation maximised then switched to
B/W mode ! Now image looks clean with
distinct variations in tone and texture !!
22. Acknowledgements
I have to give credit where it’s due as the Picture Hound is no professional.
So where is the source of these advice from?
• Stuckey, S. (2010) Ultimate Field Guide to Travel Photography. National
Geographic Society, U.S.A.
• Easterby, J. (2010) 150 Projects to Strengthen Your Photography Skills. Barron’s
Educational Series. Quarto Publishing, London.
• Andrew M. West, my best photographer friend who had so kindly gone through
this guide and contributed 2 photographs! Visit him at andrewwestphotography.com
Special thanks to:
My blogging teachers Daniela Uslan, Andrea Beltrami of TheBrandedSolopreneur;
without whom I would not have the idea of doing this! Also the lovely members of
Daniela’s Have Your Cupcake site for all the ideas they bounce off. All of you so Rock !!
And finally, my dear sister for being the first to appreciate and encourage me on my
photographic and blogging/writing quest and for commenting on all my posts!
