Author: Jason Row

Many of us enjoy taking photographs in the urban environment. Classic iconic buildings, monuments, infrastructure, they all make excellent subjects for our lenses.

There is an issue though. The space in cities is often tight. Buildings close together, busy streets, street furniture, often mean that we struggle to get good shots. Even when we can get the shot, we often run into one of the more frustrating elements of photography, converging verticals. Today we are going to look at several ways that you can either avoid them, or correct them in editing.

There are actually many reasons why you might want to take a tripod, beyond shooting at night. Today we are going to explore some of them. But first, and I have gone on about this before, don’t buy a cheap tripod. Spend as much as you can afford on a good set of legs and a separate, suitable head. A cheap tripod will put you off for life. Buy a good one and you will understand why tripods matter more than you think.

We might look at the dull weather, and perhaps the seemingly dull suburban environment that many of us might live in and think “no photography today.” But to do so is to miss a potential gold mine of photographic possibilities. Today we are going to look at capturing the magic in the mundane.

There comes a point in your photographic learning curve when you realise that something is not progressing quite the way you had hoped. Often that is the creative element to your images. Sure they look good, great exposure and colour. They may be well composed but they are lacking that creative hook that many of your more experienced photographers are demonstrating. In short, you are taking photos not seeing them.