I participated in my first art show two weeks ago and the time it took to prepare for that kept me from slipping away and taking pictures. I finally did manage to do some hiking and kayaking the past two weeks and put some of these "suggestions" to use.
This was shot from a kayak. I held the camera overboard and placed it about one inch off the water to get the low angle I wanted. The day was extremely bright and the standard exposure for this photo over-exposed the lily so I had not detail what so ever. I used the exposure compensation dial and deliberately under-exposed the shot which kept great detail in the lily while darkening down the surrounding area which created this effect here.
Here I used the most common photo technique of all called the "rule of thirds". I placed the frog off center while leaving the rest of the frame to be filled with this colorful duckweed for texture.
(Sorry about the low quality here, resizing this shot for the web greatly effected the resolutions of the image. The original image though prints out as sharp as a tack.)
These mushrooms were only about two inches high. For a personal effect I lowered the camera to ground level, chose a large aperture setting to create the softness in the background and used the rule of thirds to help give a sense of openness.
This here is an example of what they call "balance" in a photograph. The dragon flies are in the upper third of the frame (rule of thirds) but by including the entire perch it helps balance the image and create stability. Balance is one of the reasons I say rules are meant to be broken because in some cases using the rule of thirds can make the image look unbalanced and awkward.
"One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain't nothin' can beat teamwork." Edward Abbey
