A Short Introduction to Basic Photo Editing for Beginners

By: Lily Sawyer 

If you’re a beginner, using editing software can be a daunting prospect. What if you can’t get a handle on the technology? What if it’s too complicated a process? What if it’s just too time-consuming? What if the images turn out horrible? So many what ifs! I get it; I’ve been there. In this article, I’m offering a very simple way of delving into editing if you’re a novice. These are basic principles that I hope will set you in good stead for more fancy editing in the future!

First things first.
You need to be able to see what is a good image and a bad image. The key is in your perception.
If you think heavily edited images are the perfect image, then your editing will lean that way and vice versa. If you think an overly-tinted image is perfect, then that would be your bar for perfection. We all have a bias towards something. However, for editing, I think we need to try and be as neutral as possible and leave our personal preferences for the moment.
To be able to see things objectively, we need to:

1. See the differences between over-exposed and under-exposed images and decide as to what is the correct exposure
2. Understand white balance where white looks white, as it should, and not yellow or blue or orange
3. See the contrast between dark and light
4. Decide on the noise

Once we have a basic grip of the above, then editing will be a breeze, and we can get more creative from a solid image base or what I’d like to call a clean edit.

But first, a word on shooting format. Shoot in RAW.

The images below are the original RAW images opened in Bridge without any edits applied.
You can see there is a choice of Adobe color profiles. See the difference between the standard profile below left and the color profile used on the image on the right.
You can choose which profile you prefer.

To successfully understand the above, and make the edits towards them, it is important that you shoot in RAW format. If you shoot in JPEG, you are allowing the camera to process the image, discard pixels the camera deems unnecessary, and accept the color adjustments the camera has made. With a JPEG image, you have less control, are working on a great loss and compression of pixels at the very start and an already compromised image color.
You can read more about RAW processing in Bridge here.
Having said that, someone who is a really good, seasoned, experienced photographer may well shoot JPEGS and achieve the desired image they want. I am not there yet!
Secondly, the type of camera you use affects the original images you get.
A full-frame camera gives you the 35mm sensor – wider, more space, more light hitting the camera sensor and more pixels. What you see through the lens is pretty much what you get. A crop-sensor, on the other hand, works in the opposite way. The lens only allows you to use a portion of the sensor so that a 35mm lens mounted on a crop-sensor camera will only give you the point of view of a 52mm lens equivalent – a more zoomed-in longer focal length. You are losing some width, some light and some pixels.
Let’s dive in!

1. Correct exposure

Correct exposure means getting the balance right between the 3 components of the exposure triangle. Namely: aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. Balancing all three correctly will give you a perfectly exposed image. That means no blown highlights or details are lost entirely in the shadow or darker areas of the image that should still be visible.
A most useful tool in determining whether your exposure is perfect is to look at the histogram when you are editing. Alternatively, you can view the histogram when you have just taken the photo as there is also a histogram on the LCD of many cameras these days. Simply put, a histogram is a representation of the tonal value distribution across your image in the form of a visual graph. Just by looking at a histogram (that graph on the top right corner of the image below), you can immediately tell whether there is an even spread of tonal values on the image judging from the troughs and crests on the graph or a stark contrast.
If the image you shot has incorrect exposure, then editing is your solution. You can move the sliders on your editing software to increase exposure if the photo is too dark or decrease your exposure if the photo’s too bright. You can usually recover some blown highlights in the case of overexposure.

Take a look at the image above. This is the RAW image opened in Bridge. You can see it’s a little bright with the histogram showing a tall mountain almost touching the right edge. When the histogram touches both left and right edges, this would indicate the dark and light parts of your images are clipped and therefore there is overexposure and underexposure in the image. This is an okay image as nothing touches the edges, but it is too bright for me.
The image on the left below shows an overexposed image with the exposure turned up and the image on the right shows an underexposed image with the exposure turned down. See what the histogram is doing in these images.

2. White balance

Simply put, white balance is the adjustment on your camera that reads the color temperature of the light you are shooting in in relation to neutral white. A perfect white balance should show white to be white as perceived in reality and there are no color casts that distorts the whiteness of white. You can, however, go for a warm white or a cool white by adjusting the white balance sliders. Generally speaking, what you don’t want is for white to look too yellow or orange or too cold like with a strong blue cast. Compare both photos below: too cool on the left and too warm on the right.

3. Contrast

There is nothing rocket science about contrast in my opinion. It is simply to do with the strength of the blacks on the photo. After the adjustments above, our photo is still looking very flat. All that’s needed is a fiddle on the blacks, shadows, highlights and light areas. Just remember not to clip your blacks or whites or if you want a bit more contrast, not too much clipping. You can also use the curves tab (the one that shows a grid with a curvy line) for contrast adjustments.

I also played with the other sliders to get the result I wanted on the images above. Just do so gently – a touch here and there rather than extreme adjustments.
Remember, you are only after a clean edit at this stage. The images above show the same edits on the standard and color profiles. The results are different so deciding on your color profile matters.

4. Noise and Sharpening

If you click on to the third tab which shows two black triangles, you get to the panel where you can adjust noise and sharpening. Again, gentle adjustments are needed here.
It is vital to view your photo at 100% so you can see what the adjustments are doing to the image.
Luminance has to do with the smoothness of the pixels. You don’t want to go too much, or you lose definition.
Color has to do with how much the RGB pixels show up and extreme adjustments will either strip your image of color or make the pixels appear too saturated.

Now I have a clean edit, there is still so much I can do to this photo. The eyes are a tad soft so I will need to adjust that. I could add vignettes or change the appearance of the background. I could add sunflares or textures. The possibilities are endless. But most of that has to happen in Photoshop.
I hope this has helped you understand the basics of editing.
Please share your comments below or if you have any questions!

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This is a re-post due to popular requests

How to Make an Animated GIF in Photoshop

By: Ana Mireles

Don’t you love GIFs? I do. They are fun, creative, and a great way to grab attention. In a world full of images (animated and otherwise), you need to create original quality work to stand out. Stop following trends and make your own using Photoshop in just a few simple steps.
A GIF is a file format that supports animated images in the smallest size, which makes it very appealing for any online platform. The famous acronym stands for Graphic Interchange Format, and it became trendy for Internet humor, but now it’s a powerful tool.

Five reasons to do your own GIF

• Showcase your product/brand in action or being used.
• Do a call to action on your website.
• Show a step by step example of any instruction.
• Enhance your visibility.
• Grow your social media audience.

What you need

You can make GIFs from words, video snippets, or a sequence of photographs. This last one is the technique I’ll show you. While technically you could use any series of images, a coherent set of photographs result in a more engaging GIF.
To achieve this, plan your photo shoot to maintain either the same light or the same framing, and use it to tell a story. If you need some inspiration, check out “8 tips – How to do storytelling with your images.”

If you are doing any post processing on your images like changing the size or format, you can save a lot of time by doing it in a batch. You can learn how to do this in the article How to Batch Resize Your Images Quickly Using Photoshop (https://digital-photography-school.com/batch-resize-images-using-photoshop/). If instead, you are making more complex adjustments I recommend you create an action and then apply it to all of them. If you don’t know how to do this read How to play Photoshop Actions on Multiple Images with Batch Editing.

Now that you have all your images ready to go, open Photoshop and go to Menu -> File -> Scripts -> Load Files Into Stack. On the pop-up window, choose the files you want to import and click OK. This opens all your images as layers within the same file.

Once the images are open, you need to animate them. If you usually work with still images, you may need to go to Menu -> Window -> Timeline to make the Timeline panel visible. It will appear at the bottom of your screen, and it will show a thumbnail of the top layer.

Open the drop-down Menu from the right of the panel and click on Make Frames from Layers. Now you should see the thumbnail of all the files you imported as layers.

If you need to change the order, drag and drop them to correct. Once everything is as you want it, it’s time to determine the animation settings.
First set the time each one will show before changing into the next one. You’ll see a number on the bottom of each frame and an arrow next to it. If you click on the arrow, you’ll open the drop-down Menu to set the time. Do this for each one, as they can be different from each other. You can see a preview by clicking on the play button.

As the last step, you can choose how many times the animation repeats. Under the frames, you can find a menu where you can set this. GIFs usually run on a loop so I will put ‘Forever.’ But you can decide to do it differently.

As I mentioned at the beginning, GIF is a file format; therefore it is something you determine at the moment of saving. When saving a photograph, you would normally choose .jpg or .tiff. However, this time you need to choose .gif. You can find this option under Save for Web. Here, you can choose the amount of color, whether you want it dithered, and if you want a lossy compression. All of these choices determine the file size. You can move them around to choose the best combination of size and quality.

If you now open your saved file in Photoshop, it will be a layered image that you can continue to work on. If you want to see it animated just click and drag it into your browser.

I hope you enjoyed the article.
Please share your GIFs with me in the comment section.

How to Retouch a Portrait with the Adjustment Brush in Lightroom

By: Andrew S. Gibson

You have probably seen several portrait retouching programs advertised in magazines or online, and wondered if they were worth buying. The answer is no. I have tried out quite a few, and the truth is that the Soften Skin preset in Lightroom does just as good a job as any of them. For most photographers Lightroom’s retouching tools all are you will ever need. For high end retouching purposes you can go to Photoshop.
It’s worthwhile taking some time to think about your personal approach to portrait retouching. Some photographers seem to like the airbrushed, almost plastic look of heavy processing. It’s a style you see used a lot in commercial photography or movie posters.
Others will go for a more natural effect, and use the retouching tools with a light touch. That’s definitely my approach, and it fits with my preference for natural light and for creating portraits that capture character.
Either way,the Adjustment Brush in Lightroom can accommodate your needs.

Retouching portraits of women

When retouching portraits of women it is conventional to use a skin smoothing technique to make the portrait look more flattering. There are exceptions of course, sometimes skin smoothing is not necessary, especially if your model has good skin and you shoot in soft light, or use a wide aperture to throw some of the face out of focus.
The first step in portrait retouching is to remove any blemishes with the Spot Removal tool. To do so, click on the Spot Removal tool icon to activate it, adjust the size of the  brush with the square bracket keys on the keyboard, and click on the spot you want to remove.
Lightroom automatically selects another area of the portrait to sample from, healing the blemish. Sometimes Lightroom won’t select the most appropriate area – in this case you can click on the circle representing the sample and move it to a more suitable location.

Click on a blemish with the Spot Removal tool (left). In this case Lightroom’s healing algorithm worked perfectly, but if it doesn’t then click on the circle representing the sampled area and move it to a location where the skin matches the tone and texture of the area to be healed (right).

Adjustment Brush adjustments

Now it’s time to look closely at the portrait and decide what other retouching is required. It’s important that you have already made the required adjustments to tone and contrast in the Basic panel before you get to this stage. Increasing Contrast and Clarity, for example, will emphasize skin texture, wrinkles and blemishes. On the other hand, you can move the Exposure or Highlights sliders right to brighten the skin, making wrinkles and skin texture less obvious. Retouching with the Adjustment Brush should be left until last, so you know what you’re working with.
I like to start with the area underneath the model’s eyes. The skin here is thinner than the rest of the face which is why people get dark patches there. There may also be wrinkles, and some people have a strong crease along the lower eyelid.
The idea is not to eliminate these completely (unless you’re going for the heavily retouched, airbrushed look) but to minimize them. They’re a natural part of the skin’s texture and it will look unnatural if they are not there.
Click on the Adjustment Brush icon to activate it. Select the Soften Skin preset from the Effect menu. Lightroom sets Clarity to -100 and Sharpness to +25. Make sure Feather, Flow and Density are set to 100, use the square bracket keys on the keyboard to adjust the size of the brush and paint over the areas under the eyes. The Soften Skin preset blurs the area that you paint in with the brush.
If the effect is too strong, hover the mouse over the Adjustment Brush pin (a grey circle with a black dot in the middle) until a double arrow icon appears (below). Hold the left mouse button down and move the mouse left. Lightroom reduces the value of the Clarity and Sharpness sliders, effectively lessening the strength of the Soften Skin preset. Stop when it looks about right. You can also reduce shadows by moving the Shadows slider (in the Adjustment Brush sliders) to the right. Every portrait is different so you have to adjust the effect by eye.

These are the results.

A. Original, unretouched portrait.
B. Retouched, with Soften Skin preset at full strength.
C. Retouched, with strength of Soften Skin preset reduced and Shadows slider moved to the right (subtle difference only).

Enhancing eyes

You can also use the Adjustment Brush tool to enhance your model’s eyes. This is useful if the eyes are dark due to the lighting. Be careful of overdoing this effect as it may not look natural.
Click New at the top of the Adjustment Brush panel to create a new Adjustment Brush. Set Feather to around 50 and paint in the pupils of the model’s eyes. If you need to, press O (the letter) on the keyboard to see the masked area (it is displayed in red shown below).

Now set Exposure to around 0.50 and Clarity to 30. The effect will vary depending on the colour of your model’s pupils and the amount of light on them. It’s a good idea to zoom out and look at the entire portrait to see if the effect is too strong. You can see this adjustment on the model’s eyes below, which I think is about right.

You can make the effect stronger or weaker on your photo using the technique described above. Hover over the Adjustment Brush pin until the double arrow icon appears, move the mouse left to make the effect weaker, and right to make it stronger (you can also just drag the sliders one by one to change the settings)
The final step is to apply gentle skin softening to the rest of the face. Create another Adjustment Brush, set Feather to 100 and paint the entire face (use the O keyboard shortcut to display the red overlay). Then select Erase in the Adjustment brush panel, set Feather to 50 and erase the eyebrows, mouth and eyes. The idea is that you only want to soften the skin, not these parts of the face. It should look something like the mask below.

Go to the Effect menu and select the Soften Skin preset. Press O to hide the mask overlay and you will see something like the screenshot below. Remember, this is the Soften Skin preset at maximum strength so it has a strong effect on the photo.

Use the technique we learned earlier to reduce the strength of the effect. How far you go is up to you. I like to apply the Soften Skin preset subtly to retain as much skin texture as possible. Here’s the result with Clarity reduced to -20 and Sharpness to +5.

This video shows how I retouched another portrait, using the Adjustment Brush tool to enhance the model’s eyes and facial hair.
I’ve only touched on the number of ways you can use Adjustment Brushes in Lightroom for portrait retouching. What techniques do you use? Please let us know in the comments.

  Read more:

https://resources.digital-photography-school.com/ref/937/

Lightroom Texture Slider vs. Skin Smoothing

By: Simon Ringsmuth

One of Adobe’s recent feature updates to Lightroom has profound implications for photographers who retouch their portraits. While in-depth alterations are best handled in an app like Photoshop or Affinity Photo, Lightroom’s brush tool has been a good choice for basic retouching for many years. Users can dial in specific settings to help skin appear softer and smoother, or select a preset defined by Adobe. However, these retouches have typically employed the Clarity slider, which is great for a lot of situations but not exactly ideal for portraits. Thankfully, the new Lightroom Texture Slider option aims to solve this and a whole lot more.

Before I get too deep into the Texture option, it’s important to know that it’s not just for tweaking headshots. It is specifically designed to either increase or decrease the detail on textured surfaces. These can be cloth, rocks, plants, skin, or anything that has a non-uniform appearance.
If you want to smooth the texture to make a surface appear more glassy, slide the Texture option to the left. By contrast, if you want to enhance the look of any textured object, just slide the tool to the right.

Texture vs. Clarity vs. Sharpening

Texture is fundamentally different from other tools such as Clarity or Sharpening, each of which has long been a staple in many portrait photographers’ workflows. Clarity works by increasing or decreasing contrast specifically along edges, or areas of already-high contrast. It primarily affects mid-tones and not the lightest and darkest portions of an image. Sharpening makes the edges of objects and surfaces much more vivid. It has some additional parameters like Radius and Amount that can be fine-tuned to get you just the right balance.

Each of these tools has a specific purpose, and they can be used alone or together to create specific results. If you usually do basic portrait retouching by using the Brush tool and selecting the Soften Skin option, you may have noticed that it’s merely a combination of Clarity and Sharpness. Texture, on the other hand, is specifically designed by Adobe to alter the appearance of textured surfaces.
If you have traditionally done some basic retouching using Clarity and Sharpening, you might be surprised at how effective the Texture option is.

The Soften Skin brush preset in Lightroom is just a combination of -100 Clarity and +25 Sharpening.

Retouching with Texture

While you can apply texture globally by using the option in the Basic panel of Lightroom’s Develop module, portrait photographers will appreciate that it can be applied selectively using the Brush tool. Select the Brush option and then look for the Texture slider, which is right above Clarity, Dehaze, and Saturation. You can also configure parameters like Size, Feather, Flow, and Auto Mask though I would recommend leaving the latter turned off if you are editing portraits.
Click on your photograph and brush in the Texture adjustment the same you would with any other adjustment. Be careful to stay in the facial region and not brush into hair, clothing, or other parts of the image. You certainly can apply the texture brush to other elements of your picture later on, but to start with stay focused on the face.

Original image with no brush adjustments applied.

As you brush in the Texture adjustment, you will see rough areas of the skin become smooth. I recommend starting with a value between -25 and -50. This retains most of the original look of the portrait while smoothing things out just a bit.
If you have never worked with the Adjustment Brush tool, you might take a minute and look over these five tips that could speed things up or make your work a lot more efficient.

Texture -50 adjustment brush applied to the cheeks, chin, and nose.

The resulting portrait has a smoother, softer appearance where the Texture adjustment was applied. Details such as pores and wrinkles remain, and color gradients and shifting tones are also preserved.
This is much different than the results typically produced by using the Skin Smoothing option, which employs a mix of negative Clarity and positive Sharpening.

Image with Soften Skin adjustment applied to the same areas.

This third image looks as though petroleum jelly has been smeared over the camera lens. The woman’s cheeks are missing the subtle color variations from the original image. While the skin is certainly smoother, it also looks more artificial.
To show how these images look in direct relation to one another, here is a graphic that shows all three versions for three seconds at a time. First is the original, then the Texture adjustment, then the original again, and finally the Soften Skin adjustment.

You can create your own Adjustment Brush preset if you don’t want to rely on the Soften Skin preset. But if you have traditionally used the Clarity option, you may find it pleasantly surprising how vastly improved your results are by using Texture instead.

Comparison two

For another comparison, here are three more images to help you see the difference between Texture and other methods of softening skin.

The original image with no skin softening adjustments applied.

Applying a Texture -50 Adjustment leaves the pores, stubble, and small wrinkles intact but smooths them out just a bit. It’s a subtle change that doesn’t alter the original too much or make the face appear artificially smooth.

Texture -50 applied to the cheeks, chin, nose, and forehead.

A custom skin smoothing adjustment of Clarity -75 and Sharpness +15 makes the young man’s forehead and cheeks appear fake and plastic. It’s not a great look for a portrait.

Clarity -75 and Sharpness +15 applied to the same areas.

Looking at the three images sequentially shows the effect in a more pronounced fashion. The Texture adjustment gives a much more natural result while the final image seems over-processed and fake.

Conclusion

There’s a lot more you can do with the Lightroom Texture slider, and it’s useful for a wide variety of images aside from portraits. Some photographers like to reduce texture in the face and increase texture on hair and clothing for a punchier look.
My recommendation is to open up some of your images, especially portraits or headshots, and try it out for yourself. You might be surprised at how well it works.
Have you used the Lightroom Texture slider? What are your thoughts? Please share your thoughts (and images) with us in the comments section.

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Tips for your Next Adventure Photography Trip

By: Charlie Borland  

Many landscape photographers’ love for wilderness, drives them to venture far in search of wild and remote locations. The lure of solitude and unfamiliar scenery motivates many to photograph far off the beaten path. Adventure photography at it’s best.
Backpacking, rafting, canoeing, trekking, climbing, and other self-propelled modes of travel are a few of the ways these remote locations are accessed and used. Those adventures are often with other people and the rewards can be stunning scenery, wildlife, and of course: the wilderness experience.
On a canoe trip with my son we discovered this campsite on the shore (see image below). Earlier in the day I photographed the mountain reflecting in the lake before realizing the setting would make for a stunning photograph of a camp scene.

ISO 100, f/16, ½ second – Sparks Lake, Oregon

That experience is one reason many of us photograph! We photograph because we want to tell a story about the place we visited, what we saw, and how it looked. We do this by capturing wide views,long views and intimate details to create stunning nature images.

PHOTOGRAPHY IS AN ADVENTURE – PHOTOGRAPH IT

Photographing the landscape may be the sole purpose for some photographers heading into the wilds, but there might be another story that is often overlooked: the adventure itself. There are many photo opportunities from the scenery to the human experience that tell the story of a successful wilderness photo trip.

PLAN AND PREPARE BEFORE THE TRIP

Getting into the adventure mindset starts with pre-trip planning and determining a story line.

• What is the trip about?
• Who is going?
• Will there be any specific events to plan for in advance?

Whenever I am preparing for an adventure I try to think like a National Geographic photographer. Their job and goal is to tell the story in pictures, in unique ways, and so is mine.
I have rafted many rivers including the Grand Canyon three times and each trip had a different group, with unique dynamics. To capture great storytelling images of an outdoor adventure, start by simply observing the other participants’ behaviour at the beginning of the trip. What will they do on the trip? Kayak, hike, climb, read, play music, or anything that you can observe and then plan to later photograph.
Next, I develop a list of photo ideas to reference during the trip. Most trip participants are not committed photographers like me, so it’s not hard to capture great images of them pursuing their interest and enjoying the adventure.
While I will photograph the scenery, all the activities like hiking canyons, cooking meals, sitting around the campfire, swimming in the waterfalls, dealing with physical challenges, and whitewater rafting through some of the biggest rapids in the U.S., are all on my mental shoot list.

ISO 100, f/5.6, 1/1000 – Grand Canyon Lava Falls Rapid

PACK THE RIGHT GEAR

Besides pre-planning the photo ops, I also plan the equipment and other gear I will need. For rafting trips I will take mostly the same gear as any other trip (when it comes to basic camera gear) keeping in mind limited space. But because it is a trip based around water I also take waterproof devices for the camera gear including Pelican cases, an underwater camera housing, and military ammo cans for accessories.
On a magazine assignment years ago, I took a horse pack trip into Hells Canyon in Oregon. The focus this time was on the outfitter himself, a cowboy (see image below, right) who ran backcountry horse trips and was also an elected official holding public office. The focus of the photography was the trip he was leading and included landscape imagery, the horses and horse packing, and the guests enjoying the wilderness adventure. I captured the adventure while the writer wrote about the politics. For my camera gear, I wore a hip pack for easy access to my camera while on horseback, while my camera backpack and tripod were tied down on a pack horse. Plan to take the right gear for the adventure.
During your pre-trip planning, start with some research on where you are going and observe how other photographers have photographed a similar trip. Make a list of the obvious: who, what, where, when, and how. This will remind you during the trip of images you had planned to capture when illustrating the story line.

Left: ISO 100, f/8, 1 second – reading by headlamp
Right: ISO 100, f/8, 1/30th – rancher Steens Mountain, Oregon

The woman above was always writing in her journal or reading in the evening, so I asked her to pose and read a book. (see image above, left)

SHOOT THE ORDINARY BUT SEEK THE EXTRAORDINARY

People are the key to telling adventure stories. It is images of their behaviour and how they interact with the wilderness adventure that communicates to the viewer just what the trip was about. Photos showing their highs and lows, their pain and their exuberance, how they overcome a physical challenge, all convey a sense of adventure.
As the adventure progresses you will develop a sense of how things are moving, what people do for activities, and where and when you can setup photo ideas from your to do list. I then suggest you ask people to pose in a storytelling scenario that ideally appears natural and un-posed. Posing can be a challenge to make look real, but by suggesting to the people to just ‘be themselves and read a book’ for example often results in a more natural pose. Other times, work like a photo journalist by keeping your camera in hand and ready to capture spontaneous moments which often lead to powerful storytelling images.

ISO 100, f/8, 1/200 – Alaska river guide

Photographing an Alaskan rafting trip, I was intrigued when I saw the river guide carrying this watermelon and in particular, his method of insuring we would not lose the fruit that went with tonight’s dinner. I asked him to stop and hold still.

VISUAL APPROACHES

Look up and down and all around when choosing your camera angles and storytelling compositions. I describe the two approaches I use as Observer and Participant. The photographer as Observer captures the activity as it happens, from the sidelines. The Participant photographs the action while being a part of it. The difference is the Observer captures views easily seen by anybody while the Participant captures views more difficult for everybody to see.
This is an angle photographed as an Observer from the river bank and while effective, was easy to capture the action and the setting.

ISO 100, f/5.6, 1/1000 – Rafting Grand Canyon, Observer viewpoint

This point of view photographed as a Participant, from within the boat, is very powerful; allowing viewers to feel like they were along for the ride as the boat was tossed around in the waves.

ISO 100, f/8, 1/250 – Participant viewpoint

The advantage for the photographer as Participant is capturing angles of the activity as though the camera was their eyes. Images shot from this approach give the viewer a perspective that can make them feel as if they are immersed in the action. A rock climber taking a photograph of the climber below them offers a unique perspective of what it is like to be on the rock wall. A view that the casual observer would not see without climbing the wall.
Rafting on a winter day with intermittent snow, I was positioned in the front of the raft when a wave came over the top of me and this paddler’s expression shows her bracing for impact.

ISO 100, f/5.6, 1/60th – Participant viewpoint

ISOLATE AND ILLUSTRATE

Another effective visual approach in telling the story is to ‘isolate and illustrate’. Isolate refers to a subject isolated in the composition. They are the sole or dominant subject in the frame; the story is all about them and what they are doing. Nothing else visually is needed. These photos usually say ‘who and what’.
Here, a woman enjoying her coffee at sunrise was isolated in the composition using a telephoto lens, shot from the other side of the camp. The visual story is her and her camp. (see image below right)

Left: ISO 100, f/8, 1/320th – sunrise
Right: ISO 100, f/5.6, 1/1000th – morning coffee

Captured on a 10 day climbing and photo adventure, the image above left, was shot during a hike up to watch the sunrise and it tells a story that the day is beginning. From the sun flare on the lens to the large view, this image clearly Illustrates the story of where they are and when.
The illustrated approach to a storytelling composition could be a subject much smaller in the scene in comparison to their surroundings. It’s a great approach for giving viewers the big picture and a sense of scale to the overall scene. An Illustrated image says ‘what and where’.
The example below of the illustrative approach shows a camp set among large mountains and the river. It tells the story differently by showing the size relationship between the subjects and background providing a sense of scale to the scene.

As we were hiking back to camp, I noticed the shadows on the rocks and stopped and asked them to try various poses like a high-5 and dance on the rocks.

ISO 100, f/11, 1/125th

Captured later in the afternoon, I used the Isolated approach to the composition showing the climber between the rocks. This created an image that’s all about her and what she is doing. (below left)

Hiking with a group in Utah, one hiker spotted a small frog near a pool or water and picked it up to show it. The wide angle, up-close angle tells the story of humans interacting with nature (above right).
You can also create storytelling images by adding lighting to further tell that story. Here, one of my preconceived ideas was someone reading in this comfortable wilderness cabin tent. I asked them to sit on the bed and read a book, then placed my flash behind them so it placed a shadow on the tent that told the story.

ISO 100, f/8, 2 seconds

Finally…

There is always a story to be told from any photographic adventure and if you plan to go on an expedition of any kind, large or small, plan to photograph more than just the scenery. Here are a few steps to prepare:

• Plan ahead of time to make sure you have the right equipment for the adventure.
• Research the type of trip you are prepping for by looking at other images and methods photographers use to document the same trip. Use those for motivation.
• Let the story line you thought of be a starting point to determining the images you want to capture.
• Keep your mind open to other ideas beyond those on your shot list. Often the best images were not on your to-do list.
• Think like you are on a magazine assignment and work hard to capture the whole story in your own unique way.

In the end you want your story in pictures to leave viewers feeling a great sense of what the trip was like, what was experienced, and how it might have felt to have been a participant.
Have you been on any adventures? Do you have any other tips to share? Please do so in the comments below.

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