Even beginning photographers can shoot really amazing pictures that will require a second look. Learning these techniques is simple when you know the basics of photography, and the creative possibilities using the various techniques are endless. Here are just a few of the benefits offered by special effect photography.

Beginning Photographers Can Learn – You do not need to be a professional photographer to use effects or trick photography. It does however help to know the basics of photography such as shutter speed, aperture, and film speed. If you know the basics of photography and have adequate practice using your camera, then learning to do special effect photography is just learning the techniques used.

No Expensive Equipment Necessary – You can achieve special effects and trick photography techniques without spending excessive money on equipment. Any camera can be used if you know the special effects photography techniques.

Adds A Personal Touch To Photographs – If you want a photo to stand out, special effects and trick photography is the way to achieve this. Photographs which start conversations or require a second look, are just more fun to view sometimes, and with a little effort and practice, you can take the pictures everyone wants to see again.

Unleashes Your Creativity – Using your creativity through photography is exciting. You can capture a moment with time-lapse photography, or see the entire view through panoramic photography. Light painting can give your pictures a surreal look, and steel wool photography can make your pictures light up with sparks. You can capture the tiniest details with macro photography, and add more vivid color and detail using High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography. The possibilities and combinations are endless, and only limited to your imagination.

Adds The Wow Factor To Photos – Adding these effects to your photography can be a conversation starter, or bring out details that the human eye cannot see. They can be shot for your own personal satisfaction, or for a certain event. If you want people to look at your photos in awe, this area of photography is an element to use. You may just spark an interest in someone else who would like to try using the techniques.

If you are bored with looking at the same photographs, and want to make them more unique, special effects and trick photography is simple to learn. Not only will it increase the use of your creativity, but it will also improve your photography skills by using the camera on various settings and in various environments.

Special effects and trick photography is not a secret photography method that only professionals know and use. Anyone with an interest in photography, who has the most basic photography skills can achieve brilliant and eye-catching shots with practice.

Creativity is part of the total photography process, and with special effects, you can show off your creativity to friends, or to the world and be proud of the amazing photographs that you have taken.

Every photographer is trying their level best to snap it in the most beautiful way possible. So many colleges and camera companies are coming up with ideas like digital photography tutorials and other courses in India to train people so that they can reach the top of this competition. If you think there is a budding photographer inside you and finding a way of polishing and exposure then this article will be your golden key. Let’s see how you can improve yourself.

D-SLR Tutorial

D-SLR has become the basic thing for perfect photography. You can even so for other cameras but D-SLR is considered as the best tool to capture your dream moment. To become a pro in using D-SLR, there are many sites that provide basic tutorials like their adjustments, posture and exposures and other basics like Manual Modes and stops etc. you will get knowledge about different tools and their uses like how to use ‘Histogram’ ad about exposure metering and other stuffs.

Once you learn the basic, you can also go through high level tutorials like there are tutorials about flash and sync speeds, then bracketing photography and tutorials about Time lapse/ Interval Timer photography, then how to adjust setting for landscape photography, then other tutorials like travel and candid.

You can even go through the digital photography tutorials and also learn about the D-SLR filmmaking. And don’t forget to go through the fashion photography, portrait and wildlife photography tutorials in order to nurture your photography talent.

Photography courses

If going through different tutorials is too hectic for you then you can opt for different courses. There are different sites which provide different package of courses with reasonable prices. Among those courses some courses are for all level of photographers like there is a course ‘Photography Masterclass’ which is like a complete guide for all kind of photography.

If you want to pursue a specific style of photography then you can also go for courses like ‘National Geographic Photography’ then “Long exposure photography’ and many more.

Photography course in college

Now photography is at such a level that it is considered as a professional job. To become a professional, different courses and degrees in photography are now available. There are colleges like Delhi College of photography, Light and Life Academy in OOTY then National Institute of photography at Mumbai and many more are trying to provide the best photography courses India. They are different degrees like Diploma in photography and videography, then PG in videography etc.

So now photography has emerged as a professional career too. Even various colleges have taken initiative to make this career successful. So what’s stopping you? If you think you have that eye of a photographer then take a step ahead towards different photography courses and let your snap be the most beautiful thing in the world.

Various factors need to be considered in determining the ideal photography college. Tuition and fees, whether the student received any grants or academic scholarships, and other available financing are key factors in the process of selecting a college. Of course, the college photography programs and academic courses, in addition to the faculty teaching photography, are crucial as well. Looking at related courses that may be available, like photography or game design, is also highly recommended.

Moreover, the prospective student also needs to carefully consider the location and atmosphere of the college. Is the college in an urban or rural setting? Are there off-campus activities? What transport options are available? And, if a student is interested in athletics, the college sporting programs and achievements can be influential in deciding on a college.

What are other factors to take into account when choosing a good photography college? Prospective photography students should also consider non-academic aspects. The services that photography students can use and the facilities available to students definitely should come into play when deciding between good photography schools. Yet another factor to consider is whether there are many notable photographers among the college’s Alumni. And, whether the photography program also offers photography internships or even job placements may greatly influence which photography college a student may end up choosing.

In the end, the choice is the student’s to make, so choose carefully! You may be wondering if attending art school is a pre-requisite for a career in professional photography. A few short years ago, it seemed nearly anyone with a camera could parlay their skills into a career. This is no longer true. The technical aspect of photography has exploded with the digital photography boom. Not only do you need to learn all the artistic angles of setting up and shooting a photograph, you also need to learn how to produce that photography in its best possible light on a computer.

With digital cameras, anyone can shoot a photo-but not everyone can shoot a good photo, and not everyone knows how to turn what they’ve shot into a professional quality picture. There is so much to know about digital enhancement that it would take years to learn on your own. Doesn’t it make more sense to attend a concentrated program, taught by professionals so that you can learn all you need to know in a relatively short amount of time?

Fortunately, there are many reputable art schools teaching photography today. During your course of study, you will not only learn all of the technical aspects of professional photography, you will also study art history, the history of photography, color theory, and composition. Most art schools and photography schools also include courses in business practice, in order to get you up and running in your new career as soon as possible

Wide-Angle Zoom
Wide-to-Telephoto Zoom
Image-Stabilized Telephoto Zoom
Prime/Portrait Lenses
Wide-Angle Zoom

Wide-angle zoom lenses are one of the most important photography lenses that every wedding photographer should have, typically 17mm to 35mm in length with a fixed aperture of f/2.8. They provide a large depth of field, making it simple to have foreground and background in focus. They are an indispensable wedding photography equipment which allows versatility in confined areas such as a small banquet room or crowded dance floor. While shorter photography lenses allow you to capture more details, wide-angle zoom lenses allow you to capture more reactions and atmosphere to tell a richer story.

To elaborate further, wide-angle zoom photography lenses allow you to shoot a wider perspective of moments happening around the major subject, hence providing a bigger picture of the entire event. For example, wide-angle photos have the capability to tell “stories within a story”, allowing you to reveal more of the story behind the shot. This is essential for a good photojournalistic wedding photography. As events surrounding weddings are so time sensitive, good photography lenses will allow you to capture as many actions or emotions in the quickest time as possible.

When used in a venue such as the church or ballroom, wide-angle zoom photography lenses also magnify the grandeur and spaciousness of the area, which encapsulates the creative feel for a photojournalistic wedding photography.

However, you need to be selective of the scenes or actions using wide-angle photography lenses, as a caveat to shooting wide is that it creates some body distortion, particularly when a subject is photographed close-up. Generally, people tend to look heavier and shorter on the edges, while arms can look huge. The last thing you want is to have the bride cursing you for making her look like she has put on 10 pounds! To get around this problem, you should as far as possible avoid putting the bride and groom at the edges of the wide-angle distortion. In addition, wide-angle photography lenses might also introduce distracting or unwanted elements into the frame, which would otherwise ruin a picture perfect moment.

Wide-to-Telephoto Zoom

Wide-to-telephoto lenses are the single most important photography lenses that a wedding photographer cannot do without. They should ideally be lenses that cover somewhere around the 20-70mm focal length range with an aperture of f/2.8. This ideal range lets you get wide enough to take a group photograph and close enough to capture facial emotions in your candid shots or a three-quarter portrait of a couple without the undesirable effects of wide-angle perspective distortion. They also double as good lenses for portraits. Given just this lens, you would be able to capture most of the shots needed for a wedding decently well.

Image-Stabilized Telephoto Zoom

Image-stabilized telephoto zoom lenses are also essential items in your wedding photography equipment checklist. The 70-200mm focal length is an important range for wedding ceremony photos. It allows you to give your subjects more space in situations where you don’t want to get in the way. As you will often be photographing down the aisle from the back of the church, image-stabilized telephoto zoom lenses will come in very handy. 200mm is long enough to be able to take 3/4 length images of the bride and groom exchanging their vows while staying at a reasonable distance away from the action and 70mm is wide enough to take in the bridesmaids or groomsmen as a group without switching photography lenses.

A good point to note is that when using such photography lenses, nice blurred background can be achieved with maximum wide apertures of f/2.8 and long focal lengths of 200mm or 300mm, whether you are using a full-frame or a small sensor body. This allows you to isolate the subject from its background, and to focus attention on the image as the main subject you want to portray. Such photography lenses are especially useful for shots where you are unable to get in close and for intimate and private moments, where you want to be an unobserved stranger at a distance. Some examples include a stolen glance, a mischievous grin, a kiss – the details that are effectively conveyed by the emotions. Image-stabilized telephoto zoom photography lenses hence play an important role in capturing such moments.

These image-stabilized telephoto zoom photography lenses aren’t only good for blurry backgrounds or shooting events from a distance. They could also be used to photograph stunning facial close-ups from creative angles above or below the subject that don’t exhibit the normal distortions of large chins or shrinking heads that come from wider photography lenses.

Yet another advantage of such photography lenses is that you can use the small-sensor camera’s 1.5x crop factor to your favour. The 200/2.8 long end of the standard zoom effectively becomes 300/2.8, a lens that would cost $4000 for a full-frame camera. The effective 300mm length allows for more creative photo angles than shorter photography lenses, such as tightly cropped images of the groom’s hands lifting the bride’s veil or the bride and groom’s hands while they put rings on each others fingers.

The obvious disadvantage of image-stabilized telephoto zooms is that in many cases, long photography lenses tend to disconnect the subject from the main scene and there might be little to no context as to why the subject may have had expressed how they were feeling, the whereabouts of the subject and who else was there.

When using a small-sensor camera as your primary or backup body, the other disadvantage of image-stabilized telephoto zoom lenses is that neither Nikon, Canon or Sony make an f/2.8 lens that gives you an effective 70-200mm focal length. Hence, you would have to pay the high price and carry the weight of photography lenses designed for a full-frame camera.

Canon’s Image-Stabilization, Nikon’s Vibration-Reduction and Sony’s SteadyShot INSIDE systems are indispensable in allowing you to hand-hold these large and heavy long photography lenses, especially in low light situations. Every wedding photographer should ensure that the image-stablization and vibration-reduction features are available on their long lenses. You might also want to consider using a tripod to ensure continuous, accurate subject placement and sharp photos. Such telephoto zoom photography lenses are huge investments and if you have a budget constraint or an amateur just starting out, you might want to consider rental instead.

Prime Lenses

Prime lenses are essentially photography lenses with fixed focal lengths, as opposed to zoom lenses, which have variable focal lengths of say 24-70mm or 17-55mm. Prime lenses generally have a better optical quality than zoom photography lenses, and usually come with wider maximum apertures such as f/2.8 or f/1.8.

Good prime lenses are must-have photography lenses for any wedding photographer, as they are excellent for taking good portraits. Although you will be adequately equipped for a wedding shoot with the three zoom lenses in your lens kit as discussed above, it is worth including two to three fast prime lenses in your bag as well. These photography lenses are compact, light, and fairly inexpensive and would probably be needed in about 10 to 20% of a wedding shoot.

Faster prime photography lenses are ideal in situations where f/2.8 aperture is not enough to get the motion-stopping shutter speed or shallow depth of field desired, whether for artistic or technical reasons. For example, an image that requires a 1/20th of a second shutter speed at f/2.8 will only require 1/60th of a second at f/1.8, forming a distinction between a sharp image and a blurry one. Many professional wedding photographers actually include prime lenses in their gig bags as an economical backup to their zoom lenses. Not many people could afford to purchase an additional 70-200mm f/2.8 telephoto lens as a backup and you also want to prevent a frantic situation whereby your photography lens fails on you during a crucial moment.

There are many prime lenses available on the market but most photographers would include a 28/1.8, 50/1.8, and 85/1.8 in their prime photography lenses kit to be used on a full-frame body. The 28mm is wide enough to cover most ceremony locations and confined spaces, the 50mm is good for small groups or a priest blessing a couple, and the 85mm is long enough for ceremony vows and exchange of rings. A wedding can be successfully photographed with just these three photography lenses.

It’s true that there is wealth to be made in photography and I’m not going to down play that or make a pitch to the opposite because in every case, it’s been up to the individual. Meaning – it depends on what mode of photography they choose, how much time they put into the business, do they have a commercial bent, are they more artistic than usual etc. All these points come into play when success in a photography business or studio is questioned.

I don’t want to create any false hopes by that last paragraph because success will require some hard work, tolerance and patience. These next thirty tips should help you along the way. There is more detail available on this subject matter at the link at the bottom of this page.

Where can I obtain information on building a photography business?

1. Always do some extensive research before starting out a career with your own photography business so that you understand the pros and cons involved. Some ideas include subscribing to a good magazine related to the photographic industry such as Professional Photographer, Camera Arts and Photo District News. Besides that, the internet is the biggest source of information and can provide you with a plethora of career opportunities or even more information on starting a photography business.

At which level do you want to start your photography business?

2. This is the trickiest question that a person interested in starting a business encounters. It is very important to decide what kind of photography business you want so that the relevant requirements and (sometimes) finance can be muscled up.

When is the best time to start a fully-fledged photography business?

3. After deciding on what you need and any extra necessary equipment that is needed to set up the basic infrastructure, you will need to consider carefully your main tool – the camera, be it digital or film. You must also consider carefully a reliable, high-quality PC and good relevant software to manipulate your photographs with special effects. If the business is being undertaken on a massive scale then maybe a developing lab needs to be planned and established.

o What kind of venues will yield real income to your business?

4. A newly established business in photography requires an assured location or a beat (working locally), as in journalism. For instance, wedding photography, sports related photography or developmental photography. Once established, business can also be diversified into many more fields.

o Building a photography portfolio

5. It is always important to compile a good portfolio as far as photography is concerned. A portfolio must contain a collection of pertinent photographic work that you believe to be impressive. Make sure that photographs are unusual in character and are from diverse fields. Your portfolio must be able to impress the client in the very first meeting.

6. Don’t keep all the photographs that you have in your possession. Only keep your best work in the folder so that you don’t embarrass yourself or find yourself having to explain photographs that aren’t relevant.

7. Showcase spontaneous photos that you believe are of good quality. You’d be surprised how many people respond favorably to peoples expressions when they are good shots.

Basic apparatus required

8. A canvas background of at minimum 7-9 foot and the background colors should be either navy or white as minimum requirements to start with; a well-branded studio lights system such as that of Norman & Speedtron; certified picture manipulation software such as Photoshop, Corel Paint Shop, etc.

Is there a need for establishing a makeup studio as part of your photo studio?

9. Makeup and photography often go hand in hand. Wherever makeup is involved it is often referred to as trick photography because makeup is capable of completely transforming an individual’s personality, and sometimes relevance to a product in the case of advertising photography.

What kind of photo-editing software available in the market?

10. Photo-editing software through which special effects and complete changes to a photo are possible and can also often save the need for a re shoot.

11. Some of the photo-editing software that are popular includes Photoshop CS; Photoshop Light room, iPhoto, i View Multimedia, MediaPro, ACDSee, Corel and Picasa.

Is storage and treatment of photographs crucial in building photography business?

12. Never adopt laxity while handling or archiving photographs. You will regret it later. Storage and access efficiency will either improve or frustrate your working environment. Often older photos become more valuable with time.

How can be photographs be preserved easily apart from the conventional method?

13. Today’s cameras are highly versatile and will allow downloads and transfers from highly surprising devices including your mobile but pictures can also be stored on a CD’s, USB’s and DVD’s too.

o Choosing a Camera

14. Stick to w ell known brand. The level of mega pixel offered and quality of the zooming facility must be looked into carefully. I have my favorites but there are many equally as good as mine.

15. Most of the cameras are compatible with computers and printers and moreover, because we now use memory sticks, we are truly free to operate unencumbered.

o What kind of a website does a person need to have?

16. Your collection of photographs must be properly classified under different categories. Visual appearance of your website will do wonders for your business so take consider setting up one with semi automation where the maintenance and hard work is done for you like photostockplus.

17. Remember to constantly upgrade and maintain your website so that each time people come across your website, they will find fine something new and interesting.

o Copyright of your photographs

18. Copyright is the right protects the person who owns or who took the photographs. A wise exercise if you are looking to use some stock houses for commercial purposes.

o Why is a business card helpful?

19. In every business, visiting cards are helpful. It is extremely useful in for people to contact you after your first meeting. It must contain all your contact details. If you’re a photographer, a clever impressive graphic or a picture of yourself with your equipment is best. Your contact number or email must be easy to read. I have seen cards that have large names and pictures and the phone numbers are so small they are difficult to read. Ridiculous! Make your phone number the largest thing on the card – that’s what most people will use it for.

o Which things must be kept in mind while you plan to build a wedding photography business?

20. Wedding Photography is almost another art unto itself. There are many things to remember for a truly successful wedding shoot. I have prepared another article to deal with this in more detail and it’s all about –Wedding Photography. –

o Advantage of assignment photography

21. Assignment photography is that branch of photography where a person is engaged or consigned to capture shots of something impressive and extraordinary, such as in the case of advertising or portrait photography; this can provide you a stable income after you’ve learned the ropes.

o Advantage of stock photography

22. Stock photography is that branch of photography where there is an accumulated stock of photographs which can be sold to interested buyers, designers, adverting agencies etc. This can be a slow haul but if your pictures are well thought out, it can be the source of an ongoing income. –My favorite is istockphotos–.

o Other places where you can sell your photographic collection?

23. Art shows are the perfect platform from where your creativity and work will be really appreciated because at such places you will find some niche customers that have a sharp eye for real talent. Such places have been known to bring instant fame.

24. Winter Park Art Show at Orlando, Oklahoma City Festival of the Arts, Old Town Art Show; Chicago, Boston Mills Art Show; Peninsula, Ohio, Similar art shows are held in different parts of the world and they are easy to find on the net. Simply do a Google search for “photography art show” and the name of the country you are in after adding the plus sign like this; “photography art show”+ Sweden

o Prices to be charged from the clients

25. In the initial stages of your business, don’t try to charge exorbitant amounts otherwise it will give the wrong impression and you will perhaps lose a valuable long term customer. Tread slowly. Ring other photographers and research. Five phone calls should do it.

Marketing your photography business

26. You must try to market your work at relevant places. Photographs can also be published over the internet. Publication over the internet will increase customer enquiry. Don’t forget to search for suitable local markets and get the snaps printed in a local journal or newspaper and always display your contact number prominently – always!