Impulsive Artistry

Tuesday, July 12, 2016

5 Tips to Take Better Photographs!

Sunrise in the Outer Banks. Photo by Charles Wolf.

Photography is a wonderful creative activity that anyone can successfully learn and master. One of the advantages to this pursuit is that the average person already has all the tools they need to get started at their fingertips. With the prominence of smart phones that come equipped with decent cameras already installed, you can jump right into this fun and artistic project. Today, I am going to give you some tips that I have learned through trail and error and the formal study of composition from drawing and painting. I will be focusing on nature photography, which is what I enjoy doing, but most of these concepts are transferable to all forms of photography. Please remember that these are tips, sort of loose guidelines and not strict rules. Here we go:

Tip #1: Think About the Borders

When you think about a photo, most people tend to focus on what is inside the picture, and this makes sense, however when talking about photographic composition it is important to consider the edges of the photo. What is happening right at the edges? Typically, a better composition will have objects or shapes intersecting the borders on all sides and there will be a different number of segments on each border, preferably two or more per side.

Take a look at the photo below – the color variations provide us a clue to the segmentation of the “objects” (clouds, trees, grass) intersecting the borders of the image.

Day's End - Object Segmentation.
Photo by Charles Wolf. Impulsive Artistry © 2016.

In comparison, take a look at this photo of the colorful Adirondack Chairs. Now, I really like this photo and it was mentioned several times by people as being their favorite of my Vermont Set (link below). When thinking about the edges, this photo is not as compositional strong, especially since the top and bottom edges only have one uniform segment (very weak) intersecting the border; however, the contrast of the bright chairs to the grey mist is so striking that the photo still works well. Again, these are guidelines and not strict rules; furthermore, I will be careful to point out the exceptions.

Colorful Adirondack Chairs. Photo by Charles Wolf.

Visiting Vermont Photo Set Link

Tip #2: Where’s the Main Object?

Avoid putting the main object or focal point of your photo in the center of the composition. I see this mistake a lot on Instagram, where the person, animal, or a tree is placed front and center. When you do this, you must have a strong reason to do so with something very dynamic happening around the object. A centered object will tend to be static and interfere with viewer’s eye gliding through the photo. Slightly off center can be acceptable, just not the very center.

Take a look at these two photos of the same blossoms, link the full photo set below. The first one has the blossoms dead center with a rather uninteresting background—not my best photo to say the least. : )

Redbuds. Photo by Charles Wolf.

The second photo is much more dynamic, the blossoms are in central to this photograph, but are not directly in the dead center of the photo. Additionally, the bridge pulls the viewers eye forward and beyond. The second photograph follows tip #1 as well!

Redbuds by the Path. Photo by Charles Wolf.

One notable exception to this rule occurs when there is a strong symmetry to the composition. For example, this photo that I took while walking in the woods contains symmetry on a vertical axis (left and right) with the path disappearing directly ahead of you. In this case, the symmetry overrides the Tip # 2, and the composition seems to work just fine!

Sunlit Path. Photo by Charles Wolf.

Spring Fever Photo Set

Tip #3: The 2/3rds Rule

This is a fundamental idea of composition in painting that is readily applicable to nature photography, particularly with photos that contain both land and sky. In an effort to follow Tip #2, the 2/3rds Rule suggests placing the horizon line (the farthest point in the picture at where everything disappears from the viewer sight—usually can be found where the sky meets the land or water) either 2/3rds up from the bottom or 2/3rds down from the top. In the former position, there will be more sky than land, and in the latter, the opposite.

Here is the same photo I used in Tip #1. As you can see, the horizon line is 2/3rds down from the top and the land only takes up about 1/3rd of the composition. This makes sense in a sunset photo, enabling the sky to be more prominent in the composition due to the greater amount of space allocated to it in the photograph.

Day's End - Proportions.
Photo by Charles Wolf. Impulsive Artistry © 2016.

Visiting Vermont Photo Set Link

Tip #4: Are Your Photos in Focus?

I am surprised that I have to include this, but I have seen many flower close-ups on Instagram that are out of focus! How do you fix this? Well, I tend to take three photos in a row of the same shot, just so I get the best one I can. It’s an easy mistake to make, your hand jostles, the cameras refocuses right when you snap the photo... I strongly recommend that you take multiple photos in a row, so easy to do and you will get much better results! Of course, your photos don’t have to be super-sharp (misty lighting for example), but not so blurry that it becomes hard to look at them. One final exception: the blurriness is for artistic effect (the point of the photograph, if you will).

Tip #5: Lightly Edit Your Photos

With today’s technology it is easier than ever to lightly filter and adjust your photos so that they sparkle. A little will go a long way so don’t get too carried away with yourself (it happens to us all!). The Instagram app has dozens of filters and also allows you to easily adjust settings like the brightness, saturation, contrast, etc. If you are not sure what these do, simply play around with them until you get an idea of their function.

Do you know that I upload two photos Monday-Saturday on Instagram? If not, then head over there and follow me to see great new photos of mine all the time!

Impulsive Artistry Instagram Link

Other great places to edit photos include Iphoto (for Mac users), or free editor websites like PicMonkey. If you willing to pay for it, then of course Photoshop is great and other similar powerful editing programs—but try the free ones first to get started.

Question of the Day:

Do you have a photo tip that you use to take great photographs?

If so, please share it with us in the comments below or on the

Impulsive Artistry Facebook Page!

So there you have it, five helpful tips to take better photographs!

I will be launching another photography contest on the Impulsive Artistry Facebook Wall this week. The Theme: Sunrise/Sunset Photos. Try using these tips and take a great looking sunrise or sunset photo to participate in the contest. The winning photo will be featured in a bonus blog post here on Impulsive Artistry!

Have an amazing artistic day,

—Charles

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Thursday, July 7, 2016

Unleashing Your Creativity!

“If upon a white canvas I jot down some sensations of blue, of green, of red – every new brush stroke diminishes the importance of the preceding ones.”

—Henri Matisse, “Notes d'un Peintre,” Pg. 411.

Light Through the Bent Grass.
Photo by Charles Wolf. Impulsive Artistry © 2016.

I have previously written about the challenges to a creative lifestyle, but find that I have not addressed the idea of creativity itself. Several of the guest artists featured on this blog have done so quite elegantly, speaking of their individual approaches to their artistic endeavors—the composer, David Gonzalez, wrote a beautiful explanation of this topic in his feature about his work “A Moment in Time” that is well worth a read! I will not summarize his thoughts here in this article, so be sure to check it out:

Link to David Gonzalez Article

According to the Google definition, “Creativity” deals with the usage of “imaginative or creative ideas, especially in the production of an artistic work.” While somewhat vague, we now have a springboard for this discussion. How do we find or develop these “creative ideas?” That is where things become quite personalized—I will expand on this further on in the article.

You may counter: “I am not a creative person” or “I don’t have any creative ideas.” You may be more creative than you think. Problem solving and analytical skills can be a large part of many creativity activities and also there are many different levels of creativity. These range from simple projects where you can work within a well-defined framework with only a few creative choices that you must make. One such example is coloring; a preset image and all you have to decide is what colors to use (great practice for more creatively complex activities like drawing or painting by the way).

Dawn Cloudscape. Photo by Charles Wolf.

Another simple creative task that really anyone can do is photography, an activity that I personally enjoy very much! Find a nice secluded spot; take a number of photos at different angles, choosing to focus on brightly lit spots or darker areas. Will you focus on something near you or far away? If you can’t decided, no problem, do both! Then you can look through and find the photos that appeal to you the most, and create a collection that you can share with your friends and family via social media sites like Instagram or Facebook.

In a contrast, a higher-level creative activity would be something like painting an original abstract, writing a novel, or composing music etc… If these tasks seem too time consuming (a challenge to every creative life) or beyond what you feel you can attempt, then try a simpler project to undertake that fits better with your schedule. I often tell my piano students who complain that they can’t find the time to practice during the week: “you will never find the time to practice, you must make the time!” This is true of all projects that are worth doing, creative or otherwise. If something is important to you, then you will have to make time to do it.

Another thought that I strongly encourage you to ignore and cast from your mind is “why be creative at all, many other people can do it better than me anyway, why start now?” The answer is that creativity takes courage, a lot of courage. I, and many other artists, have found a lot of joy in creating something new. It is so satisfying to step back and be proud of what you have made. The goal is to be the best you can be, work hard at it, and never give up! “What if I hate it?” Then keep at it, until you love what you create. Eventually, you have a day where everything seems to be effortless, and you create something that is truly beautiful.

Truthfully, you never know when a creative idea will pop into your head – it may be a complete image of the finished work or just a tiny fragment that when developed, becomes a completed work of art. You may just begin to “jot down some sensations of blue, of green, of red…” and find that it turns into something new!

"Coral Reef." Oil on Canvas, 18 x 24in. Artist Charles Wolf. Impulsive Artistry © 2016. This work is currently being displayed at the Litmus Gallery in Downtown Raleigh, NC as part of the "Transcending Nature Collection."

To conclude, I hope that you feel inspired or at least encouraged to be a little more creative in your day-to-day routine. Here a few more ideas: Take a sip and paint class where they show how to create a lovely piece of art, start some music lessons in an instrument that you always wanted to learn, but haven’t got around to yet… the choices go on, but find something that gets you excited and enjoy every moment!

If you want even more creative ideas to pursue, then see my article about “Seven Creative Activities that Anyone Can Do.”

7 Creative Activities Link

Question of the Day:

What creative project(s) are you working on right now?

Tell me all about them in the comments below or on the Impulsive Artistry Facebook Page—I would love to hear from you!

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Tuesday, July 12, 2016

5 Tips to Take Better Photographs!

Thursday, July 7, 2016

Unleashing Your Creativity!