Basic Photography with Ricky Ladia

Last Saturday, I attended an event organized by Epson. It’s a basic photography seminar with photographer Ricky Ladia.

Ricky Ladia explained the basic things about DSLR photography, from the parts of a typical DSLR camera, features, file types, essentials, types of lens, post process (using software like Adobe Photoshop to enhance a picture), etc.

Ricky Ladia is a Nikon enthusiast but I appreciate that he’s also familiar with the basic controls of a Canon DSLR. His slideshow are mostly based on the functions and features of a Nikon DSLR but Canon enthusiasts (like us) can still relate to the Power Point presentation.

What I like about this basic photography seminar is the lecture on composing the picture and post process. Here are some of his tips on how to take pictures:

1. Keep it simple – use 2 colors on your pictures
2. Lines, texture and direction – try to look for these things in your subject
3. Symmetrical – don’t be afraid to take pictures of the subject in a symmetrical way
4. Rule of thirds – the famous rule in photography
5. Colors – hot colors (red, orange, yellow) is first perceive by the eye. So focus on hot colors first before the cool colors (blue, green)
6. Background and foreground – it’s not always about the subject.
7. Try different angles – like Worm’s eye view
8. Use the whole frame – avoid cropping the picture during post production. As much as possible, use the whole resolution when taking your pictures
9. Sharpness and focus
10. Avoid camera shake (he taught us how to hold the camera properly)
11. Get the right focus – when taking portraits, focus on the nearer eye
12. Use higher shutter speed
13. Use tripod cable release timer

Other tips that I got from him is The Workflow. It’s a series of step to perform during post process:

1. Take photo / capture image
2. Download to your computer – being a photographer means having a computer
3. Backup the file before conversion
4. Post Process (conversion) – from RAW to JPEG
5. Backup the file again after making some changes using Lightroom, Adobe Photoshop, Picasa or other software
6. Upload or print (using Epson printers of course)

During Uploading and Printing, the processes involve are:

1. Resizing the picture
2. Sharpening the picture – preferably during Post Production and not on the camera itself
3. Saturation – to avoid “Disney colors” (too much color)
4. Adjusting levels and curves
5. Calibrating the monitor – it’s important to calibrate the colors of the monitor so that you don’t get surprise once the pictures are printed

I sure hope I could apply what I learn to my future shots. Here are the pictures of the event by the way. I’ll post the pictures of SM Annex and the famous “garden” of SM City North EDSA tomorrow.

BuzzNet Tags: Ricky Ladia,Epson,Basic Photography