Film or Digital
This debate can get quite lengthy, and I use both film and digital. But I will make this easy for you: Unless you’re buying a camera for a professional photographer, go with digital. Digital is more convenient and there are no film costs. If your dad or grad falls in love with photography, he or she may eventually want a film camera as well. At that point, you can congratulate yourself for introducing someone into the wonderful world of photography. You can also be certain that from that point forward, your dad or grad will never be shy about letting you know exactly what he or she wants when it comes to photography equipment.

Digital Features
The first thing I advise you to do is to figure out what features your gift recipient will want. Here are some important features.

Resolution
In digital photography, this is determined by how many megapixels the camera has. Megapixels do not determine the quality of the image; rather they determine the quality of the print size. The more megapixels, the bigger the enlargement can be without losing clarity. A three-megapixel camera will provide good prints up to 8 x 10. That will probably be sufficient for most dads and grads. However, getting more won’t hurt.

If your gift recipient is likely to use the photos online, you can get by with fewer megapixels.

Size
I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that small and sleek might be ideal for a recent grad. If you hope to see photos of their new life, make it convenient for them to take a camera with them. It’s a lot easier to stick a camera in a pocket or purse than it is to carry it over your shoulder or around your neck. Cameras that need camera bags tend to stay in closets or under beds unless someone has a real passion for photography.

On the other hand, if you’re getting a camera for a dad who loves taking photos of kids playing sports or family vacation photos, a larger model might work better. The features are larger and easy to find and manipulate, and larger models often offer more options. (There are only so many options you can pack into a little bundle.)

If this is the first digital camera your recipient has had and he or she hasn’t ever shown any strong interest in photography, I’d avoid buying a 35 mm digital camera with interchangeable lenses. That could be overwhelming. On the other hand, if your recipient has shown a strong interest in photography and is forever e-mailing photos to friends and family members, it could well be time to get the 35 mm/interchangeable lens camera. You’ll be a hero!

Ease of Use
You know your recipient. If he or she simply wants to point and shoot, make sure you get a camera that has all automatic settings and will make every decision all on its own. On the other hand, if your recipient likes to fiddle with things and is a techno freak, make sure you get something that give him or her the ability to make manual adjustments.

Options
Digital cameras have a variety of options. The ones I would make sure the camera has are:
• Optical zoom lens
• Ability to use rechargeable batteries
• Removable memory card (vs. strictly storing photos inside the camera)
• An ISO range of up to at least up to 400 (more if the person is likely to shoot in dim light) Note: ISO determines how light sensitive the camera is.
• A built-in flash (with a red-eye reduction feature)
• An LCD screen for viewing pictures
• A glass lens (rather than a plastic one)

Other features to consider include:
• Ability to set the camera to manual mode. This allows for much more creativity. Personally, I’d never give anyone a camera without this. It’s like giving someone a coloring book and insisting they “stay inside the lines,” vs. giving them a sketch book and inks, pastels, watercolors, etc.
• Video capability to make short movies. You aren’t going to get high quality here, but it can be fun.
• Close up mode. Nice feature that allows the user to take super close-ups of things like flower petals, stamps, bugs, etc.
• A timer. Nice to make sure the camera is steady if it’s on a tripod and useful it the photographer wants to jump into the picture.
• Ability to release shutter once and have it take a series of pictures within seconds. Great for someone who is going to be shooting sports or other action photos.

How to Choose
Do your research. Go online and do a search for Web sites that compare digital cameras. Ask someone you know with a digital camera whether or not they like theirs. Find out what they say they could live without and what they’d never give up. If they are knowledgeable, maybe they could help you decide. Go to a store and hold the cameras. What feels good?

Make a list of the most important features the person you are giving the gift to will want. Prioritize the features. Then search for cameras within your price range and match as many features as you can to a price you can afford.

Stick with brand names you trust. You can’t go wrong with a Nikon or Canon. (Personally, I have always used Nikons and wouldn’t trade them for anything.)

Look at the complete package. Some packages include memory cards, cables to hook the camera up to the computer, and rechargeable batteries. Some digital cameras have “ports” you set your camera in to recharge the batteries.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but for a grad who isn’t interested in learning all about photography, you’re well advised to consider appearance. Slick and sleek might be way more important that one with more features but that isn’t as cool looking.

Think of the ability to exchange the camera. If you buy a camera that doesn’t have a feature the recipient MUST have (and of course never mentioned to you), you will want to be able to exchange it for something the recipient will be able to use to capture the photographs he or she has in mind.

Price
Digital cameras with 3 megapixels can start as low as $100 and go to thousands for professional models. When comparing prices, make sure you take into account the entire package that comes with the camera.

Shop around. You can find some great deals on the Internet from highly reputable camera stores. Watch inserts in the Sunday paper as well. Visit some camera and electronic stores.

Photography of nature is a very rewarding hobby or in some cases profession. There is something special about having the creative eye in capturing the mystery and beauty of nature.

Here are some tips that will help you improve your photography so you can take better photos.

1. To have the passion for nature photography one has to have love for nature, as without that passion you may not be able to see the real beauty that is hidden in front of you. Nature loving photographers are able to see beauty in the tiniest of plants and flowers; they can see beauty in the way water ripples in a fishpond.

The best tip I can give you here is feel what you can see, open your eyes and your mind see what is in front of you, see it through the frame of your camera. You will love what you get.

2. Always keep your subjects well being in mind. Avoid changing the environment leave things as they are.

3. When photographing wildlife, like birds or animals, remember that it may take some time to get the perfect shot, but you should not be disappointed if you don’t get the shot you won’t, ,some photographers spend years trying to get exactly what they are looking for. The message here is you need to have patience.

4. It is recommended that you use an SLR fast shutter speeds camera. This device is good for taking great bird and animal photos. Most wildlife is fast and can disappear quickly. This type of camera can capture sudden movements quickly and can take many repeated photos of you subject in action.

5. As a nature photographer, you should always try to blend in with your surroundings and become part of the environment, in this way everything around you will behave normal, and not be spooked abnormal reactions.

Most of us aren’t professional photographers, but many of us take our amateur photography seriously. Over time, we come to realize that there’s a lot more to taking pictures than just pointing and shooting! In fact, a photographer who’s serious about his hobby should learn about topics such as lighting, exposure, composition and camera angles, to name a few.

Read on to learn the basic concepts behind the art of photography.

Lighting and Exposure
Have you ever taken pictures that are so light or so dark that you can hardly make out the subjects? If so, you’re aware of how important the proper lighting and exposure can be in photography.

How the lighting of a scene affects the exposure of the film is one of the most basic photography concepts. The more light within the scene, the more the film will be exposed. Conversely, the less light a scene has, the less the film will be exposed. While overexposed film turns out pictures that are too bright, underexposed film will be too dark, appearing “blacked-out.” Understanding how to manipulate lighting will help a photographer properly expose his film.

In any given scene a subject can be fully lit with direct light, fully lit with indirect light or partially lit with backlighting or ambient lighting. Any directly lit subject is relatively easy to photograph, meaning that the film will be properly exposed and the picture will “turn out.” On the other hand, partially lit subjects are a bit more elusive: generally, the lighting or film speed should be manipulated to ensure the adequate level of exposure.

Learning how to alter the film speeds and lighting in poorly lit scenes takes some effort. However, a photographer can purchase a light meter, a tool that measures the amount of light in a scene. Given this measurement, the photographer can choose the appropriate film speed.

Composition and Camera Angles
Another basic principle of photography is composition, or the technique of setting up the subject within the camera’s frame. The proper composition of a shot is directly related to the angle at which the photographer takes the picture. With a particular camera angle and a planned composition, a photo can draw in the viewer’s eye, add meaning to the image or add a sense of movement and dynamism to the scene.

If the photographer wants his viewer to focus on a certain aspect of the shot, he can place the subject in a certain area of the frame. For example, putting the subject higher in the frame gives the subject an imposing presence on the viewer. On the other hand, placing the image lower tends to make the subject more submissive and possibly more mysterious to the critical viewer’s eye.

By drawing the viewer’s eye to a particular part of a picture, the photographer also invests a particular meaning of feeling to his shot. Depending on the subject photographed, its placement within the frame can make it appear more mysterious, forceful, compliant, or intriguing.

Another set of basic photography concepts involves the skills used by a photographer to make an image appear dynamic. For instance, a shot with the subject framed directly in the middle can make the viewer feel as though he is falling into the subject.

An example of this would be a picture of a person looking through a hollow log while the photographer is at the other end of the log snapping a picture of the person’s face. In this shot, the viewer’s vision moves through this tunnel, shooting immediately towards the person’s face. While not as overtly dynamic as action shots, this sort of compositional concept adds a subtle sense of movement to the picture.

More Advanced Photography Concepts
If you want to further expand your knowledge of photography concepts, start experimenting with some more advanced techniques, such as:

• aperture settings
• depth of field measurements
• focal lengths
• shutter speed settings.

We are unlikely to long remember the smell and buzz of a flower garden in spring, the awe of gazing for the first time at the mountain we intend to climb, the caress of a tropical breeze, the thrill of a huge roller coaster, the wonder of our first wild bear, or the adrenaline of rafting white water. Our photographs need to bring these and other sensations back, to trigger our memories, and to communicate how we felt to others. To do this, we need to think and feel as much as look when setting out to make photographs.

First and foremost, think about what made you decide, out of all the places in the world, to choose this particular destination. Whatever it is—the beach, the rides, the mountain, the galleries, the food—obviously appeals to you. If it didn’t, you wouldn’t be going there. That site or activity (or inactivity) is one of the things you want to photograph. But there are probably many other interesting aspects of the place you may not be aware of. That’s where research comes in.

Photographers for National Geographic spend a lot of time doing research. This helps us figure out what’s there—what the place is about and what subjects we need to cover. Read brochures and travel books. Go to libraries, bookstores, or onto the Web. Talk to friends who have been there. Pick up travel information at the country’s embassy. Find whatever you can that is relevant, and devour it.

Understanding the customs and traditions of a place is vital. For one thing, you want to be sure you act in a way that is not rude or offensive while you are there, and it’s hard to know what’s acceptable and what isn’t with some knowledge. It can also help you understand things people do that at first encounter you might consider incomprehensible or even horrifying.

When you arrive at your destination, be open and try to take note of the first impressions—write them down if you have to. (A notebook is an essential accessory for a travel photographer.) When you see a place for the first time from the plane window, or when you drive around a bend and there it is, or as the ship nears some distant island—how do you feel? Where do your eyes go first? What do you notice about the place right away? A smell? The heat or cold? Blistering sunlight? Mysterious fog? A particular building or vista? The way people move? Their dress? Whatever it is, remember it. First impressions are invaluable sparks to creative interpretation, and by definition are not repeatable. You’ve seen the place in pictures, you’ve read about it. Now you’re there, and all your senses can partake.

Get out there. The only way to discover the rhythm of life in a place, and so figure out what to shoot, is to experience it. Many places, particularly hot ones, are active very early in the morning and late in the afternoon but rather in a lull around midday. Get up early, stay out late. If you are on a tour that is scheduled to leave the hotel or ship at 9:00, get up well before dawn. Wander around before meeting up with your companions. If the tour goes back to the hotel or ship for lunch, don’t go with them. Rather than take the bus back at the end of an afternoon tour, hang around until after sunset and then take a taxi. Use any spare time to get out and look for photographs. Besides availing yourself of more opportunities, time spent discovering the place will enrich your experience.

Get lost. Wander down alleys. Sit in cafés and watch life pass by. Don’t eat where the tourists do, but where you see locals. Just set off down a street and see where it leads. Look around the bends, over the rises. Get away from the crowd. I find that if I meander away from the tourists and tourist sites, away from what is too familiar and comfortable, it’s much easier to adapt to the rhythm of a place, and to be more observant.

Always have your camera with you and always keep your eyes open. Serendipity plays an enormously important role in travel photography. You never know what you are going to run into, and you have to be ready. Many times you will see what could be a good photograph but decide that the light is not right, or there are no people around, or too many—something that means you will have to come back later. But sometimes you get lucky. You happen to stumble upon a scene at just the right moment. If you forgot your camera, are out of film, or your digital card is full, if you have to fumble around getting the right lens on, the moment may be gone before you can recover. This is true whether you are doing street photography or visiting a natural or man-made site. Mountains, trees, monuments, and other static subjects are, of course, not going to go anywhere, but the ray of sunshine, the soaring eagle, or the embracing couple that add the needed element to your photograph are unlikely to hang around. Think of it as hunting—whenever you leave the confines of your camp, you should be ready and able to capture whatever pops up.

Make time for photography. Like doing anything well, making good photographs requires a commitment of time and energy. One problem with much of modern travel is that the days are chockablock full of scheduled tours, events, and meals. Our trips are usually of limited time, and we naturally want to see as many sites as possible. The itineraries rarely leave room for serious photography. You have to make time. It may help to make photography a scheduled part of every day, so you know you have the time and won’t be tempted to get lazy and say, “I’ll do it tomorrow.” It might rain tomorrow. Don’t procrastinate.

When traveling, you’re likely to encounter all sorts of situations and subjects. This requires being a bit of a jack-of-all-trades—you need to be able to photograph portraits, landscapes, and everything in between.

Above all, work the situations over. Never be satisfied with your first view of a place or the first frame you snap. It’s always possible—and usually likely—that you can come up with something better. Why else would painters make sketches? Get closer, then get closer still. Try different angles, different lenses. Wait for the light, wait for the crowd, wait for a bird to land on the tree branch. Never be in a hurry to get somewhere else. Tell yourself that nothing is more important than getting the best you can get out of the situation you are in. Once you’ve exhausted every possibility you can think of, you can start working on the next one.

Landscapes

Landscapes come in all forms—mountains, forests, plains, deserts, swamps, lakes, rivers, seacoasts. Each has its own characteristics, and individual sites within each category have their own too. The Grand Tetons do not look like the Andes—the Nile River is different from the Mississippi.

Whatever kind of landscape you are shooting, think about what the essential qualities are—and not just the visual ones; think about how the place makes you feel, what kind of emotions it stirs in you. Then look for ways to get those qualities and feelings onto film. Is it a rocky, violently wave-washed coast or a bright and sandy one? If it’s the former, you want to show waves crashing against the shore, probably in stormy weather. Blue sky and sunlight are more appropriate for the latter unless you want to show the desolation of a resort beach in winter.

Cities and Towns

Like landscapes, each city and town has its own look and feel—a distinctive setting, architecture, or skyline; a famous local site; a particular kind of food or dress. There’s always at least one thing that is unique. When covering a town or city, even a small village, you need to do three basic things at a minimum: capture a sense of place, which is usually a wide shot that shows the setting, skyline, or other view that gives a feeling for the whole; landmarks that the place is famous for; the life of its inhabitants. For the cityscapes and wide shots, as well as for the landmarks, it’s a good idea to check out the postcard racks in your hotel lobby or at kiosks. They will quickly give you an idea of where the best views are and what is considered well-known enough to warrant a postcard.

Monuments and Other Buildings

When you are photographing buildings, statues, or other monuments, think about what they represent before you shoot. For example: There’s a large statue of Vulcan outside Birmingham, Alabama. You could make a perfectly nice image of him standing on his hill on a sunny day, but such a picture would not say a lot about who Vulcan is. A photograph on a stormy evening, with perhaps lightning in the background, would. Cannons on a historic battlefield might look better in fog than in bright sunlight. Get the idea of the subject, then think of the weather, light, angle, etc. that best communicates it.

Photographing Family Members and Friends

We often travel with people we know—taking a family vacation, for example, or bicycling around Tuscany with a group of friends. We quite naturally want to come home with pictures of them as souvenirs of the trip. Be sure to get these, but don’t forget that you can also use members of your family and your friends to make your other photographs more effective.

When you are making pictures of your friends, try to strike a balance between a picture of them and a picture of the place. A friend of mine once made a close-up portrait of me in China. It wasn’t a great portrait, but more important, it could have been made in my backyard—there was nothing of the place in the frame. Of course, you may want to shoot portraits, or to capture someone’s expression at a particular moment, but often you are making the picture as a way of documenting your shared experience. You want to show enough of your friend to be able to recognize him—that vertical speck in the distance could be anybody. But you don’t want to be so close that there’s no context. If your friend is the primary subject, he has to be strong enough to draw attention and be recognizable but still keep some sense of where he is.

Photographing Strangers

It’s best to ask permission if you want to photograph someone, especially if you are working in close. Engage them before you pull out your camera. Learn at least how to say “hello” and “May I make a photograph” in the local language—just showing that you’ve made a little effort helps. Explain to them what you want to do and what it is about them that made you want to make a picture. If approached in an open and friendly manner, most people will be agreeable—many are flattered that someone has shown an interest in them and what they do. In places where there’s a lot of tourism, you may run into people who are tired of being photographed—many tourists are not courteous enough to ask permission, and local people can come to feel abused and exploited. The only way to overcome this is to spend time with the people or to go to parts of the place less frequented by tourists.

In many tourist destinations, people may ask for money if you want to photograph them. Many of these places are desperately poor, and people have few ways of getting hold of cash. The money they ask for is usually not very much to us, but may represent quite a lot to them. How you deal with these situations is up to you, but remember that every time you buy a postcard, you are happy to spend the money for a picture somebody else took. Why not spend a little on your own?

You cannot always ask permission, of course. If you are shooting a street scene or a wide shot of a market, you can’t run up to everyone and ask if it’s OK. In general, people do not mind this sort of photography—it’s only when they’re singled out that they get uncomfortable. But not always. Be sensitive to the scene in your viewfinder. If people are getting nervous, ask permission or move on.

Make use of people to give your images life and scale. If the facade of a particular building appeals to you, the picture may be that much better if you show people walking in front of it. They will give it scale and also let viewers know what sorts of people live there, how they dress, and the like. An outdoor café may be more interesting crowded with people than empty.

View different photographers’ portfolios and read about their experience and approach — from this, you’ll quickly be able to tell if this is someone with whom you share a similar vision.

Ask how many weddings the photographer has done and whether or not he or she has photographed at your wedding venue. Familiarity with the space ahead of time will allow for more efficiency on the part of the photographer, who will be able to plan for different shots and situations unique to that venue.

Also, make sure that the photographer you choose will be the one who will actually be photographing your wedding. If you’re dealing with a large company who has several photographers available, they may send whomever is available on your wedding date. Be sure to get this in writing, as part of your contract with the photography company.

Vera Wang Love Knots Photo Album

Once you narrow down your list and choose a photographer who meets your needs and style, talk with him or her about the various wedding services that they offer. Typical services include:

• Engagement Portraits
• Wedding Proofs
• Wedding Albums
• Parents’ Albums
• Extra Prints
• Negatives

The cost for each of these services varies greatly from photographer to photographer. Decide what you need before interviewing someone so that you have an idea of what the total cost will look like after ordering extra prints, purchasing the negatives, etc.

Note: Most experienced wedding photographers will charge quite a bit extra for orders of additional prints and/or for selling you the original negatives. Some photographers won’t sell the negatives at all. Find out up front what these costs are, and what your photographer’s policy on obtaining negatives is.

Some final questions to ask include the following:

1. What is the payment/deposit procedure?
2. What is your cancellation policy?
3. What is your policy/cost for overtime, should my wedding run longer than scheduled?
4. Do you have a standard list of photos/poses that I can choose from? (Ex. Bride and Father Dancing, Exchange of Rings at Ceremony, Cake Cutting at Reception, etc.)
5. How soon after the wedding will I be able to review the proofs? How many proofs will I receive?
6. When will I receive my wedding albums?
7. Do you have a website where our family and guests can order additional prints?