Sharing a Photo

University Unitarian Church needs high quality photographs for our website.  And while every person who enters the church probably has a cell phone, that doesn't mean that they can take website quality photographs on that camera phone.  Most of us use our cameras with the bare minimum knowledge: point, shoot and hope.

If you’re new to digital photography, there are three things you should acquaint yourself with first: the ISO, aperture, and shutter speed. The three work in concert, and if you can manipulate and control them all, you can take photos without even touching the rest of your camera. Together, they’re known as the Exposure Triangle, because they control how much light you’re exposing the camera to (aperture), how sensitive the camera is to that light (ISO), and how long your exposure lasts (shutter speed).

If you are taking photographs for the UUC website, you need a good camera in your phone.  The following smart phones are recommended for their photography capabilities:

1. iPhone 14 Max - The iPhone 14 Pro Max has optical zoom, stabilized lenses, a big screen for editing, and battery life for extended shooting.

2. Google Pixel 7 Pro - The Pixel 7 Pro's combination of sensors, lenses, software tweaks, and Tensor processor algorithms make it good for photographers.

3. Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra - The S23 Ultra upgraded cameras and has the latest processor technology.

4. Sony Xperia 1 III - The Sony Xperia 1 III has all the Alpha elements that have made their way into the Xperia camera UI.

There are seven basic elements of photographic art: line, shape, form, texture, color, size, and depth.  The key to taking a good photograph is understanding each of these elements.

1. Line

In photography, lines lead the viewer along a specific course. Or mark a separation, such as between the ground and the sky.  It is defined as a path that either cuts across the frame or joins two points within it. Some examples of such features are a winding road or a ridge of jagged mountains. There is usually a line even at the cloud's fuzzy, hardly delineated boundary.

The lines in a photograph may not always be real. Think of a painting of a kid holding a toy truck. Although it appears "empty," the observer understands that the area between the child and the truck is crucial. Each part of the picture is strengthened by the line that connects them.

2. Shape

Shape is created in a photograph by elements like a door, the area around a tree, or the tiles in a bathroom. 

The silhouette effect created by backlighting is a useful tool for depicting the intriguing forms of objects in photography. When the silhouette's subject (object) is easily distinguishable from the background, the resulting shot is striking.

Look for shapes, both literal and figurative, when taking photographs. Keep in mind that shapes, especially human and animal forms, have a great ability to capture our attention. Make sure your photos are composed properly.

3. Form

The shape is what makes your flat shot look three-dimensional and real. It is common practice to accomplish this by manipulating the light falling on your subject. Different lighting arrangements for portrait photography can dramatically alter the appearance of your subjects. A three-dimensional model of the thing is represented by the shape. Adding depth to the Shape creates shape.

With photography (and art in general) being flat on all sides, it's up to the artist to fake the appearance of depth in order to convey the third dimension. Light and shadow are powerful tools for giving the impression of depth in photographs.

4. Texture

Finding and incorporating objects with textures in your shot adds an additional level of interst and depth to your image. An aged, rustic barn, for example, can provide a unique backdrop for pictures while also emphasising the subject. Interesting people with textured skin are more compelling because of the backstory they convey.

Greater emphasis is often placed on textured regions. Texture in "unimportant" parts of a shot might be distracting and over complicate the picture. In other circumstances, like when depicting a mountain environment, the texture is essential for conveying a sense of depth.

Light's angle has a lot to do with how noticeable textures are. You want light that either highlights the object's roughness or its softness, depending on the feeling you want to communicate in the shot.

5. Color

Color is one of the most fundamental aspects of any environment. The "color wheel" is the result of combining various shades of the main colours red, blue, and yellow. Complementary colours are those that sit directly across from one another on the colour wheel. There is a general dichotomy between "warm" and "cool" colours. Warm colours like orange, red, and yellow evoke thoughts of friendliness, vitality, and vigour. On the other hand, blue and green are chilly hues that connote tranquillity, sadness, and gloom.

Color significantly alters both the visual structure and emotional impact of any given shot.  Warm colors like red, orange or yellow add energy and life to a picture. When you set a bright red dot on a bright blue background, many individuals will see the red dot as physically closer to the viewer, giving the impression that it is casting a shadow behind itself.

Cool colors. including shades of  blue, green, and violet, are soothing and soft in character. The most common colours in nature are blue and green; the sight of a blue sky or a green field is often seen as calming and pleasant. However, cool colours are often found in dimmer settings, such as the shadows on a sunny day. 

Recognise the colours in your images and work to highlight their best qualities when you compose your shots. In many cases, a more striking visual effect can be achieved by contrasting two warm colours. Photos with only one or two primary colours also convey a fairly unified message, which can be very effective if the image was well crafted.

6. Size

Size in a photograph is relative and can be an illusion.  When a familiar object appears in the frame of a photograph (car, basketball, streetlamp, etc.) we immediately get a feel for the scope of the entire scene. Without a familiar object in the image, we struggle to determine the scale shown in the photograph.

The camera, lens, and print can render large objects small, or small objects large. Even objects familiar to our eyes can be rendered relatively large in a photograph, while things we know to be enormous are rendered small. Thanks to the Apollo astronauts, we can fit our entire planet onto a small photographic print. We can also print a photograph the size of a highway billboard or a single grain of sand. We can even use a 1:1 macro lens to reproduce objects at “life-size.”

If you want to emphasize the size of an object in the photograph in relation to its surroundings, you should get closer to that object. When a three-dimensional scene is rendered in two dimensions, as your view extends out toward the horizon (visible or virtual), objects closer to the horizon are farther away than those near the top, bottom, or sides of the image.

Overlap is another way to render a scene virtually in three dimensions, and overlap can also give hints to size. When one object is in front of another, and it is smaller than the object behind it, we generally know the relative sizes of the two objects in question, as long as those two objects are close to each other in three-dimensional space.

7. Depth

Depth of field is the distance between the closest and farthest objects in a photo that appears acceptably sharp. Now your camera can only focus sharply at one point. But the transition from sharp to unsharp is gradual, and the term ‘acceptably sharp’ is a loose one! Without getting too technical, how you will be viewing the image, and at what size you will be looking at it are factors that contribute to how acceptably sharp an image is. It also depends on how good your vision is!

There are tools that affect the depth of field in your photographs:

Aperture

Aperture is the opening in your lens that lets light pass through to the sensor. Think of it as a pupil for your lens. It dilates to let more light in, and contracts to restrict light when it is bright. Aperture is probably the first thing most photographers think of when they want to adjust the depth of field.  Large apertures, which correlate to small f-stop numbers, produce a very shallow depth of field. On the other hand, small apertures, or large f-stop numbers, produce images with a large depth of field.

Camera-Subject Distance

Another important factor affecting depth of field is the distance between the camera and the subject. The shorter that distance, the smaller the depth of field. Have you ever tried to take a close-up shot of a flower or insect, but can’t get the entire subject in focus, even with a small aperture? This is because the closer you are to your subject, the shallower the DoF.

Focal Length of the Lens

Wide-angle lenses (short focal lengths) have a deeper depth of field than telephoto lenses (long focal lengths) if you take an image and do not change the camera-subject distance. The longer focal length has a narrow angle of view. Thus, a smaller portion of the background fills the frame. The apparent magnification of the background gives the sense that the blur is larger in the photo shot with the longer lens. Focal length does not influence depth of field if you adjust the camera-subject distance so that the magnification of your subject is the same.

Sensor Size

Cameras with smaller sensors have larger depths of field when the lenses have the same effective focal length. If you shoot at the same camera-subject distance, with the same apertures, you will find that the larger sensors have a shallower depth of field. That is why many professional portrait photographers like to use full frame cameras. 

1. Stand further away from your subject than you would normally.

Most modern website design takes advantage of full-width layouts and other wide elements. This generally means using photos that are much wider than they are tall. Leaving space on the left and right of your subject allows you to use it as a very wide photo, and leaving space above and/or below your subject allows you to crop it to be even wider.

While not every photo needs to be like that, taking a handful that are gives you tremendous flexibility when adding them in to the website. It can be very frustrating as a website designer not having any photos that will work in a wide format. Save yourself that headache and back up a bit for some of the shots.

2. Use low ISO, wide aperture, and a Tripod.

These will allow you to get the sharpest, most professional-looking photographs possible. Here's why:

Low ISO

ISO speed, as a term, progressed to digital photography even though there is no such thing as “sensor sensitivity."  ISO now refers to the gain or the increase in the image’s brightness after capture.

The ISO increase occurs at the cost of details, sharpness, and dynamic range. High ISO values may brighten up your image, all else being equal, but they tend to introduce a large amount of noise, making your images look grainy and unsharp. It can vary wildly by camera model, but most modern cameras should have no problem with ISO values below about 500.

Wide Aperture

Using the widest aperture available to your lens (or lowest number f-stop, such as f/2.0 if available) allows your lens to take in the maximum amount of light, which further allows you to use lower ISO values and faster shutter speeds.

It also creates a shallower depth-of-field, which looks more artistic and professional when you're taking pictures of people or objects. However, if you're taking a picture of something that requires a deep depth-of-field such as a building interior, landscape scene, or anything else where the subject occupies multiple depths, you may want to just use a smaller aperture (greater number) and a longer shutter speed to get everything in focus.

Tripod

Using a tripod allows you to use any shutter speed you want without having to worry about a blurred photo. It's necessary if you're shooting at night or in low-light settings such as indoors with artificial light. Probably not necessary outdoors during the daytime though.

3. Take photos of people outdoors on a cloudy day - avoid direct or artificial light.

Generally the best and most accessible light source for photos of people is the sun on a cloudy day or at least in shade. It creates a nice, soft light that is flattering in most cases and produces little to no shadow.

4. Learn the fundamentals of composition and photography, and practice them.

This one is probably the least-quick fix here. But it's really the most important. You need to learn how to compose a photograph, how your camera works, and you need to practice actually using them. There's no shortcut to that!  If you're wondering why your photos aren't coming out as well as you had hoped, consider that you just aren't good enough. Yet! So go practice.

5. Learn how to edit your photos.

Most people would be shocked to see how much editing goes in to the photos they most admire. Some may even think that the editors are "cheating" with how much they manipulate the original photo to get it to where it is.

Perception is subjective. What one person sees is different than what another sees. And an unedited photo almost never turns out the same way things "looked" to us in person. Editing bridges that gap.

Learn how to adjust white balance, sharpness, and brightness in specific areas. Learn how to crop your photos effectively. Learn how to remove distracting elements.

How to Measure Image Size

Unlike aspect ratios, image size determines an image’s actual width and height in pixels. You can measure image dimensions in any unit, but you’ll typically see pixels used for web or digital images, and inches used for print images. If you’re uploading images on the web, it’s crucial to understand image size specifications because incorrect image sizes may stretch or distort to fill fixed dimensions.

What is a Pixel?  What is Pixel density?

The word “pixel” originated as an abbreviation of the term “picture element,” coined by computer researchers in the 1960s. A pixel is the smallest possible component of any electronic or digital image, regardless of resolution. In modern computers, they’re usually square.  

Pixel density refers directly to the number of pixels in a given area. Pixel density is generally measured in pixels-per-inch (PPI) on account of screen sizes also being sold in inches, but pixels-per-centimeter (PPCM) is sometimes used, too.

To therefore satisfy several different standard image sizes, upload an image that’s big enough to reduce without losing resolution and small enough to comfortably fit the width of a standard screen.  Squarespace recommends uploading images between 1500 and 2500 pixels wide. 

Note: Don’t confuse image size with image file size. The image file size is measured in bytes according to how much space it takes up on a disk or drive (think kilobytes or megabytes).

Common Image Sizes for the Web

1920 x 1080 pixels

This standard image size is widely seen across high-definition TVs, presentations, and social media cover photos. It follows the 16:9 aspect ratio.

1280 x 720 pixels

This size follows the standard HD format featured in photography and film. It fits the 16:9 aspect ratio.

1080 x 1080 pixels

You’ll see this 1:1 ratio image size used widely across social media, namely Instagram and Facebook posts.

The aspect ratio of an image or video is the proportional relationship of the width to the height. You’ll recognize it as two numbers separated by a colon in an x:y format. For instance, a 6×4 inch image has an aspect ratio of 3:2, whereas a 1920×1080 pixel video has an aspect ratio of 16:9.  The relationship between its width and height determines the ratio and shape, but not the image’s actual size. When you use the right aspect ratios, it ensures your images or videos are displayed as intended without stretching or loss of resolution.

Common Image Aspect Ratios

Different aspect ratios have a different effect on the image being used. An image set in a 1:1 ratio vs. a 5:4 ratio changes the composition and how the photo is perceived.

1:1 Ratio

A 1:1 ratio means that an image’s width and height are equal, creating a square. Some common 1:1 ratios are an 8″x8″ photo, a 1080 x 1080 pixel image, or typically any profile picture template on social media sites.  This aspect ratio is commonly used for print photographs, mobile screens, and social media platforms, but it’s not ideal for most TV or digital formats.

3:2 Ratio

The 3:2 ratio has roots in 35mm film and photography, and is still widely used for print sizes. Images framed at 1080×720 pixels or 6″x4″ are set within this aspect ratio.

5:4 Ratio

Last but not least, this ratio is mostly common in photography and art prints, and large and medium format film cameras. When printing 8″x10″ and 16″x20″ images, you’re sticking to the 5:4 aspect ratio.

16:9 Ratio

The 16:9 ratio is mostly seen on presentation slides, computer monitors, or widescreen TVs. This international standard recently replaced the 4:3 ratio for monitors and TV screens, creating a slimmer, more elongated rectangular shape compared to the 4:3 format.  Common resolutions in the 16:9 ratio are 1920×1080 pixels and 1280×720 pixels.

9:16 Ratio

An inverse of the 16:9 ratio, the 9:16 ratio is popularly used for social media platforms with video story capabilities, such as Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat. The most common dimension in this aspect ratio is 1080×1920 pixels, which equates to a smartphone’s vertical screen size.