With so many cross dressers choosing to capture their en-femme experiences with the help of digital cameras, it makes sense to cover some photography basics. By following some simple guidelines, you too can expect perfect cross dressing pics, every time.
Background
Try to choose a plain background, so that it does not distract from the image you are trying to capture. If you are taking photos in your home, be mindful of any clutter or unnecessary items in the background.
Use a Flash
If you’re taking pictures outdoors on a bright day, the sun can cause you to blink and throw harsh shadows on your face. If this happens, turn the flash on to lighten the face. It is because of this that sometimes the best photographs are taken in cloudy or overcast conditions.
Up Close
As you start to become more confident in perfecting your feminine appearance, try to move a little closer to the camera. A close-up picture can capture depth and definition that you don’t get from a picture taken at a distance.
Variety
Try to capture images in a variety of poses and in different settings. This keeps things interesting and often gives better results. If you trust someone enough to take pictures of you, use the opportunity to suggest a fun photo shoot. Instead of looking into the camera, allow them to take random photographs of you relaxing, chatting, laughing or playing.
Improve
There’s no harm in tweaking your pictures a little, to get rid of ghastly red eyes or to brighten things up. This can be done quickly and easily using photo editing software.
High Resolution
If you’ve paid top dollar for a state-of-the-art digital camera, then get your money’s worth buy taking plenty of pictures in the highest resolution it can manage. While you’re at it, also ensure that you’re shooting at your camera’s highest quality compression setting. Of course, this means that you’ll need an extra huge memory card. So, be prepared and invest in one straightaway. You never know when you might need it.
Tripod
Tripods are known as being big and bulky, and are an absolute pain to carry around. However, most cross dressing pics will be taken in the privacy of one’s home. So, if you want some great pictures and don’t have anyone to give you a hand, then a tripod may be the answer.
Self-Timer
This is a great little function that’s used a fair bit by cross dressers. If your camera has a self-timer, take advantage of it. Of course, you may need to read the instruction manual a few times to figure it out!
Even the simplest digital cameras can produce some great results. So, don’t be shy. With a little know-how, you’ll soon be taking pictures like a pro.
Take a look at a selection of Paula’s favorite cross dressing pics at http://www.Cross-Dressing-Secrets.com.
The fact is that you can get a Nikon D5000 for under $720, including the Nikon 18-55mm VR kit lens. This is a great camera for a great price!
Entry level DSLRs became quite popular when both Nikon and Canon released their first sub $1000 DSLR cameras, the D40 and the Rebel 300D respectively. Since then technology has improved tremendously and price has dropped to almost half of the original offering (the Nikon D3000 sells for just over $500).
Let’s take a look at what makes the Nikon D5000 such a great camera.
The Nikon D5000 is an awesome piece of photographic equipment for a great price. Now is the time… Nikon has the camera.
Of course, as mentioned above, Nikon has two entry level DSLRs. The other is the Nikon D3000, a trimmed down model that does not have the Vari-angle LCD or D-Movie. For more about both these new Nikon models, visit http://www.digital-photographic-resources.com.
I love photography and all things related to it. Cameras, camera gear, and image editing software fascinate me, so I am either buying the newest piece of equipment (or software) or researching my next purchase. Be sure to visit the Cameras-N-Stuff Blog.
I hate my current website. shariphotos.
It is bland in presentation. The site looks defeated and on the verge of death. The flash images are small and pathetic. I want my images to jump out and smack you in the face! And the customer service is terrible. I have NEVER been able to get hold of these bastards and they never respond to emails. Myphotographer.com is crap. Cheap and crap. I pay $12 for them to host my images, take a 20% cut on my sales, and they never update the site with new templates. Myphotographer.com people- screw you.
I feel better now.
So I started the exhaustive search on finding a new home for my small biz.
First option: create my own site with Adobe Dreamweaver, or Microsoft Expressions. That lasted 2 days. I was way over my head with HTML, CSS, and coding, and with school starting up in 2 weeks, I knew it was going to be a frustrating experience with lots of kicking the cat- but we don’t have a cat, and I won’t kick my kid.
Also, all my web design people- Jamie the AD secretary and Darrin the Ipad Cover creator, strongly urged me to look at templates. They said I would totally kick the cat.
Hmm- templates- Not as easy as they seem. There are thousands of them out there and you are supposed to be able to just tweak and load them up. Well, I may still have a crack at that. I found a couple of really cool ones, but I just knew that with school starting now in 8 days, I would not be able to spend the time on this.
My friend Jennifer would have said “Shoulda done this in June”. Yeah I know. Kick the cat.
So option three was to look into the website creation and hosting biz. There are loads of these sites that allow you to host images, create websites, sell images etc… The key is to find the right one that allows your own domain name- not some rezpics.smuggybug; Just doesn’t look cool. And more importantly- they respond when you have a question.
So first up- buy your own domain name. This was really easy and cheap. http://www.shariphotography.com is now mine for 2 years for $20. Godaddy is THE place for this according to my research. There are other sites for buying domain names- but this Everest.
In part 2 I will talk about the research on all the top sites photographers have on creating a kick ass site. And what it will cost.
One lucky ebiz is going to get Reza’s $.
Okay- it’s been a long and wonderful journey trying to figure all this out. I’ve had to learn a whole new set of vocabulary terms and tons of technical stuff. And I’ve loved it. Once I narrowed my choices down to 2-3 companies, it was very tough becuase so little separated them.
This is what I’ve gained from the experience and I will be happy to share in more detail with others- just get hold of me.
GoDaddy is still THE place to host, register domain names, and get email accounts. They also provide a ton of E commerce items. But the reason they rock is you can talk to someone every time you call and they are all amazing. The GoDaddy crew are so helpful and the wait time- even at high traffic call times- was never more than 4 minutes. It’s like they really want to help you. ANd they do help. There is no passing the client to another techy. They deal with the problem and fix it.
And now the choice I made for my site: Shari Photography, http://www.shariphotography.com – after weeks of debate, comparisons, emails and phone calls with the developers- Portfoliositez. I really like this company. The offered a series of great looking templates, at a good price, with cool features. But the main reason- Customer Service baby! They don’t do phone calls, but they ROCK the emails. I have sent a dozen email questions, and they have all been answered within an hour or less. These are not form emails, but acuall answers to my questions. Like Godaddy, they act like they really want to help.
How hard was the loading of the template to Godaddy? Eazzzzy. I emailed the domain name and password to Portfoliositez and 24 hours later I was live. They did everything.
The Other choice was Creativemotiondesign. I was really torn between these 2. CMD had cool templates, a rockin customer service which included email and phone calls. But in the end, the $50 difference and the extreme customer service of Portfoliositez swayed me.
For my shoping chart I am using Instaproofs. There are many choices out there- but I am using these guys becuase they have no upload limit, no monthly fee, and a standard %15 fee. I am also in total control of the image output which is very important to me.
Now the fun begins. Customizing my template to match my needs. That includes creating a logo, uploading images, and writing text. I am looking forward to it.
Rez is the owner of Shari Photography which specializes in wedding photography.
Yes, digital photography is dead in the water IF ‘photography’ is taken out of digital photography. As Kodak’s brownie box camera and their Instamatic brought photography to the masses in the 20th century, so the digital camera has done the same in the 21st. But, once the ‘ability to take photos novelty’ wears off, the lack of skills will relegate the digital camera to the hobby drawer.
There is a principle in management science that says in business a person is promoted to the level of their own incompetence and no further. It’s called the ‘Peter Principle’ formulated by Dr. Laurence J. Peter in his book of the same name. After that they stagnate and can only move sideways. This is true for photography also. Once you reach your level of incompetence or maximum ability, there you sit. It’s at this point the interest wanes and your camera outings become more and more infrequent. In other words, another death of digital photography.
There will always be the hardliners in any field who will continue to practise to the level of their incompetence, but, the average Joe who was once excited by digital photography is no more. The enthusiast has lost his enthusiasm.
So what’s the answer to the problem? The focus, as in any hobby or pastime, is a continual learning process. In the business world we call it upskilling. Adding competency and qualifications to your existing tool bag will keep you moving up the ladder of promotion. It is the same with photography. Learning is imperative.
Most of us are at some stage dissatisfied with our photos. They don’t quite look like those in the glossy magazines and daily newspapers. What is it that they have that rest don’t? They’ve learnt the techniques and disciplines of photography and have applied them on a continual learning journey to great photos.
A hobby, as with any plant or animal, has to be nurtured if it is to show any signs of growth. Buying a digital camera with the sole purpose of just snapping away without the high costs of film, will on most occasions result in the death of digital photography. If your digital photography is going to flourish it will need three key ingredients:
1. Time
As with anything of value in life time is a key ingredient to its success. Unless you take the time to invest in any venture you will probably reap an equivalent reward. Garbage in garbage out. No pain no gain as the old adage goes. There is no instant photography.
2. Passion
Unless you are enthusiastic about a hobby or pastime it is inevitable that it will gradually diminish with time and eventually fizzle out. I speak from experience. Developing your passion is essential to growth. Passion is the fuel that fires your hobby.
3. Ability
Some are born with natural ability but for most of us we have to work at it. Practise makes perfect. If you don’t have ability then acquire it in whatever way you legally can. Acquiring ability is a process and for many of us a journey of discovery. Something we have to work at.
Take any of these three points out of digital photography and its demise is well on the way. But, the key point is photography. Learning photography and acquiring creative photography skills will nurture digital photography and keep it alive.
Photography is not governed by the medium it uses, digital, film, pinhole or Polaroid. Photography stands alone and independent of the tools or media. As with beauty it’s in the eye of the beholder. It is not contained in a box, a camera or digital sensor. Its results can be seen on a computer, t-shirt or magazine.
Digital photography is the answer to photography because of its ease of use, methods of distribution and costs. But take photography out of digital and it will result in the death of digital photography.
Do you want to learn more about photography in a digital world? I’ve just completed a brand new e-course delivered by e-mail. Download it here for free: CLICK HERE. You can also learn to take perfect photos in 21 steps by taking a look at my new ebook 21 Steps 2 Perfect Photos
Background has always been a challenge for a photographer when they are taking pictures and this condition is even more prominent among the digital photography beginners. If you are not careful, the background is going to steal the lime light from the subjects and distract your viewers’ attention. The following tips are to show you how you can avoid common background disturbance.
1. Move the subject
Have you ever had the experience that you thought the background will be perfect for the photo shoot but it looks awkward when you place your subjects in it? Some thing just doesn’t feel right.
When that happens, you can move the subject around to see whether it gives the right picture. Sometime you can change the feeling of the pictures by moving the subject around.
But what if you can’t move the subject?
2. Change the angle
If that is the case, probably you want to consider changing the shooting angle. That means you will want to move around your subjects, circling your subjects, taking picture from down to up or get high to shoot down to the subjects.
Besides omitting the awkward background from your pictures, shooting from different angle can also help to you to get different perspective of your subjects. You might be able to capture something astounding under the specific angle and background.
3. Create own background
Sometime you will have to shoot under the background that is totally out of the theme you want to create in your pictures. If you are doing indoor photography, there are a lot of commercial backgrounds available online.
And if you are given the option, try to rearrange the movable objects in the background so that it compliments the subject. You can even add something to the background so that it gives a unique feeling to the pictures.
4. Blur the background
Blurring the background is one of the best ways to bring out the details of the subject and this is often done to express the focus in the pictures.
And the fastest way to do this is to use wide aperture to create shallow depth of field. Depth of field simply means how focus is the surrounding of the subject in the picture. And shallow depth of field simply means the surrounding or in this case, the background is blur.
Since the background is blur, this is will automatically draw your viewer’s attention to the clear subject in your picture.
Do you enjoy taking photos? Do you want more digital photography tips and techniques? Michael Wong is happy to share his knowledge about digital photography with you and hope you enjoy them. Just look at
=>href=”http://www.learn-digitalphotography.blogspot.com” target=”_top”>www.Learn-DigitalPhotography.blogspot.com