Remember the Alamo!

We're out of town this week. I'm enjoying the warmer weather in Texas. Right now NYC has temperatures around 17 degrees. We were happily enjoying 65 degrees in San Antonio.

We went to see the Alamo and the Riverwalk.


There are thousands of photos of the Alamo. So in order to not have the same hum-drum photo that gets taken hundreds of times a day, I changed the perspective, and tilted my camera at an angle.

I haven't altered this photo at all. This is the way it came out of the camera. Not bad for just walking up and snapping the photo.

The same thing happened with the BBQ place we ate at last night. I wanted a photo of the outside because I really liked eating there. The whole experience was really fun. You walk up order and find a table. They give you wax paper to eat on and a whole loaf of bread. We made BBQ sandwich after sandwich. So delicious.



I only had time to snap one photo and this is what I got. Because it was low light I had to walk over to a garbage can and put the camera there to hold it still. I even got a small part of the can in the photo. The can wasn't even so this is what I got, straight out of the camera.

Both of these photos are made slightly better just by changing the perspective and tilting the camera.

Opposites attract in creative photography

In my previous post this week I wrote about four ways to take professional photos with an inexpensive camera. But I have more to say on the topic.

The thing that makes something professional in a photo is also that same thing applied in opposite. If something is in focus then try to get something in frame that is out of focus. That is what makes macro shots professional.

For using motion in my photo something needed to be not moving. That turned out to be myself and the ceiling which accentuates the moving train.


This applies more in some areas than others. For example it's hard to apply not using a tripod and using a tripod in the same photo. Although using a tripod can make a photo tack sharp. I like the night shot because the lights are in focus but the lights reflecting off the water are blurred by the rippled water.


As with all arts these "rules" are meant to be broken. If I think is a professional photo, someone else may not. Some photos require everything to be in focus, and so forth.