Down the road

Here’s a very simple tip for shooting with a wide angle lens. Advanced people will know this already, so no need to read further! But, if you have a wide angle lens, or even a kit lens that you dial back for a wide scene, then you can end up getting crooked or angled lines in your shot. Of course, normally I don’t mind this at all, but sometimes, I do want things to be totally straight, as in this photo below. To keep things totally straight, there is only one simple rule — keep the camera level with the horizon. That keeps all vertical lines perfectly vertical. While walking around the streets near Tiananmen square, there are many strange and interesting environments… almost like you walk through portals into parallel universes. This is one of them. It’s somewhere between old and modern, and the strangest thing was it was almost totally empty. And, occasionally there would be a single person that would walk down the street, which made it even more zombie-apocalypse and unusual…

In the Backstreets

I’m glad so many people are enjoying HDR Spotting — it’s been a labor of love for the team, so I am honored you are choosing to share some of your images on there. It’s free to join of course… and if you choose to get the “Pro” option on there, well then you’ll be able to do some other cool things! I like how in the backstreets of Beijing people just kinda hang out and sit around, relaxing and thinking. I guess you don’t see that too much more nowadays. They all make for good photo subjects too. No one seems to mind, even though they may be a bit confused as to why you are taking a photo! I usually resolve the confusion by walking over to them after and showing them the photo… it makes them happy and we have a nice little interchange!