Recently I had a session with a professional photographer as part of my Canon Blogtography Ambassador program. It was all five Canadian Canon Ambassadors in the beautiful Distillery District for dinner and working photo session. We were joined by Steve Russell, a Toronto Star photojournalist who walked us through some tips to improve our photos. Over dinner, he shared stories of travel and celebrity encounters over the course of his career. Steve has not once, but twice won Photojournalist of the year!
Canon Blogtography Photos by Casie Stewart
I really love the Distillery District for it’s sheer beauty. It’s filled with heritage and old buildings.
I’m pretty creative, as you know but I’m trying to show that through my Canon photos. I snapped pix of things I found interesting and tried to take a different perspective, focussing on little elements in the area. We were there during sunset ‘magic hour’, a great time to get outside and take photos.
This man was sitting alone playing guitar, there was something magical about him. Steve helped us with how to set our camera to take photos of moving things in order to keep them crisp. I need more practice as you can see this lady on the bike is looking pretty fuzzy.
Some Tips I Learned from A Professional Photojournalist
There were lots of take-aways from our dinner and photo session but below are some of the things I learned from Steve.
- How to hold your camera so you don’t look like a total noob – put the camera flat on your hand, don’t hold your pinky up like a dork, don’t be afraid to lean into the shot
- Rule of thirds – this is key to composing beautiful shots
- Squaring up your photos – match straight lines, think about composure
- Cropping your pictures – you might want to crop your photos when you get back to the drawing board aka computer to highlight certain elements of your shot
- Contrasting colour – think about how the colours go together in your shot, contrasting colours can really help to bring out creative elements
- How to hold your camera so you don’t look like a total noob – put the camera flat on your hand, don’t hold your pinky up like a dork, don’t be afraid to lean into the shot
- Rule of thirds – this is key to composing beautiful shots
- Squaring up your photos – match straigh lines, think about composure
- Cropping your pictures – you might want to crop your photos when you get back to the drawing board aka computer to hilight certain elements of your shot
- Contrasting colour – think about how the colours go together in your shot, contrasting colours can really help to bring out creative elements
One of the things I’m really learning from being a Canon Ambassador is how to actually use my camera without keeping it on Auto. (I was a MAYJAHHH auto user, only because I didn’t know what I was doing!) If you’re looking for a great resource to learn more about aperture, exposure and ISO settings visit canonoutsideofauto.ca.
Above, Andrew (@dobbernation) was taking a photo of me taking a photo of him on his phone through the camera. SUPER META! Here’s his shot on Instagram.
