Today’s Photography Idea from Stephen Dent Photos

Today I want to talk about the other side of photography: printing and displaying your photos. A great picture doesn’t do any good if no one ever sees it, or if it isn’t printed and displayed in a professional and attractive manner. Stephen Dent Photos has a few ideas and tips on printing and framing your pictures.
Most people today are working from digital cameras, which provide several options for printing your pictures. The first option is to upload your pictures to a photo printing company, such as the photo department at your local drug store. This can usually be done online or in store via a kiosk, and your pictures will be ready in minutes. You can choose the sizes you want and how many copies of each picture you would like. Prints range from a few cents to a few dollars each depending on the size of the picture and the company printing them.
Another option for printing photos is to do it yourself. Almost all newer computers come with some form of photo editing software, and your digital camera should come with software of its own that you download or install the first time you plug your camera in to your computer. From this software, you can edit, crop and print your pictures. There are printers made specifically for printing pictures, and with the purchase of photo paper and photo ink, you can print pictures that are equal in quality to those prints done in a store. Printing pictures at home can become costly if you make mistakes, so its best to do a test run prior to printing on the photo paper. Pictures can also be printed on regular paper for a quick, casual picture.
Once you have your pictures printed, whether from a digital camera or from film, there are a lot of fun ways to frame and display them. These are just a few ideas, so feel free to take them and run with it, letting your creativity shine through!
You can spice up a regular framed picture by adding a mat around the picture (which means you buy a frame that is the next size bigger than your picture). You can buy white or colored mats, which can really make your picture pop out, even in a boring, cheap or old frame. You can even decorate a mat by adding text, calligraphy, or scrapbooking stickers to it.
If you don’t like the look of mats around a picture, you can decorate the frame itself. You can paint picture frames, either creating a design or covering the entire frame with spray paint. Another easy way to decorate is by gluing plastic flowers, beads, or even pennies to the frame. There is no limit to the number of ways you can bring attention to your pictures!
We hope these ideas help you enjoy your new pictures. Stephen Dent is here for all your photography needs, including in studio pictures, on site shoots, and photography lessons. Please visit our website for contact information and more information on Stephen Dent and his background and services, at www.StephenDentPhotos.com.

Stephen Dent Photography Tips for Unique Photos

At Stephen Dent Photography, we love to take pictures, and we know you do too. We don’t just want to sell you our services, we want to increase your love of photography in general. That’s why we, as a company, have decided to share daily photography tips to help you get the pictures you desire. Today, Stephen Dent is going to help you take great, unique pictures.

One of the most intriguing ways to take pictures is by using prolonged exposure. This can be done in daylight or at night. At night, you have the opportunity to capture a wide variety of images because every tiny spot of light that comes through affects the outcome of the picture. Essentially, your photos will come out looking phantasmagorical; the light begins looking like ghosts, and every object has a trail of motion.

Prolonged exposure pictures elicit the best results when the object or person being photographed is moving slightly, or if the person holding the camera is slightly unsteady. Typically, for traditional prolonged exposure pictures, it would be a requirement to have the camera on a tripod to avoid all the minute movements of the human hands, but this slight wiggle is exactly what gives these pictures their psychedelic look. It is probably best to play around with the concept, allowing the shutter to stay open for different lengths of time, and with varying degrees of movement, from holding perfectly still to purposely jiggling the camera.

Playing with light is a fun, diverse way to drastically alter the outcome of an otherwise mundane photo. For more information on changing the aperture settings on your camera, consult the owner’s manual. For more information on Stephen Dent Photography and the services we offer, visit our website at www.stephendentphotos.com and follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/StephenDent10. And as always, feel free email us at stephendent@photographer.net.