Has any one got any tips for taking good photos for your portfolio?
Mine always seem to have at least one thing that I would not be happy with,not the tiling quality but....too much light,not enough light,reflections from mirrors,glass,not able to get everything you would like into the photos,getting too much.... etc,etc
Is a Photoshopping or other image altering digital apps any good?
for interior shots you really do need a wide angle lense. A lot of ponit and shoot cameras have these now but check
with regards to light and exposure the camera will often alter these depending on where you point the camera. As default most cameras will take its setting from the center of the frame, so for example if you point the camera in the room and in the center of frame is a bright window, then it will reduce the exposure so the window comes out normal and the rest of the room looks dark, if you point the camera in a dark corner of the room then it will increase exposure in the dark area but the window could come out bleeched.
Some cameras will allow you to offset its point of focus. So instead of the point of focus being the center of the frame, you can move it to say the bottom right hand corner where it's darker, this will increase exposure and brighten the picture but still keep say the window in the center of the picture. make sense?
Of course you can do the same thing by altering shutter speed etc but the above is a kinda cheat around it if you're not familiar with settings and want to just leave the camera in auto mode.
If you want to get more of the room in to the picture then get away from just having the camera pinting dead on at head height. I quite often get the camera in akward positions pointing at an angle. A common one is standing on the bath and getting the camera above head height in a corner where the ceiling meets the walls, then angle the camera down at a 45 degree angle. Also similar thing by getting down low and angle the camera up. This way you get much more of the room in to the picture, it's also helpful when taking pictures with mirrors in them and you don't want your reflection shown.
OK this example isn't strictly like the above as there are not great photos and it's a pretty big room but i was still stood on top of a ladder with the camera angled down in order to get more of the room in shot.
To get really good shots then it's worth exploring all the settings on your camera and understanding what they do, but as I say there are work arounds if you want to leave it on auto.
