Be My Guest Monday 1/31/11: David Page


It's "Be My Guest Monday," the day of the week that's turned over to a talented guest blogger for a quick tip.

Today's guest: David Page


It is amazing how you can increase the speed of a race car and improve the composition by just tilting the image. The images above are the same except that the top one was tilted before the cropping step. I prefer to to start with a lot of resolution on an image that is "normal" with plenty of room to crop. I then rotate the image in Photoshop several times till I get my favorite angle. Then I go back to the original image and rotate it only once to that best angle again. The reason for the re-do is that every time you rotate an image there is slight small detail loss and to repeat it many times could take the fuzz right off of a peach.

The same result could be accomplished by just rotating the camera on the original shot. But at over 100 miles per hour you only get one attempt at the best angle for the best composition. Be careful in choosing the background as leaning trees etc. can ruin the effect.

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David Page is the co-author, along with Dr. Richard Zakia, of Photographic Composition - A Visual Guide. These two dudes are also two of my favorite people.