Introducing Maira Azhar
Maira is a good friend of mine and she is the skilled photographer behind my brand photography. She made me feel so relaxed during the shoot, and was a pro with both my kids and my dog!
Please see her website for more details of her fabulous personal branding photography and other branding services.
An avid traveller herself Maira is a pro at capturing travel memories. Here’s Maira's guest blog post with tips on how you can do the same…
My passion for photography started when I first started traveling around the Middle East and Far East Asia. There were so many unique and exotic colours, sounds, smells, textures and experiences….and I wanted to make sure I didn’t forget anything! So I bought my first semi-professional camera, enrolled in a photography workshop and started clicking away.
At first, it was a little challenging as there were so many things to consider, the camera settings, some impatient friends and family members and lots of missed opportunities! But over the many many years of experimenting (and finally reading that camera manual booklet that everyone throws away with the box), I’ve gotten the hang of it (in fact, it led me to change my career altogether and start my own photography business….but that’s for another day!). I’m here to share my top 5 tips that will help you take much much better photos on your next holiday, whether its to Disneyland or an elephant safari in Nepal, or whether you have a heavy duty professional camera or the just-as-good phone in your pocket.
1.Find the light
Make natural light your very best friend (and never ever touch that flash setting!), when you’re posing yourself or your subjects always make them face the source of the light (unless it’s the afternoon sun and you’ve got lots of squinty eyes…in that case, bring them in the shade). In fact, the best time to take photos is in the ‘golden hour’, that’s the time (an hour or so) before the sun comes or when the sun comes down.
2.Get to know your camera
It’s definitely a good investment of your time if you become more familiar with your camera. Find out what all the different settings are, and particularly how to use the self-timer options. If you’re a complete novice, now may not be the time to go all manual, but you can start practicing with some of the other modes (the night, sport and portrait modes are always handy).
3.Take a tripod
There are some really good options for phone tripods now that will fold up and are super light too. These will help you so much especially when there is not much light available or when you need to stabilise while taking video footage.
4.Composition & Framing
This is crucial and if you can spend some time and thought before taking an image, this will go a long way from taking an ordinary image to a much more pleasing image. You might have heard of the rule of thirds principle where you can place your subject(s) on top or bottom right side or left side of your frame. Your camera will have a function where you can switch on the grid lines in your viewfinder – it’s a good way to remind yourself to pause and frame your image in the most aesthetically best way possible.
5.Move Around
If you can, then move around your subject, to get the best possible angle. You could also make your image more interesting by moving your perspective – so shoot from top down, or bottom up and just keep moving till you get something you like.
And that’s it! One bonus tip that I’d like to pass on is that always take permission from the people you are shooting. It’s not only respectful but you might actually get an opportunity to make some new friends!
Thanks Maira for sharing great tips! Don’t forget to check out Maira's website for all details of her brand photography services - www.mairaazharphotography.com.
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