“Shoot this from a viewpoint of another person.” Wait, what the heck? We’re upside down?! Not only is this shot from the viewpoint of another person, but the room is upside down! And no, this is not photoshopped– this is what the room actually looks like!

“Use color grading to create an image that looks like it is a still from a movie.” To be honest, I haven’t ever really done color grading, but I imagine that a still like this in a garden would probably be from some kind of romantic scene, full of warm colors and long shadows. To…

“Compose from a low angle.” I took this photo at the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables, Florida, while I was on winter break for this exact prompt. From below, this hotel has literally no bad angles. From my low angle, the over-100-year-old building looks like it reaches into the sky, almost as if to touch…

“Use the Rule of Thirds to show emotion.” A great oak, perched atop a hill. It stands alone, in solitude, with no company. It sees everything and yet it has nobody to share its view with. It sways in the wind– not in unison, but to its own tune. Loneliness is an emotion that has…

“Fill the frame with just one color.” Based on the examples I researched for filling the frame, I’m not sure if this fits perfectly– but, it does fill the frame with just one color: Green. This is a photo I took at Hakone Gardens, a Japanese zen garden collection in Saratoga. I love how this…

“We live in a world surrounded by geometry. Use it in your photo.” Well what better to portray geometry than a whole lot of crates. Cubic, boxy, and sharp. This photo is originally from September of last year when I went apple picking with my family. While not necessarily a new photo, I think this…

“Use creative angles to compose your shot.” This is somewhat of an older shot, and yet another party shot that I took for one of my mom’s parties. This time, it was a car themed party at a VERY cool vintage hot rod garage in San Carlos. Now usually with bouquets, you try to capture…

“Why is 3 and 5 so useful?” Recently, I helped my mom set up for a HUGE bar mitzvah. She’s a party planner– and along with helping her set her parties up, I also help do some of the pre-party photography. This one in particular was a sports-themed party for a boy named Arlo who…

“Discover why negative space is so effective in photography.” This is a very zoomed in (30x) shot I took while watching the great monarch butterfly migration at a butterfly sanctuary in Santa Cruz. To be completely honest, I’m not super sure how to take really effective negative space shots beyond just using it to frame…

“Center-framed composition is a great way to isolate your subject. Use this knowledge to create a portrait that exhibits loneliness.” This is a shot of my mom sitting in front of me on the Portland light rail, looking out the window. I think a vertical shot worked very well here to portray a sense of…