Crop Corner

Selective focus is one of the main techniques used by professionals to simplify their photographs and focus attention on the intended subject of the picture. It can eliminate a distracting background by throwing it out of focus. In this installment of Digital Dialog, NYI's resident digital guru, Jim Barthman, starts by reviewing what selective focus is, how it has traditionally been used by professionals to add punch to their pictures, and how you can create the same effect with pictures taken with digital cameras.

This month, NYI Associate Dean Jerry Rice has written the Photo of the Month Review. Jerry's keen eye can help readers decipher any type of photograph. A lifelong lover of fine photography, when Jerry talks about photographs, everyone at NYI listens. We know you'll enjoy Jerry's observations on this month's photograph. This simple Three-Step Method is the secret of every successful photograph ever taken. We teach our students to consider these three steps every time they look into the viewfinder. To consider them before they press the shutter button.

Wildlife photographer, Ian Andrews, shares some tips on what to shoot and where to shoot in January. January can be one of the cruelest months of the year to photographers, but it can also be one of the kindest. Freezing temperatures can make it treacherous underfoot and on the roads. The comforting warmth of the central heating can have a very firm grip on the less dedicated. But with a little planning and forethought, the first month of the photographic year can be very rewarding. Get your kit ready the night before, right after you have checked the morning's forecast. Clear frosty mornings hold the greatest rewards. Remember spare batteries, as they fail far quicker in the cold.

Cheryl Surry looks at the various options available that you can use to make bigger enlargements from your digital photographs. Whether you have a 2 or a 6 megapixel camera, making your images bigger is something you'll want to do from time to time, whether to print a large poster or to submit to an image library. The problem is, just like a 35mm negative is fixed in size at 24x36mm, a digital image is fixed by its pixel dimensions. Negatives are enlarged by projecting their image onto light sensitive paper, and the bigger you go, the lower the quality becomes. Digital images are no different, and whatever you do, you can't make them bigger without suffering some degradation in quality.

ePHOTOzine member, Chris Shepherd, recently organised his first photographic exhibition. Here he shares a few lessons he learnt in the process of setting up and creating this event. I decided to set myself a photographic project in order to improve my photographic skills. The project was a year long study of a local nature reserve and in order to ensure I actually completed the project I booked the gallery space so there was no going back, the project just had to be completed. So the exhibition just had to happen and here is what I discovered in the process.

If youve been shopping for a digital camera youve probably noticed that, for the most part, price points between the various models center on megapixel level. Cameras in the 1-2 mexapixel level are usually priced at less than $100. Cameras in the 3-4 megapixel level are at least two or three times as expensive, and cameras in the 5-8 megapixel level can, of course, sport an even higher price tag. So what do these numbers mean and how do you choose? Whether viewed on a computer screen or printed, a photograph is made up of tiny dots called pixels. With regard to digital imagery, megapixel (or MP) is used to refer to the number of pixels the camera is able to capture. Mega indicates million, so one megapixel equals one million pixels (i.e. dots). The higher the number of pixels in an image, the higher the quality of detail the picture will reveal.

Weather permitting, on Wednesday, October 27 in the U.S., (Thursday, October 28 in other parts of the world) a total eclipse of the Moon will be visible in much of North and South America as well as Europe and Western Africa. This is an exciting event for astronomers and it can provide great picture opportunities to photographers as well. Photographing the moon is relatively easy compared to other celestial bodies, because it's relatively close to the earth. The tips that follow will show you how to photograph the moon under normal circumstances, or under eclipse conditions.

Testing 1-2-3: Putting Your New Digital Camera through its Paces and Getting a Digital Photography Lesson at the Same Time! The first time I cracked open the 207-page instruction booklet with my camera I must admit to being more than a little apprehensive. Why did such a tiny camera require such a thick booklet? And why didnt it come with a magnifying glass so that I could read it without squinting? Start by taking a look at the manuals table of contents to familiarize yourself with how it is organized. There will probably be a section that covers preliminary information, such as loading batteries, inserting media, and turning the camera on. Another section may cover common operations such as taking, viewing, and deleting pictures. You should also see headings in the table of contents for using menus to edit camera settings and transferring your pictures to a computer or viewing them on a television. There should also be a section (usually in the very back of the manual) that offers some troubleshooting tips.

This simple Three-Step Method is the secret of every successful photograph ever taken. We teach our students to consider these three steps every time they look into the viewfinder. To consider them before they press the shutter button. When our students mail in their photographs for analysis by their instructor, the instructor starts by commenting on what we call the three Guidelines. Of course, the instructor analyzes other elements of the picture too - focus, exposure, filters, etc. But the key to every good photo - and the essential element of every great photo - is adherence to these three Guidelines.

idiomatic expressions and rhyming patterns in his work. It is only logical to assume that personal style plays as crucial a role in art photography as it does in any other artistic genre where an artist's personality has overriding importance. In fact, not only is it logical, but it is also substantiated by facts. When looking at photographs, we cannot only name the artist who created them, but even take a peek into his soul. Certainly, the artist's personality influences his work in any type of art, but in photography this effect is especially evident, for several reasons.