A few months ago while on a visit to Kenya, I visited a local studio to have my beautiful wildlife photos printed. As I waited for the prints to be ready, the photographer in that small, highly decorated photo studio in Marimanti town seized the moment to show off some of the photos he has taken. The first photo he showed me caught my attention. It was a studio taken photo of two kids aged around eight years but on the first look I thought it they were a couple in their middle twenties! What brought this sought of misjudgement is the way the photo was framed. The subject filled the frame so tightly that it left no space for the viewer to ‘breath’, making young kids appear like young adults.

The picture from above introduction could have been a lot better if it was balanced with negative space well utilized. Negative space defines and emphasises the main subject of a photo, drawing your eye to it. It provides "breathing room", giving your eyes somewhere to rest and preventing your image from appearing too cluttered with "stuff". All of this adds up to a more engaging composition. We help you gain a better understanding of the concept for more engaging photographs.

Photo by Abhighosh / Fotosocial

Read more: Understanding negative space

You will be forgiven to think that portrait qualifies to hone that title as long as the face of the subject is seen. You are not alone; many people still believe that you need to reveal the face of the subject clearly when working on portrait photography. However, that is not always the case; you can still create great faceless images and still qualify them as portraits. The starting point though is taking portraits that show faces and that is the vault of emotions and the first place that connects the subjects to the viewers. Beyond this level, you find creative ways to eliminate the face but still create impact with your faceless portraits.

When you exclude faces from your portraits, you let the body and the environment weave a story instead. The face that is a mirror of emotions gets replaced by body language and relies on the observational skills of the audience to decipher the message. We tell you on how to master the craft.

Read more: Faceless portraits

A camera is by default designed to take photos horizontally. Many people feel comfortable taking photos in horizontal orientation rather than vertical. Horizontal or say, landscape orientation as it is technically called, is a format that readily fits in many places included photo sharing website and social networking sites. However, not all subjects should be photographed in horizontal; some subjects are just meant to be photographed in vertical. There are many photos that end up in trash can just because they were badly taken, with their main problem being the orientation.

While we adhere to rules, exposures, settings and the like, we do not pay as much heed as we should to the horizontal or the vertical framing of our images. Shooting vertical is not always the preferred means. Though, you may find shooting a vertical frame much rewarding. Do it to include more foreground, create depth or just to break convention. Here are the perks of shooting vertical.

Read more: Upright and vertical

Cropping is one of the most commonly used post production tools for various reasons. One of the main reasons why cropping is done on photos is to improve their composition and remove unwanted details. Often after a photo session, an assignment or just a day out with your camera you realize that some photos that would have been the most important were out of scale or included unwanted details. Instead of dumping such photos into the recycle bin, cropping could save most of them for you.

In a nutshell, cropping is done to change the mood, set the frame right or to bring the attention back to your subject. We tell you seven reasons when and where you should crop the photograph and why you would like the results.

Read more: 7 reasons to crop your photograph

Statistics show that not many photographers actually went to photography schools. In India for example, only a few colleges offer a degree in photography and many of those who do offer photography as part of another major degree. With all that as our background we conclude that many photographers became what they are out of learning from others, being passionate about their work and of course experience.

Photography is a lifelong process and learning can never be saturated. Once you learn the first step, you need to keep on moving until you became a pro and beyond. Internet and books present us with loads of theoretical knowledge on various aspects of photography. But theory won’t make you a pro unless you have hands on experience of the skills you intend to sharpen. One of the best ways to do so is to give yourself assignments or projects that will challenge you to be better than you have been. Here are ten photographic assignments to hone your photographic skills.

Photo by Rathin Dey / Fotosocial

Read more: 10 Photographic Assignments to Hone Your Skills