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Good Photographic Theme

R1149451 (Medium)
^A young macho butcher leans on the bench in a rather girlie posture.  The wet market is a convenient shooting location which affords you chances to get good results.

Many fellow photographers prefer shooting in unfamiliar settings which they believe can better ignite creativity.  Contrary to this belief, good photographic themes and actually many great photographs originate from where people are familiar with.  The reason is that familiarity enriches the image with a stronger affection.

Here are some tips on how to discover such themes and work on it:

1) You should have a topical idea about the shooting.  Observation is pivotal to good photographs.  So, be prepared to analyses a scene from different visual perspectives in relation to your theme.   Put the irrelevant information out of the frame, but make sure that there will be sufficient contents in the image to accentuate the theme.

2) For a theme on human conditions, a camera turned on to the continuous shooting mode will stand you a better chance of grabbing the decisive moments.

3) Get yourself into a habit of reading publications about fine arts and good photos.  As time passes, the images will instil in you an ability to see a scene from an artistic view.  At the same time, you will immediately know how a scene has been done and to resist it in your works.

4) Post-processing is not a sin.  It has a history as long as photography.  Post-processing can accent a theme.  You just don't overdo it as to fake a photo.

5) In fact, post-processing can bring a new lease of life to the images which don't look right at first.  It works the biggest wonder on images characteristic of creativity and novelty.

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