Michael is one of the few students who figured out early on that his passion for photography dovetails with his love of diving. He realized that he loves taking underwater photographs. Most students don’t find their particular area of interest in photography until much later on. Some choose to focus on landscape photography or portrait photography. Some (like myself) never really find their niche because we love all kinds of photography.

If there is anything you can learn from Michael it’s that it takes hard work, practice, and passion to create stunning photographs like this.

Have a look at some of the stunning underwater photographs Michael has taken:

You can see more of his work over at DivingViews.com

Too often new photographers approach photography in a haphazard manner without first acquiring a strong technical understanding of the craft on which later they will be able to hang their creative ideas off of. It`s this technical knowledge which turns photographs from mediocre to great. Knowing how to control light, what to look for in a color palette, how to approach the “weight“ of a scene, how to effectively create a mood, how to control the manual controls of your camera and how to approach an environment to find the strongest possible composition are technical elements that need to be taught to be understood properly.

Photography Icon online photography school allows photographers the opportunity to get their photography education online in our intensive photography course.

At Photography Icon we also focus on our students outcome. We want you to be able to build your resume so we offer both a course completion certificate as well as the opportunity to be published in an well known online magazine.

All of these feature together will help you not only help you develop a deep understanding of the craft of photography but will also help you build your photography resume.

To learn more about the course curriculum and how our online education system works please visit our photography course outline page.

That one line photography quote by the great Robert Capa is so so true!

If there is anything you can do to dramatically improve your photography immediately, it’s get close, and then get even closer.

Here is a example of something I witnessed at the top of Uluru in Australia. The man below thinks he is going to shoot a good photo and he is trying his best. In fact this is how close the average person gets when taking a photograph like this.

This is how close I get when taking a photograph:

It’s so easy to get close and it results in vastly superior photographs almost every single time. Also take special note here that the best way to get close is by moving your feet. If that doesn’t work only then do you use your telephoto lens. Got it?! Good!

Just look at the photos below and you’ll see how different the same subject can be.

Too far:

photo by rankingfuuta

Just right:

photo by mjmerry

So get out there and get close!

Want to learn more simple ways to improve your images? We have all kinds of tips and tricks like this in our photography course.

This photograph of two men standing at the bottom of a very large ship in a dry dock is a really stunning example of scale in photography. Using scale in photography is very important because as humans our minds figure out the size of our surrounding world in various ways. Of course your brain knows the size of a human and in this case that means that is one HUGE ship!

Scale gives the person looking at your photograph a frame of reference. Scale is often an under-utilized technique in photography. In fact many beginners in photography will even go so far as to remove people from a landscape photo thinking people in the image detract from the view. When in fact having people in your landscape photos can often be great! For example look at how much better this image is because there is a person in the foreground:

photo by steved

Be aware your brain can and will play tricks on you:

In fact this caused problems for astronauts on the moon! Here on Earth, distant objects are obscured by the atmosphere, and we use that to mentally estimate distances. That makes things a little tricky on the moon because there is no air! An object can be very far away on the Moon and still razor sharp to the eye. You can’t tell if a boulder is a meter across and 50 meters away, or 10 meters across and 10 miles away!

To give you an example this watch the rock the start of this video. Try to guess the size of the rock at the start of the video. Then watch until the end and see if your original guess was indeed correct.

Scale is a great technique to improve your images and shouldn’t be overlooked. You can even have fun with it like this. As humans we need scaled to know how large and small the surround world is. In photography it helps us to enjoy the image instead of adding mental work to figure out the size of various elements.

No go forth and take some great photographs with scale!

Often students say there town is boring or there is nothing to shoot. There is ALWAYS something to photograph!

Just take a look at this list of themes and items that are interesting to shoot. It should get you started.

We will continue to update this list as we come up with new ideas.

1. Abandoned Buildings
2. Abstract
3. Abstracts
4. Amphibian
5. Anger
6. Arches
7. Architecture
8. Autumn
9. Back Alleys
10. Bad Weather
11. Bald Heads
12. Balloons
13. Bare Feet
14. Bark
15. Barns
16. Bees
17. Bicycle Parts
18. Bikes
19. Birds
20. Black and White
21. Blimps
22. Blue
23. Bolts
24. Bones
25. Books
26. Bottles
27. Bridge
28. Bridges
29. Broken Glass
30. Bronze
31. Brown
32. Bump
33. Butterflies
34. Butterflies / Bees
35. Campsites
36. Car Details
37. Catching People Unaware
38. Cats
39. Celebrations
40. Choice
41. Church Windows
42. Churches
43. Circles
44. City Hall
45. City Skylines
46. City Street Scenes
47. Close-up
48. Clouds
49. Cold
50. Colours
51. Columns
52. Computers
53. Contrasts
54. Covered Bridges
55. Critters
56. Culture
57. Curves
58. Custom Cars
59. Dancers
60. Decorations
61. Demonic
62. Demonstrations
63. Devilish
64. Digital
65. Disappearing Professions
66. Disappearing Technologies
67. Dishes
68. Documentary
69. Dogs
70. Dominating
71. Doom and gloom
72. Door Knobs
73. Doors
74. Dots / Dashes / Diagonals
75. Drawers
76. Duplicates
77. Easter
78. Eggs
79. Elation
80. Embrace
81. Emergency Situations
82. Enthusiasm / eager
83. Environmental Trash
84. Events
85. Eye Glasses
86. Eyes
87. Farm Animals
88. Feathers
89. Feet
90. Feisty
91. Feline
92. Femininity
93. Fences
94. Fetes & Festivals
95. Fetish
96. Fire
97. Fire Engines
98. Fireworks / Fire
99. Fish
100. Flags
101. Flower Petals
102. Flowers
103. Food
104. Forks
105. Forms in Nature
106. Fountains
107. Framed
108. Freeways
109. Frozen
110. Fruit
111. Games
112. Gardens
113. Gates
114. Gears
115. Geriatric (older folks)
116. Glamour
117. Glass
118. Gold
119. Graceful
120. Graffiti
121. Green
122. H Hands
123. Halloween
124. Hallways
125. Handles
126. Hands
127. Happiness
128. Harbours
129. Harvest
130. Hats
131. Hidden
132. History
133. Holiday
134. Horizon
135. Horses
136. Hot Rod Cars
137. Hunger
138. Ice
139. Inclines
140. Indian Ruins
141. Indigenous Things Or People
142. Industrial
143. Insects
144. Inspiration
145. Iridescent
146. Iron
147. Isolated Objects
148. Jails
149. Jets
150. Jewelry
151. Jobs
152. Joints
153. Journalistic
154. Joy
155. Jugs
156. Junk Yards
157. Keys
158. Kids
159. Kin or Families
160. Kite
161. Kites
162. Knives
163. Landscapes
164. Lazy
165. Learning
166. Leaves
167. Legs
168. Letters
169. Light
170. Lightning
171. Lights
172. Locks
173. Machine Parts
174. Macro
175. Marine life
176. Masculinity
177. Masks
178. Mass flowers
179. Mirrors
180. Money
181. Monuments
182. Mood
183. Movie Theater Marquees
184. Muse
185. Mushrooms
186. Neon Signs
187. Night
188. Night lights
189. Nighttime
190. Nonsense
191. Noodles
192. Numbers
193. Nut
194. Nuts
195. Objects
196. Odd Couples
197. Old Everything
198. Olympic
199. Opposites
200. Opulent
201. Orange
202. Pairs
203. Paper Abstracts
204. Parallel Lines
205. Patterns
206. Peacocks
207. Peeling Paint
208. People
209. People At Work
210. People Walking Dogs
211. Peppers
212. Perspective
213. Pets
214. Pictures in Pictures
215. Piles of Things
216. Pink / Purple
217. Polished
218. Porches
219. Quad
220. Quarters
221. Queens
222. Railroad Cars
223. Railroad Tracks
224. Raindrops
225. Rainbows
226. Red
227. Red Barns
228. Reenactments
229. Reflection
230. Reflections in Glass
231. Reflections in Water
232. Religious
233. Roadscapes
234. Rocks
235. Round Things
236. Rows of Things
237. Rust
238. Rustic
239. Sand dunes
240. Sand Patterns
241. Sea Shells
242. Seascapes
243. Seasons
244. Self
245. Shadows
246. Shoes
247. Signs
248. Silhouettes
249. Skulls
250. Sky
251. Sleeping Animals
252. Sleeping People
253. Small Furry Animals
254. Smiles
255. Smoke Stacks
256. Snow
257. Soft Curves
258. Sorrow
259. Spanish Moss
260. Speed
261. Spoons
262. Sports
263. Spring
264. Squirrel
265. Stacks
266. Stairs
267. Statues
268. Steam Railroads
269. Still life
270. Strange Signs
271. String Instruments
272. Structures
273. Summer
274. Sunrise
275. Sunset
276. Superstitions
277. Sweets
278. Swings
279. Tattoos
280. Teddy Bear / toy
281. Textures
282. The Local School
283. The spot (X marks it, you know)
284. Toads
285. Tombstones
286. Tools
287. Tools of the Trade
288. Transport
289. Tree Knots
290. Trees
291. Ugly Everything
292. Umbrella
293. Umbrellas
294. Ungulates (hoofed animals, pigs, goats, deer horses)
295. Uniforms
296. Urban
297. Utensils
298. Vacation
299. Valves
300. Vegetables
301. Vices or Habits
302. Views
303. Vignettes
304. Vines
305. Visitors
306. Watches
307. Water
308. Waterfalls
309. Weather
310. Weathered Wood
311. Wet
312. Wheels
313. White
314. Wide Angle Everything
315. Wildlife
316. Windows
317. Winter
318. Woods
319. Xenon
320. Xenophobia
321. Xylophones
322. Yachts
323. Yellow
324. Yo-yos
325. Zebras
326. Zig Zags
327. Zipper
328. Zoos

How’s that for a list of things to shoot?!

Now get out there and take some great photographs!

Many photographers specialize in black and white photography due to its sheer power, elegance and beauty. However, it is important to note that black and white photography is not simply color photography with black and white film (or a black and white digital setting). Black and white photography has its own set of rules that it needs to abide by. Black and white photography, since it is colorless, needs to find other ways to set moods.

Tones are the most important element of black and white photography. As humans we don’t really think about the world in tonal ranges. For us when we see light blue and then we look else where and see yellow, we are in fact seeing two different colors. However, when you take a black and white photograph with light blue and yellow in the same frame, the camera may not actually communicate the difference to your viewers since the colors have almost the exact same grey tone.

We dedicate an entire lesson to black and white photography techniques in our online photography school.

Learn more.

The incredible photograph above was taken by Ansel Adams.

A whole lesson is dedicated to helping you understand the teachings and techniques of the masters. We will cover the advancements in photography made by many of the 19th 20th and 21st centuries greatest photography masters. Modeling your own photography based on the works of photography’s greats is a great way to learn how to take amazing photographs.

We introduce you to a handful of art photographers which allows you to get acquainted with different styles, themes and techniques. To learn more about our photography course simply click on our homepage. Alternatively you can sign up for our photography course by using the link below.

Here are some of the greatest photographers of all time:

Ansel Adams
Robert Capa
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Edward Weston
Eugene Atget
Richard Avedon
Robert Frank
Walker Evans
William Eggleston
Garry Winogrand
Alfred Stieglitz
Lee Friedlander
Andre Kertesz
Paul Strand
Edward Steichen
Stephen Shore
Dorothea Lange
Lewis W. Hine
Andreas Feininger
Man Ray
Helmut Newton
Robert Doisneau
Alexander Rodchenko
Julia Margaret Cameron
Gordon Parks
Ara Guler
August Sander
Alvin Baltrop
Michael K. Brown
Andreas Gursky
Sebastiao Salgado
David Bailey
Ryan Mcginley
Brassai
Jan Saudek
Hiroshi Sugimoto
Willy Ronis
Albert Renger-Patzsch
Eadweard James Muybridge
Mathew Brady
Dan Winters

Each of our students is given an opportunity to have their work published in the magazine at the end of the course (Just before they complete their final exams).

If you’re interested in both learning more about photography and having your photographs published in a popular magazine then you might want to consider signing up for our online photography course here.

Photo by xjrlokix

All of the photos above were Creative Commons Licensed as of April 16th 2011. To view these photos on flickr click the attribution links below.

Photo 1, Photo 2, Photo 3, Photo 4, Photo 5, Photo 6, Photo 7, Photo 8, Photo 9, Photo 10, Photo 11, Photo 12, Photo 13, Photo 14, Photo 15, Photo 16, Photo 17, Photo 18, Photo 19, Photo 20, Photo 21, Photo 22, Photo 23, Photo 24, Photo 25, Photo 26, Photo 27, Photo 28, Photo 29, Photo 30, Photo 31, Photo 32, Photo 33, Photo 34, Photo 35, Photo 36, Photo 37, Photo 38, Photo 39, Photo 40, Photo 41, Photo 42, Photo 43, Photo 44, Photo 45, Photo 46, Photo 47, Photo 48, Photo 49, Photo 50, Photo 51, Photo 52, Photo 53, Photo 54, Photo 55, Photo 56, Photo 57, Photo 58, Photo 59, Photo 60, Photo 61, Photo 62, Photo 63, Photo 64, Photo 65, Photo 66, Photo 67, Photo 68, Photo 69, Photo 70, Photo 71, Photo 72, Photo 73, Photo 74, Photo 75, Photo 76, Photo 77, Photo 78, Photo 79, Photo 80, Photo 81, Photo 82, Photo 83, Photo 84, Photo 85, Photo 86, Photo 87, Photo 88, Photo 89, Photo 90, Photo 91, Photo 92, Photo 93, Photo 94, Photo 95, Photo 96, Photo 97, Photo 98, Photo 99, Photo 100

When you have completed the course we will issue you an 8×10 photography course completion certificate! This looks really great on a resume and can help you with your next career move.

If you score over 80% on your final exam you will receive an “honors” certificate.

Enroll in the course here.