I first came across the photography of Anna Gay on her Flickr Account when doing some research for a post on self portraiture and the 365 project. I don’t remember which image first grabbed me but do remember surfing through the work in her 365 day challenge archives and being impressed by the quality of her photography, the dedication it must take to take self portraits every day for a year (twice) and being interested to learn more about her workflow.

So when Anna agreed to take part in an interview here on dPS – and to talk us through three of her shots – I was over the moon. I hope you enjoy hearing about how Anna approaches her photography.

How did you get into photography? how long have you

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Yesterday, I posted the four rules of composition I can’t live without. Rules are made to be broken, right?

Right. But you can’t break these rules until you can master them. So now that we’ve had a few days to contemplate these rules (or perhaps you’re already a photographer who harnesses the powers of composition with ease) I’d like to pose a few thoughts on the breaking of these rules. The only one I’m going to leave out is the last one I mentioned in that post: Viewpoint. Point of view (POV) isn’t necessarily a rule of composition, but rather an element of it. It’s not really a breakable rule because point of view is whatever you want it to be. So first things first. Rule of Thirds:

Rule …

A Guest Post by Brian Pearson.

This tutorial will focus on how to create a homemade Water Droplet Studio to get those great macro shots of a water drop splashing against still water, creating an explosion of colors.

Materials Needed:

• A cup of Water (your choice of color)
• A Ziploc-like plastic bag filled with water
• A roll of tape
• An external flash
• A Pencil
• A razor (or any sharp pointed object)
• Multiple sheets of paper (your choice of color)
• A towel (for cleaning up)
• And of course a Smile!!!!

Step 1: Location

Find a place that has san overhang such as a desk with a cabinet pulled out or really anywhere that you can hang a small plastic bag filled with water.

Step 2: Colors Colors Colors

Fill a cup with water. It can be any color any shape. In my case I used a Blue cup with

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Before I dove head first into the world of photography (there was no toe-in-the water transition period for me), I hadn’t ever considered or learned about composition. I thought it only had something to do with painting. If I was going to take pictures of real life, I didn’t imagine that I would be saying to the man running for the bus, “excuse me, could you please step into this third here?” I disregarded composition entirely. Then there came a point where I began intuitively setting my manual settings without much thought. I was suddenly left with loads of time on my hands while shooting to, not necessarily bother my subjects with moving around in a scene, but to move myself appropriately and be quick enough to catch something in the split second when it was naturally well composed.

So if …

If you’re like me (and maybe even if you’re not), you’ve been looking for a photographer’s helper for your travels. My situation is that in addition to vacation trips, I episodically deal with bursts of travel for my (non-photographic) job, and am barred from using my work laptop for non-work-related tasks. My needs (or, to be more honest, desires) when it comes to travel gear didn’t really seem that challenging, but have gone unfulfilled until lately:

• Back up the images on my cameras’ cards
• View the images on a screen of sufficient quality that I can spot motion blur and focus
  issues
• Gear needs to be lighter / smaller / less complicated than a second (non-work) laptop,
  particularly when dealing with airport security
• Decent battery life, with small / flexible recharging accessories

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