Atom Araullo lists ways on how to capture good photos
MANILA, Philippines — Atom Araullo recalled that his exposure to taking photographs started when he was young at a time when cameras were manual and heavy to carry around.
Among his first photos was of a church and a seashore from a road trip in Bataan. He shared that he was inspired by old magazines of National Geographic and Life. His grandfather also owned a manual camera that usually required rolls of film to take photos.
These early exposure to taking photos has helped him pursue one of his passions and he is currently practicing the basic rules that his job as a reporter and as a photojournalist requires.
At the Xiaomi master class held in One Ayala, Makati last November, Atom shared some basic photography rules that help create memorable and stunning photographs.
“There are three things that I can boil down to what makes a good photograph: light, composition and movement,” the multi-awarded journalist said.
Atom shared about the exposure triangle and simplified it in the most basic explanation for beginners.
This concept includes the use of camera features, namely, shutter speed, ISO and aperture. These are common in manual cameras, but some smartphones are installed with these settings in their cameras.
The shutter speed is related to motion control. “You can decide to freeze a moment by using a high shutter speed. Usually, this is good for sports or mga moments of high action. But if you want to use a low shutter speed, you can actually show the motion."
When it comes to making a photo appear small or vague, one can control the aperture.
“If you want to keep everything in focus but if you want to also blur the foreground and background, you use a shadow. You use a big aperture,” Atom advised.
ISO, meanwhile, controls the “noise” of the photograph. Noise in this sense means a variation in the image that can be caused by lighting conditions and exposure times, as described by Adobe.
“If you like a very smooth photo, you use a very low ISO para wala masyadong noise. Pero may mga times na gusto n’yo grainy, ngayon uso ngayon ‘yan, you usually use a high ISO for that,” the journalist said.
Light, Atom said, basically plays an essential part in