More viewers' pictures #18

Scenes from the Philippines, India, the zoo and more.

Photographer Adel Alcantara says "I've just bought a Nikon D3000 with 18-55mm lens. I want to study photography. Good that I've found photographytips.com. It helps me a lot. I cannot give any tips right now because I know nothing about photography. I just want to share these pictures. Also I want to promote the beauty of our country, the Philippines."

When we prompted Adel for more information, he wrote, "I'm into photography for the past two weeks only. I like to take pictures of good scenery, flowers and faces of people, among others. I bought the Nikon D3000 because it the most economical SLR available at that time and it fits my budget."

About his works, he says, "I did not use a tripod in taking my pictures. For all the pictures I sent, these are the details: 1/250, f10, focal length is 44mm, no flash, landscape mode."

He says "I am having a 9-hour, 3 session photography tutorial the owner of the store where I bought the camera. The pictures are part of the beach in Laiya, San Juan, Batangas, Philippines. I am an Electrical engineer enjoyed in having photography as a hobby."

For someone who has barely begun to take pictures, Adel's photographs are pretty good and demonstrate some of the principles of composition, such as the fact that the horizons are level. He has used foreground elements to add a sense of depth, and his compositions have a nice balance.

Congratulations, Adel. You are on the right track.

Photographer Philip Deepu says that the title of his works is "Taste of pregnancy."

Philip says, "The little girl eating lives in a border village in Andra Pradesh state in India. This village is ruled by the army and they trying to secure people from Naxalites*. In this area, military persons also sexually abuse girls who live there. The girl really fears the camera and outside people. She watches others like animals. She is eating something from a traditional plate before going out. The important thing is that no one has to care for her and she is having her breakfast by herself. I mean, she is really mature for such a small age."

"The girl holding the stick is from the same place where army people also harass girls, even sexually."

* Editor's note: The Naxalites, an extremist Indian communist movement, are named after the West Bengal town of Naxalbari.

Philip leaves us with this tip:

"Make your maximum time to rural traveling. That is a better way to study the composition of life of people. if you study that composition, you can absorb it easily in your camera."

Babar Khan Swatty sent us a one-word "tip" with this picture: "c0ntrast."

He writes, "I am an 18 year old student. I love photography. I even won a contest at my university."

Babar lives in Rawalpindi, Punjab, Pakistan. He says, "The model you see in this photograph is me. I took this picture with my Sony Ericsson K770i phone that has a 3.2 megapixel camera."

Photographer Tiona Reed calls her colorful collection of animal pictures "At The Zoo." The zoo is Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

"Meerkats are funny and social creatures," she said, "so it wasn't hard finding this pair. It's good to know the characteristics of animals so you know what to expect when taking pictures of them."

"The giraffes were friendly," said Tiona, "and allowed you to get close and pet them as long as you had food in your hand.

I often see pictures of the full body giraffe, but I wanted to see the actual eye and face structure, so I zoomed in and caught it before the giraffe moved."

She said her picture of the wallaby was sort of a lucky shot. "It was standing next to the wall when I was walking by and not thinking much about it," she said. "I just snapped the shot and this is what I got. Sometimes luck will be by your side, but don't count on it."

Tiona said it took patience getting the shot of the lion. "Because of course you can't tell a lion to pose," she said. "It was also difficult finding the right angle to avoid glare from the glass. Overall patience, patience, patience." "I am a beginner photographer," said Tiona. "I've been taking pictures for less than a year using the outdoors and my family as test subjects."

"I really like to photograph people," said Tiona, "and individual aspects of the outdoors such as flowers, animals etc. There's plenty of that here in Colorado."

Tiona wants to get into a studio, "....to start working with lighting instead of relying solely on natural light," she said.

Her camera is a Sony a330. "I shot in automatic the whole time," she said. "I had the lens zoomed at 200mm, and was hand-holding the camera.

Tiona said, "I like photography because it is capturing something beautiful or even not so pretty and making it even better. It gives my mind a way to express its creativity on my own time in my own way." "I'm still new at this," she said, "so no real advice to pass on but to do your research on animals or whatever it is you like to take pictures of, even child behavior. It helps."

Photographer Ian J. Kuhn sent us this photograph that shows his little son reflected in his grandfather's sunglasses.

Ian wrote, "Followed the rule of three and put my son in the upper left intersection."

We actually call it "The Rule of Thirds," but anyone can call it what they like as long as it works for them. It seems to have worked well in this case.

Thanks, Ian.

Georgia photographer Steve Simone had been taking pictures for about a month when he captured this image of his daughter. He wrote "I've always felt that I've had an eye for how to frame and shoot a shot."

"The camera body is a Canon 550D or T2I," he says, "and the lens used to capture was the Canon 24-105mm F/4L. The filter was a B&W Kaesemann Polarized filter."

Steve says "I bought the camera to capture more moments of my children aged 3, 1 and another one on the way."

He tells us "I shot it in the Portrait mode by simply asking my little girl to take a look at me real quick. It really was just a one-click pic using no tripod or stability."

Well done, Steve. It's a lovely shot.