Photo Tips

Top 10 Tips to Shape Your Photography

Me Ra Koh

Try some of these Top 10 Tips to Shape Your Photography and you’ll see your family and blog photos shine even brighter! We’ll start with simple photo tips, get a little more technical, and then end easy. 🙂

1. Define Emotion When trying to decide if an image should be black and white vs color ask yourself ‘Will black and white define the emotion better?’ Brian and I shoot every thing in color and in RAW format. We don’t use the presets in the camera for b/w images. We make all those changes after the shoot in post process.

Example: I love this fun shot of dad and his boys. But when we see it in black and white, I feel like the emotion on dad’s face is much more defined.

Me Ra Koh shares her Top 10 Tips to Shape Your Photography

Me Ra Koh shares her Top 10 Tips to Shape Your Photography

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  1. Kelli says:

    Thanks MeRa! Love these posts. They remind me to keep it simple not overthink or get too frazzled. Looking forward to the Chicago Workshop!!

  2. Jessica says:

    Awesome tips, as always! Thanks!!

  3. Michelle says:

    GREAT tips! Thank you so much for sharing!!!!

  4. Denise says:

    you are so sweet to share all this! I love the last photo – and tip number 7 -too funny!

  5. Kris says:

    I love a flash that swivels! I’ve been using a Gary Fong “dome” lately. I prefer to swivel backward though. The Fong requires extra power or stops. I don’t like to give up stops.

    Didn’t you say you would be offering some Lightroom Presets at some time, or am I confusing you with someone else?

  6. beck says:

    The tips are immensely helpful, you two are immensely creative, and I can’t wait for Chicago. 🙂

    Now, to dust off that old Speedlite and give her a whirl…

  7. These are great tips! Thanks for the encouragement to make mistakes. It’s a releif to not try to be perfect all the time!

  8. Dana says:

    Those tips are awesome! Thank you Mera!!!

  9. kelli says:

    hi mera

  10. kelli says:

    Hi Mera..

    Thanks again for the tips. Question. I am diligently working on putting together my portfolio to show. I know in your dvd you explained how you were using your portfolio to show when you were starting out..doctors office was one of the examples.And my pediatricians office is alarmingly bland! My question is..were all of your pics color black and white…what size? I just want to make sure it looks as professional as can be before I show it off. Any tips would be great! Thanks..K

  11. Katie says:

    Love this, thanks. Just what I needed. My brain was starting to get fuzzy from the San Diego Workshop back in May. Nice little refresher. I printed it out to carry around with me. LOL I so wish I could go to Chicago…hmmmm.

  12. Katie says:

    I hit send on my comment too quickly, must need some caffine or something.

    I shoot Nikon, can anyone recommend a good external flash?

  13. kelli says:

    Hi Katie..I shoot nikon also. I use the SB800 external flash…very happy with it so far.

  14. Thanks for these posts… I too print them and carry them in my camera bag! I love going down the list and trying all your wonderful tips one by one. Thank you for the words ” You Can Do This!” and thank you for sharing your talent and wisdom with all of us.

  15. Kelly Marie says:

    “Mistakes are necessary when getting better at photography–mistake away!!”

    This is the lesson that I just learned at my first newborn shoot. Of course, I saw allll of my flaws. My client saw beautiful pictures of his newborn that brought tears to her eyes. I decided that I need to live by the motto “Live and learn”. I’m glad I’m not the only one!

  16. Andrea says:

    Thanks so much for sharing your list from the BlogHer presentation. I really enjoyed it and was typing as fast as I could, but my notes did not come out quite this organized!

  17. Hi Mera, I spoke with you briefly at the BlogHer Cocktail party at Macy’s, thanks so much for putting up your notes as requested! That way, even those of us working the conference can now benefit 🙂

  18. […] been practicing Me Ra Koh’s Top Ten Tips For Photography, concentrating on #2: Fill the frame and #4: blur the background.  Here are my results so […]

  19. Cindy says:

    wow…great tips on how to use the flash.

    how do you change your color pictures to such a nice b/w? my professional wedding photographer changed some of our pics to b/w but it has a really cold, gray tone to them.

  20. […] got the excited “I can do this, I can do this…” flutters in my stomach when I read these Top Ten Photography Tips from Me Ra Koh Photography. I found the article from one of my favorite photography blogs, Shutter […]

  21. Amy Lenzo says:

    I loved your session! I took good notes but having your images here as examples is excellent! Thanks so much for posting this.

    I have a question for you – since I didn’t win the copy LightRoom!! all I have is PhotoShop :-), and I know you said it was easy to do a vignette with PS too, but I can’t find anything obvious. Or did I misunderstand you?

  22. So great of you to put up the notes! So great to hear a refresher.

    I have been soooo busy – as usual – but very soon I want to get up the review and giveaway for your fabulous videos. They are so great – you are such a talented teacher! So many talents you both have!!!! 🙂

    Talk soon 🙂

  23. Since it is after midnight – I plead exhaustion for the fact that I said “so great” THREE times in that last comment! good grief!

    But I mean – you really are “sooooo great!” lol

  24. […] if you didn’t go to BlogHer and are interested in photography, you can read Me Ra Koh’s photography tips, THE EXACT TIPS SHE GAVE US AT THE CONFERENCE AND WE PAID FOR!  You can get it for FREE!  She was a fantastic speaker, explaining things in easy to understand […]

  25. Catharina says:

    Thank you SO MUCH for these tips! One of my new years resolutions is to actually LEARN something about photography and not just always point and shoot. This is really helpful for getting an idea about what iso, fstop, shutter speed even means! I also love the tip about working on one thing at a time.

  26. […] not have to think about camera settings and just play with composition!  I was thinking about the Third’s Principle a lot, and seeing how far I could push the envelope.  It was also fun having the space of a square […]