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February 5, 2025 | 11:54am
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.
Exposure triangle
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 good photography. He showed samples of his photos where a contrasting photo was made using light. Texture in a photo, such as an animal footprint in a desert, can be shot with the light at a certain angle.
Composition techniques
When it comes to composition, Atom listed some of the commonly accepted rules.
There is the oft-cited Rule of Thirds, where the most interesting part of a subject is put at the intersection of the lines that make up the frames divided into three in a photograph.
Symmetrical photos with an equal balance of elements in both the left and right parts of the photo make a striking photograph.
Dynamic photos, such as boxing, can be captured by observing diagonal lines in a frame.
Use of foreground and background does not render a photo flat, Atom said. Concentrating and drawing the eye of the viewer to a dominant feature of a subject is also another compositional technique.
As a photojournalist with a sense of ethics, Atom also touched on taking photos that capture important moments.
“When you find a moment and they become vulnerable and you earned their trust, that is the moment that you take a photograph,” he said, referring to photos of women preparing for a performance he took while he was in North Korea.
Learn and break the rules
After enumerating these rules and giving these tips, Atom gave a contrary piece of advice for photography enthusiasts.
“Ang pinaka-importante to be able to express your personality is personal style. Learn all of the tips, all of the tricks, all of the rules, but be ready to break it. Kasi if gagamit ka ng Rule of Thirds palagi, sa totoo lang, boring. Wala masyadong dating. You have to know the rules so you can break them,” Atom said.
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