The Photography Tip of the Week #076

Posted by Philip in General, Photo Philosophy, Podcast

The Photography Tip of the Week #001

Posted by Philip in Podcast

Photography Tip of the Week 001 (audio)
Come a little closer…

Do you shudder when someone asks if you want to see photos from their latest trip, birthday party, or even of their kids? Why don’t you like looking at 300 or so photos of someone else’s trip to a theme park? Is it because it’s other people in the photo or is there something else keeping you from wanting to jump in to see all of their photos? I think it’s because the photos all too often are rather uninspiring. For the person who took the photo, when they see it, it stirs up memories of that moment. They get an emotional connection back to the instant the shutter clicked. You don’t have that, so the photos become “Wow that’s you standing in front of a building. And look, you’re standing in front of another building somewhere else.” How does one break this boredom and make a more compelling image?
The easiest thing you can do to make your photos more compelling is to get in closer. No, closer. Come on a bit more. Ok, that might be too much. But you get the idea. Feel free to take pictures to document your trips, your day, your memories, but every now and then, get in close… really close. When you get in really close to your subject, you can start capturing the emotion of the moment. The focus of the image goes from wide angle where you can see everything in sharp detail to just one thing. Don’t worry about getting your subject squarely within the center of the frame with plenty of border around the image. In fact, make sure you get in close enough so you can’t see the whole thing.
Since an image is the best way to illustrate this difference, here’s two for you. This first photo is a standard snapshot. I call it a snapshot because it’s an image that is just there to document that instant in time. I know that there was some kids at the playground and my daughter was wearing a pink shirt and getting off the bouncy turtle. It’s a nice enough image, it’s just boring. It shows people doing things, but nothing else. There’s no reason for you to linger on this image. There is no one clear subject and everything is in focus, so there is nothing to draw you in.

The second image is NOT a cropped image, it is a tighter shot of my daughter with one of the playground toys. You still know she’s at the playground. You know she’s playing with the toys, but now you don’t have the distractions of other things going on in the image. The background is naturally out of focus. The shot is tight enough to where you don’t know if she’s getting on or off the toy. That’s not important because you are now focused on her and the expression on her face. What that expression says, I don’t know. And yet you are drawn in to feel what could be going on in her mind at that moment. The image is immediately more compelling, because their is a clear subject, a clear focus.

I’m not saying that just getting in closer to your subject is the only thing you need to do to make a more compelling image. There are a lot of factors to take into consideration. However, it is one of the easiest things that can be done to take a photo from ho-hum to something that is worth spending a moment to study.