Hi and welcome to the first of what I hope, will be informative tips, which will guide you towards improving your own photography.
I will also help you to get more enjoyment out of your camera. If you have any questions you would like answered, then please feel free to email me at johnw@topshots.com.au.
As a portrait photographer, I spend a large proportion of my time photographing families and children. After 20 years of family and child photography I feel I’ve learnt many things about the subject and after numerous requests from clients asking me to share some simple photography techniques, I was motivated to develop my “tips to better photography”.
This is for all the loyal customers who have supported Top Shots Photography and contributed to our success by not just using our services once, but time and time again.
The Art of Photography
Outdoor Family Photography
With so many of you now upgrading to SLR (Single Lens Reflex) Camera’s, you have the power in your hands to produce professional work. But the Art of Photography does not lie in the equipment. It lies in your mind’s eye. Just to prove my point, The photo above of my son and his cousin was taken with my wife’s little 4 mega pixel point and shoot camera. The photo below was taken on a Nokia mobile phone as I made the mistake of not having a camera with me on a recent trip.
Creative and beautiful Photography
So you can see that the price of your equipment has nothing to do with the final outcome.
So let’s get started.
People skills:
Because my experience is in Family and Child Portraiture as well as Weddings and Commercial Portraiture, I’m going to spend a great amount of time on the subject.
Most photography that people take is of people and so I’m would like to take this opportunity to show you how to get the best out of peole in order to make your portraits look more interesting by capturing the real personalities of those in front of your lens.
The difference between a good people photographer and a great people photographer is the ability to help those being photographed to relax and feel happy during the shoot.
This is especially true when photographing children. If you can see yourself as an entertainer as well as photographer you are more likely to get attention and favourable expressions.
By all means, develop your technical skills but at the same time, learn to become a better communicator of your ideas.
I like to get my subjects to laugh by creating a humorous atmosphere in my studio.
Fun, relaxed and un-posed photography
Just telling your child to smile is not enough. In fact when parents tell their children to smile, the result is a very forced expression.
The best thing to do is make them feel happy to naturally smile by doing funny things. A feather duster works well as do funny words like “Money”,”Silly” or for older kids, “Nannas Knickers” works really well.
Adults are no different. Last week I had a very professional CEO in my studio and he would not smile. After blowing a raspberry he suddenly gave me the best expressions. Adults are stimulated by the same things kids find funny.. In fact, I think adults are kids only bigger.
So when photographing people either in your family or a wedding make it fun and be a clown. You’ll be surprised at the difference in expressions.
Composing your scene:
Have you ever wondered why your photographs don’t look as pleasing as a professional photographers work? Here we are going to unlock the first secret on your journey towards becoming a better photographer.
Photography like speaking, writing and music is a form of communication. When we hear a speaker whose message is disorganised or badly constructed, we soon lose interest. When we read poorly written material, it’s also not to long before we put that piece of literature down. And when we hear music which is badly composed it’s a bit of an ear saw.
Like a composer of music, who assembles instruments which compliment in order to create beautiful sounds. You as the photographic composer also needs to construct a scene using certain fundamental rules which are pleasing to the viewer and therefore classed as beautiful photography.
We are bombarded with so much visual information every day most of us become so used to it that we’ve learnt to ignore it. By the time we are 7 or 8 years old, we have learnt to see most of the world as visual noise and so we the pick up a camera, we point and shoot, trying to squeeze all that visual noise into one frame only to be disappointed by the results.
We’ve all seen the type of photograph I’m describing. Lots of colour, busy backgrounds, many things happening in the photo, and everything is competing for attention. When we saw it through the view finder we didn’t see all that mess because the brain discriminates. We see only what we want to see. The camera however doesn’t discriminate and therefore shows everything.
Remember, Photography is a means of communication and effective communicators send one message at a time. Most beginners are tempted to put as much information into their message as possible and that leads to a picture where not one thing really stands out.
The professional photographer also sees this visual noise, however, the professional has fine-tuned their mental and physical vision to pick out of all that noise, pockets of beauty. The photographer then re-presents this vision to the viewer in a new way, using the following photographic rules we will now discuss.
Focal point One photo one message
Each photograph should only have one message. Everything else in that photograph must either support the main message or it’s best to be left out. If an image has too many messages, it becomes confusing and uninteresting.
A photograph becomes powerful when the viewer is lead into the image towards the main message by a visual pathway. So the professional photographer seeks to enhance the image with a foreground which leads to the main message (focal point) and then beyond the message to the background. It’s also very important that none of the supporting elements in the photograph outshine the main message or focal point.
The Rule of Thirds
Contrary to populart belief, the main focal point doesn’t have to be in the middle of the picture.
Sometimes you can place your focal point (main message) off centre about one third of the way into the picture.
This can make your image more powerful and allow the viewers eye to move around the image.
In this example the child is facing ahead so its only fitting to represent where the child is looking with space. This is this case the rule was very effective. If the child had been placed in the centre of the photograph, it may not have had the same impact.
Please Note: Due to my photography comittments, this is a slow work in progress.
To be continued
If you need any advice about your own photography or camera gear then please feel free to email me on www.topshots.com.au as I will be only too happy to assist you.
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