Hi, again!
I’m sure you’re familiar with this scene: a family get-together, everyone is outside, the kids are having fun, the parents are happy just to watch and take pictures.
While visiting my family in Kansas City this month, we set up a water slide for the kids and my sister started taking photos. After she got her round of shots, she and I left the kids playing, went inside, and looked through the pictures in her viewfinder. We flipped through all of the photos, laughing and having a great time, and then it occurred to me — we were inside enjoying the kids in her camera, instead of outside enjoying the actual kids, live and three-dimensional!
I’m not about to preach now that we should all put the camera down and enjoy life more. Is that what you’re thinking? While that may be true for some, that’s not where I’m going with my epiphany.
Here’s where I am heading: how interesting that after we got our fill of watching the kids play, my sister and I wanted to stare at the photos. We could have just gone back outside for more.
But that would have been a different experience.
There is just something about a photo. We’ve captured life in a different way. We’ve frozen a facial expression. We’ve immortalized a certain pose a loved one tends to adopt only for fractions of a second. We’ve made time stop. Pictures are life-captures and there is something so wonderful about them.
But how do you strike that delicate balance between living life and hiding behind the camera? Here’s how I do it…
- Keep the camera easily accessible so you can grab it more often and in spontaneous moments.
- Spend five or ten minutes taking the shots, and then put the camera away. You’ve taken enough!
Story-telling Photos
While in that 5-10 minute photo-journalist mode, you can think in terms of STORY to make sure you get those life-capturing shots. Here’s how:
- Setting & Mood – step back, maybe even use a wide-angle, to show the setting.
- Characters – Get a few group shots and some individual shots. Make sure you have a few good potential shots of each person, whether in a group or individually. Get them being themselves and doing their thing, rather than try to pose them for each shot. This will capture personality.
- Relationships – if you’re with a group of people you don’t get to photograph every day, try to get at least one picture of all of the different relationships. It is especially cool if you get them interacting naturally so you can capture the real essence of the relationship.
- Details – get in close for composition variety, and to really hone in on the details of what is happening.
- Action – Action is more interesting than a pose. Action shots tell what’s happening.
Here are some examples. Notice how much of the story I’ve already captured of our 4th of July, just through the pictures alone…
Setting
Characters
Relationships
Details
Action
Get these five shot types and then you can put that camera down and get in on the fun, knowing you’ve done your job as the family photo-journalist!
Tags: 4th of July, Photography, Scrapbooking, story
