Improving Your Photos: Get Close - Hints for ambitious Photographers
© Marie Cheek
Here's an easy field assignment: Dust off your old photo albums and break out the archived digital images. Take some time to go back over those images. Do these pictures have anything in common with each other? Are many of your photos taken from a far-away, stand-offish vantage point? Do some of them have a small subject, surrounded by lots of empty space or unnecessary background? Many beginning photographers and even some experienced shutterbugs hesitate to move in close to a subject. This can still result in a nice photo, but it never quite captures the emotion or detail that closeness can create.
Review Your Photos
Study 3 or 4 of your favorite photos. What about them do you like? Is it the subject? Maybe the composition of the subject and surroundings? Ask yourself if the picture could've been improved had you moved in closer. Would anything have been lost? This is especially true of photos involving people. The eye is naturally drawn to human faces, and the more distinguishable, the better. A cluttered or chaotic background greatly distracts the eye from your subject also. If you're taking a photo of your toddler in the backyard, and you want to capture the wonder and excitement only a 2 year old can generate, move in close. Kneel down, interact with the child until they're use to you and your proximity to them, and begin snapping. Why show the toddler as 1/20th of your overall picture, when really what everyone wants to see is the child enjoying himself, and what better way to demonstrate then by moving in close?
Examples
Photo A is an example of an often seen group photo. The subjects are grouped together well, but there's far too much space around them that adds nothing to the photo. At this distance, it's difficult to make out any facial expressions.
Photo B, below, was taken immediately after Photo A, and the photographer has moved in closer. Notice how much easier you can discern the emotion conveyed? While the expressions in Photo A are happier, Photo B is more likely to be looked at and for a longer period of time, simply because your subjects are larger and fill the frame.
For the sake of this exercise, neither photo was edited. However, if I were going to email or print this, I'd do more cropping to take out some of the dark space around the edges of the frame.
Go To Page: 1 2
| Here's the follow-up discussion on this article: | View all related messages |
For a complete listing of article comments, questions, and other discussions related to Marie Cheek's Digital Photography topic, please visit the Discussions page.