6 Tips for Photographing Large People
The first thing to acknowledge here is that large people know that they’re large. As with any body type (skinny included) their body image may cause them to believe that their either larger or smaller than they are. You can tastefully discuss body image with them clients which is something I may be inclined to do with any type of person. Understanding how a client feels about their body is always a great thing to know. And if they’ve scheduled a photo session, they’re probably already pretty confident people.
As a society, we try to find ways to make people look smaller and we think that smaller = more attractive, but this doesn’t need to be our primary focus when shooting large people. Making them appear comfortable? Now that’s important. And I agree, laying on the ground is usually a no-go. Here are a few tips I’ve found helpful:
- Use a telephoto lens or the longest zoom that you have. This will compress the shot and keep it from suffering from widening distortion. Experiment with the distortion correction in Photoshop to see if there’s any barreling that you don’t notice on first inspection.
- Don’t shoot from a low angle.
- You can shoot from higher up looking down, but beware that this is a way overused tactic for photographing larger people so throw in lots of other types of framing, not just this one.
- You can use one subject’s body to shield another (if one is lighter than the other)
- Obviously, you have the option of not photographing their whole body. Try different varieties of head-and-shoulders shots, but beware that they may feel that you’re saying that they’re unattractive if you don’t also provide them with body shots. Your job is to photograph them like you would anyone else so don’t think you’re doing them a favour by completely ignoring their entire body.
- In a post of mine this week on posing families, try the ‘huddle’ and ’squeeze in’ poses which eliminates full body shots.
Thanks so much for reading and share your tips below!
Post from: Digital Photography School - Photography Tips. Check out our resources on Portrait Photography Tips, Travel Photography Tips and Understanding Digital Cameras.
6 Tips for Photographing Large People
5 more Tips for Escaping the Luck Shooter Mentality
Q. “I’ve read your post on 5 ways to stop being a luck photographer a dozen times and I desire to do that! But I’m having a hard time letting go of that mentality of if I don’t click as often I’ll ‘miss’ the shot. I’m stuck with the ‘what if I miss it’ mindset and can’t seem to shake it.”
A. I akin the impulse to keep pressing the shutter to the mother bear instinct. It’s pretty fierce, the instinct to shoot continuously, for fear of missing something. I think for myself as a mom, especially, it actually IS part of my mother bear instinct. I’m dead set on preserving their childhood and keeping them young and sweet forever and the stone cold fear of missing one single moment is unmistakable.
In the post 5 ways to stop shooting for luck and start taking pictures on purpose, I outlined the 5 things you need to work on to stop being a ’spray and pray’ photographer. If you’ve got these skills but still find it hard to let go of the impulse to shoot at random, consider these 5 more tips:
Sometimes it’s ok - It’s not always so bad to shoot at random. I dedicate a small portion of my sessions to a few moments of complete spontaneity. With a paying client {for whom I absolutely must provide results} I would be careful about what portion of the session this takes place and I usually place it towards the end. Once kids start running wild and free, it’s hard to reel them back in. But as long as you’re purposefully doing it, it’s ok! It gets my heart racing to pop a memory card into the computer once in a while and see what magic may have happened without me even realizing it.
Familiarity – Shoot in locations you know well. This can keep you calm and relaxed and remove the element of not being familiar with your surroundings. And to be even more controlled, try to shoot at the same time of day when possible.
Breathe – If you start feeling frantic and out of control, take a breather. Put your camera down, shake it out and calculate your next shot.
Resist – In my experience, when I resist the impulse to just ‘grab’ this shot or that shot and I actually handcraft the portrait I’m after, I have felt far more deeply satisfied with the end results than I ever did by taking 500 shots and ending up with a couple magic ones. Because no matter how magical they may have been, I know that I didn’t make those photos, I merely captured them. Sometimes this is what I’m after, but mostly, it’s not. I want to make portraits, not just take pictures.
Challenge – Set yourself a challenge. Plan a shot. Go out and take it. Don’t shoot anything else. Dedicate the session to taking that one perfect shot and once you think you’ve got it, go home and revel in the beauty of what you’ve accomplished. You’ll get addicted, I promise! And next time, try two ideas and then three. Next thing you know, you’ll be a photographer capable of producing an entire session of portraits you planned before you even stepped out the door.
Post from: Digital Photography School - Photography Tips. Check out our resources on Portrait Photography Tips, Travel Photography Tips and Understanding Digital Cameras.
5 more Tips for Escaping the Luck Shooter Mentality
5 Tough Love Tips for Photographing Toddlers
I’ve had quite a few toddler sessions recently and have discovered a few things: They actually love being sent to the corner. A girl really does need an extra set of hands and they just move faster with their feet on the ground!
1. Put them in the corner. I’ve found that a great corner (I love bricks) can be very useful when photographing little ones on the run. They really have nowhere to go! Of course, that won’t stop them from running right between your legs, but it always buys me enough time for a few great shots and when they run away, we just go back to the corner again!
2. Ground them. Getting their little feet off the ground will give you time to get the shot. And by time, I mean 20 seconds tops. And that’s a lot of time for a toddler to not be moving so get ready before you set up the shot. For this shot, we sat him on an old tire which got his feet off the ground and satisfied the grubby boy in him for a moment. He didn’t sit still on the chair, but boy that tire was fun!
3. Bring a chaperone. They’ll hate you for it when they’re teenagers, but a partner in crime is much appreciated during a toddler photo session. They get sick of the whole idea pretty fast, but if you’ve got on-hand entertainment via a super bubbly (and kid friendly) ‘baby wrangler’, then you’re in business.
4. Include their parents without ruining their street cred. I rarely photograph families. My sessions are entirely focused on the little person. Have you ever noticed in cartoons like Muppet Babies (from the 80s) the parents were present, but never shown above the knee? The premise was to stay down low in baby world. I love bringing this idea into my sessions with something as simple as a mother’s guiding hand like in the shot on the right –>
5. Shout at them. I love this spot on the farm where I shoot. The fence on the left, the trees on the right. Not much space to escape. So I have them run away but at the right time, I shout their name and wait for them to look back. Let them do what they want and when you feel the moment, shout their name. But don’t waste your shouts because if you just keep shouting, they’ll drown you out pretty fast. I find that I get one chance – two if I’m lucky – to get a true reflex-reaction out of shouting their name.
I love toddlers. They’re so honest. They don’t know how to fake it yet and I feel like when I get ‘the shot’, I’ve really earned it.
Post from: Digital Photography School - Photography Tips. Check out our resources on Portrait Photography Tips, Travel Photography Tips and Understanding Digital Cameras.
5 Tough Love Tips for Photographing Toddlers
Using Focal Points in Photography
Next time you take your digital camera out and line it up for a shot pause before you press the shutter button and ask yourself:
“What is the Focal Point in this Picture?”
Some other ways to ask the same question might include – What is the central point of interest? What will draw the eye of the viewers of this picture? What in this image will make it stand out from others? What is my subject?
The reason a focal point is important is that when you look at an image your eye will generally need a ‘resting place’ or something of interest to really hold it. Without it you’ll find people will simply glance at your shots and then move on to the next one.
Once you’ve identified a point of interest or focal point you then should ask yourself how you can enhance it.
6 Techniques to Enhance the Focal Point in an Image
A focal point can be virtually anything ranging from a person, to a building, to a mountain, to a flower etc. Obviously the more interesting the focal point the better – but there are other things you can do to enhance it’s power including:
- Position – Place it in a prominent position – you might want to start with the rule of thirds for some ideas.
- Focus – Learn to use Depth of Field to blur out other aspects in front or behind your focal point.
- Blur – If you really want to get tricky you might want to play with slower shutter speeds if your main subject is still and things around it are moving.
- Size – making your focal point large is not the only way to make it prominent – but it definitely can help.
- Color – using contrasting colors can also be a way of setting your point of interest apart from it’s surroundings.
- Shape – similarly contrasting shapes and textures can make a subject stand out – especially patterns that are repeated around a subject.
Keep in mind that a combination of above elements can work well together.
Lastly – don’t confuse the viewer with too many competing focal points which might overwhelm the main focal point. Secondary points of interest can be helpful to lead the eye but too many strong ones will just clutter and confuse.
Post from: Digital Photography School - Photography Tips. Check out our resources on Portrait Photography Tips, Travel Photography Tips and Understanding Digital Cameras.
Using Focal Points in Photography
Composition: Not Just About Positioning Your Subject, But About Positioning Yourself Too
Composition is not just about positioning subjects in your shot – but sometimes is more about positioning yourself as a photographer in order to make a more pleasing arrangement of subjects in your frame.
I learned this principle for myself back in a high school photography class where my teacher pointed out that every portrait I took was taken from a standing position. This meant any time I took a shot of someone seated – I was looking down on them – not always a flattering and engaging look.
Height is one way to alter your perspective as a photographer. In many cases a shot taken from or just below the eye level of your subject is ideal and creates a more intimate shot. However mixing it up can also leave you with a creative and interesting perspective.
Looking down on someone looking up at you can also be powerful – and looking up from the ground at someone can dramatically alter the look and feel of the shot also.
Of course shooting height isn’t the only element you can change. The distance between you and your subject is another factor worth experimenting with. Shooting from a distance can show your subject in their environment – while shooting up close and tightly framing your shot can help to isolate them from a distracting background.
One last way to alter the composition of an image by moving yourself as the photographer is to move around your subject. While shooting a portrait from in front of a person is probably the most sensible place to start in most instances – a side view (portrait) or even shooting from behind can create some interesting shots.
Many times as photographers using cameras with zoom lenses we can get a little lazy with composition – allowing it to be a matter of focal length – but it’s good to remind yourself that being a little more mobile and altering your shooting perspective can add a lot to an image.
Post from: Digital Photography School - Photography Tips. Check out our resources on Portrait Photography Tips, Travel Photography Tips and Understanding Digital Cameras.
Composition: Not Just About Positioning Your Subject, But About Positioning Yourself Too
20 Examples Of Low Angle Photography
In my previous post, 7 Tips For Great Low Angle Shots, I listed out a few ways to help shoot life from a lower angle. (And thanks to those of you who mentioned using Live View, especially if your rear LCD flips out!) Not all low angle shots need to be right on the ground looking up. Some great shots are taken slightly higher and can still show a large degree of perspective. To add some inspiration, I filed through the Creative Commons images on Flickr to find some examples that I find fun, exciting, different or just cool. I hope they spark a few ideas to get you out and shooting!
Copyright Perpetual Sunset
Copyright Ryan S B
Copyright AlwaysBreaking
Copyright lastbeats
Copyright ecstaticst
Copyright John Ryan
Copyright ToniVC
Copyright Brandon Doran
Copyright VOD Cars
Copyright MightyBoyBrian
Copyright Richard:Fraser
Copyright JonathanCohen
Copyright fernando
Copyright kennysarmy
Copyright jonmartin ()
Copyright Pörrö
Copyright jamesjustin
Copyright blenty
Copyright www.hafizismail.net
Copyright ewilfong
Post from: Digital Photography School
Knowing My Limits – Why I Don’t Do HDR
I’m going to go out on a limb and state, for the record, I don’t like the overuse of HDR that is touted as examples of good HDR these days. I am not some fundamentalist, purist curmudgeon who despises progress and still does his art with firewood charcoal on a cave wall. I love digital photography. And its limits. Yes, I love the limits.
The limits of digital photography, currently, keep the images captured within the realm of realistic, lifelike photos. Photography, from its roots, has always been an attempt at capturing reality as seen through the eyes of the person behind the camera. That has certainly changed over the years as people experiment with new techniques and ideas. Experimenting and expanding is good and this is where some of you may find space to call me a hypocrite.
But before you do, hear me out and then I’d actually enjoy hearing your sane, civil, reasoned rebuttal in the comments section below.
HDR, when overused, is a grotesque abomination of the reality of life. I’m thinking here of cityscapes looking directly into the sun. Those types of scenes when the human brain looks at the HDR image and screams, “Fake!”. I’m not using any examples in this post so as to not focus on any one particular images. Rather, for me, the annoyance comes from attempting to create something that doesn’t exist.
Is it art, if not an accurate representation of what is? I doubt it. Most of the HDR I have seen passed around the internet as “amazing” is not attempting art. It is taking a literal scene that you enjoy and attempting to skirt around the reality of it; that it’s too harshly lit, that it has huge shadows or that the contrast is making things not so pretty. It’s taking an attempt at reality and turning it into a lie.
Maybe I am an old curmudgeon after all. To me, HDR is trying to improve on the beauty of life as experienced through the human eye and brain. It’s saying, “Oh, you can’t see the highlight and the shadows at the same time? Here, let me change that.” I know, things like this have been happening for centuries. Things like polarized sunglasses which surely alter our perception of the world. Or even rose colored glasses. All of them do, so why shouldn’t HDR?
Because there is so much more to learn and improve in the realm of photography that HDR need not even apply. It bugs me that, when I look at the full gallery of someone with an HDR shot, on Flickr for instance, people getting into it still don’t have the fundamental basics down to the point where they can produce solid photos time and time again. I see it used more as a gimmick than an honest extension of one’s artistic vision. Yes, there are some photographers, much accomplished in the field, who experiment with HDR. But the majority of people trying out HDR, and taking it too far, are people who should be experimenting with shutter speed and depth of field first!
It’s not that HDR is totally evil (just mostly) and should be done away with. I know it’s a bit of a craze and newfangled thing right now. Just stop taking it too far and stop using it in place of proper exposure and accepting the limits of the scene in front of you. There is so much great stuff to learn about proper exposure that the HDR gadget can just sit at the back of the drawer like the outgrown toy it has become.
Care to differ? Please do! Just keep it civil.
Post from: Digital Photography School
Divine Composition With Fibonacci’s Ratio (The Rule of Thirds on Steroids)
Are you a stickler for little details? Well, if you’re a photographer, you had better be. Discovering the rule of thirds is a big milestone for any photographer. Suddenly, you realize that all you ever did before was center your subject right smack dab in the middle of the frame, because that’s where the camera’s focus grid is located. Makes sense right? The rule of thirds took you to new heights in your photographic journey, moving your subject off to one side or another in your frame, or to the top or bottom. But don’t some of these photos look a bit crowded being so close to either side of the frame? Sure it works in some cases, but what if there was still another rule you could incorporate into your photographic repertoire?
Enter Fibonacci’s Ratio…
Also known as the Golden Mean, Phi, or Divine Proportion, this law was made famous by Leonardo Fibonacci around 1200 A.D. He noticed that there was an absolute ratio that appears often throughout nature, a sort of design that is universally efficient in living things and pleasing to the human eye. Hence, the “divine proportion” nickname.
Since the Renaissance, artists and architects have designed their work to approximate this ratio of 1:1.618. It’s found all over the Parthenon, in famous works of art like the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper, and it’s still used today. The divine proportion has been used by companies like Apple to design products, it’s said to have been used by Twitter to create their new profile page, and has been used by major companies all over the world to design logos. It’s not talked about in most photography circles because it’s a somewhat advanced method of composition and can be confusing to a lot of people. It’s so much easier to just talk about the “rule of thirds” because it’s exact, precise and easy to follow.
This ratio can be used in many ways to compose a photograph. Lightroom 3 even has a golden ratio overlay option when you go to crop on image. This way, you can line up a grid of the golden ratio to coincide with lines or points of interest in your photograph. At this point, you may be quite confused. If you are, please take a few moments to watch any one (or all) of these videos that seek to explain this ratio.
Video 1: Natures Number: 1.618
Video 2: Nature by Numbers
Video 3: Golden Ratio
Ok, hopefully that made things a bit more clear? By now you should know that this is NOT a conspiracy theory or fuzzy math. This is a real aspect of composition that has been used by historical famous artists and architects, and Fortune 500 companies. When applied to photography, this ratio can produce aesthetically pleasing compositions that can be magnets for the human sub-conscious. When you take the sweet spot of the Fibonnaci Ratio and recreate it four times into a grid, you get what looks to be a rule of thirds grid. However, upon closer inspection you will see that this grid is not an exact splitting of the frame into three pieces. Instead of a 3 piece grid that goes 1+1+1=frame, you get a grid that goes 1+.618+1=frame. Here are a few examples a Phi grid placed over some images that I’ve used it on in the past…
In the above example, I placed the slightly more dominant eye of the horse on one of the Phi intersections. Consider that if I had placed a rule of thirds grid over this photo and lined the eye up with that, the head would be crowding the left side of the frame. In this photo, the head isn’t center, it’s not crowding either side. It’s just right, would you agree? Let’s take a look at another…
This one is slightly different. If you’re a REAL stickler for details, you may have noticed that there is a slight difference between the intersecting lines of the Phi graph, and the sweet spot of Phi itself. In this image, I made sure to align the head of my subject within the spiral and placed the left eye approximately over the sweet spot. Ok, moving on…
In this photograph, from Key West, I lined up the horizon with the top line of the Phi grid. In my opinion, when you line up the horizon with a rule of thirds grid, the separation is too…obvious. I think it would leave a bit too much of what isn’t the subject in the image. In this photo, the sky and clouds are the perfect compliment to what I’m trying to convey in the photo: The church on the bottom right, and the famous Duval street on the left. But with any more sky than is already present in the photo, the viewer might think the sky is actually the subject. Here’s one more…
In this example, I used multiple lines on the Phi grid for my final composition. I lined up the doors with both vertical lines, as well as the bottom horizontal line. This provided for a perfect amount of ceiling to lead the viewers eye to the door. Here’s a few more examples without the grid. See if you can imagine the grid over the images and determine why the image was composed the way it was.
Conclusion
Hopefully, this article has shed some light on a somewhat mysterious subject in the world of photography. Fibonacci’s Ratio is a powerful tool for composing your photographs, and it shouldn’t be dismissed as a minor difference from the rule of thirds. While the grids look similar, using Phi can sometimes mean the difference between a photo that just clicks, and one that doesn’t quite feel right. I’m certainly not saying that the rule of thirds doesn’t have a place in photography, but Phi is a far superior and much more intelligent and historically proven method for composing a scene.
If you’d like to start incorporating this powerful composition tool into your photography, you’re in luck! I’ve included a PNG overlay of both the Fibonacci Spiral and the Fibonacci Grid. Just click this download link to start using them. These overlays are for use in Photoshop. Just place them into the file you are working on, then scale them to the correct size of the image.
Post from: Digital Photography School
How to Use Your Zoom Lens as a Compositional Aid
One of the most helpful tips that an old pro photographer once gave me was to use my zoom lens as a compositional aid rather than a way to get close to my subject.
Image by Jay Williams
He told me this just after I bought my first 70-200mm lens. I proudly showed it to him and told him that ‘now I’ll be able to get right in close to the brides and grooms I was preparing to photograph in a friend’s wedding’.
He paused for a moment and smiled before replying – ’sure…. you can use it for that, but don’t let your zoom lens make your lazy. You still need to use your feet!’
I sensed he wanted to say more but was worried about offending me (he was such a nice guy) so I encouraged him to tell me what he was thinking.
He said – let me show you what I mean and proceeded to take my camera (and zoom lens) and take two images of me.
The first he shot from around 4 meters away and the second he shot from 10 or so meters away. For the first shot he used a shorter focal length and the second shot he used a longer one.
He returned to me with my camera and we looked at the two shots. They were both head and shoulders portraits – I, as the subject, was pretty much exactly the same size in both shots – however the difference in the shots was quite remarkable and it was all in the background of the image.
The first shot was taken with a short focal length (around 70mm) and from a relatively close distance and the background looked quite far away and small. There was a lot of background in the shot – it really put me as the subject into context of my environment (a park with other people around – quite a busy background).
The second shot was taken with a long focal length (around 200mm) and from further away. While I as the subject was around the same size as in the first shot the background was much more amplified. In fact you could see just a portion of what was in frame in the first shot. He’d lined up the second shot so that the part of the background was quite plain and uncluttered (no people).
The first shot was composed so that anyone viewing the shot would see me in my context (a good environmental image) but the second one isolated me from my background – the focus was squarely and fairly on me and me alone.
You can see this principle illustrated really nicely in the images above. While the model takes up much the same amount of space in each of the shots – the five different focal lengths product quite different compositions. None are particularly ‘bad’ photos – but each produces very different results.
Do you experiment with different focal lengths to produce different compositions and perspectives in your shots?
Post from: Digital Photography School
Creating Multi-Layered Photographs
As photographers we’re responsible for telling the story of a moment or series of events in a single image. It allows the viewer to take a mental trip through our photographs. No matter what your focus is in photography, being able to convey a story will help add impact to your images. One of the ways to do that is through creating multi-dimensional or multi-layered images.
I’m not referring to any fancy Photoshop move so back away from adding yet another background layer in post. No, the layers I’m referring to are points of interest throughout a photograph. They can either be a different and fully complete second focal point to your image, or an action/object/idea just hinted at. Either way, they can lend a sense of place or of action yet to happen or already occurred.
Think of your entire frame
The first step in creating multi-layered images is to be aware of what’s in your entire frame. Every part of your photograph can and does tell a story or impact how a viewer connects with an image. Do you focus on every layer of your photographs?
A great landscape photograph could be completely destroyed by a big piece of trash in a corner of one of the frames. On the opposite note, that piece of trash could be a very big statement to the image. It’s all in knowing what you’re trying to say and being able to frame your image or place items in it that evoke your vision.
Concepts trump “single” photos
A key tenet in advertising and editorial photography is to create images that tell a story around a specific concept. An entire idea or series of photos need to be compressed into one single image. It’s how an ad in a magazine for a resort or hotel makes you say, “Man, I’d really like to go there.” It’s the emotions and feelings that one photo draws out.
It’s possible to do that by creating layers in a photo. For example, a resort photo might show a woman getting a stone massage under a tropical leaf hut and in the background windsurfers are cruising the waves on the clear blue ocean. That image creates a feeling of relaxation and adventure all in one, and a greater appeal to viewers who might value different activities in a vacation. It can be subtle things like in the photo to the left where the model is holding a new iPhone and in the background is an old rotary phone, conveying the classic feel of your old phone in this new wonder of technology.
Motion is yet another way to create a multi-dimensional image. It can lend the sense of an impending action. Whether you freeze a single moment, say a group of friends jumping off a rock into the water, or create some blur as a cyclist streaks by on an adventure, both make you wonder what’s next.
Plan and scout
If you’re photographing for journalistic purposes, you won’t be able to plan ahead or arrange any of the elements in your image. However, what makes a great news-telling image is the ability to convey a story through noticing even the tiniest details.
If you’re shooting commercially you’ll have the advantage to fully plan out your photo shoot. Try to scout the location to determine the best time to shoot, write down shot ideas and plan different layers of your image. How can you help tell a complete story using all the layers of a photograph?
Start thinking beyond the primary subject of your photograph. When you do, you’ll be on your way to creating richer, story-telling images.
Post from: Digital Photography School