Ken’s Tips On Your Pics: Choose your location.
Hi Ken – I like this photo of my daughter but what could I have done to make it better? Carol.
Carol's daughter
Well Carol, I’m afraid that this photo suffers from some of the problems that affect many family snaps. To start with the first thing that you should do is turn off the date stamp on your camera. The date is in the metadata of the image file and should be easy to find in whatever image editing programme you are using on your computer. It is always there and so no need to have it distracting your attention away from your daughter.
I would also turn off the automatic flash setting on your camera. It looks like it is a lovely day, flash shouldn’t be needed and is very difficult to use well unless you are very experienced.
Most people when photographing their friends and family only see the subject and not the background. When photographing your daughter you were probably thinking how lovely she looked in her dress and you certainly have captured that. You have also captured two cars and a lot of the car park which I’m sure wasn’t of any interest to you. You probably never even noticed the car park when taking the picture as you were thinking only of your daughter.
Unlike the human brain the camera isn’t selective in what it sees, it will photograph whatever you point it at. When you take photos in the future look carefully at the viewfinder or screen and see if there is anything in the picture that you don’t want there. You can always move around to get a different viewpoint or ask the subject to move.
You may have a got a much nicer picture if you had asked your daughter to sit or stand on the wall at the back of the car park, using the view behind as a backdrop. Or you could have stood her by the trees so there was only foliage behind her, which would have been less distracting.
Don’t be discouraged, keep taking pics and think more about what is going on behind your subject. There are more tips on photographing your family on my blog and it gets easier with practice. Hope this helps.
Excellent feature & great tips there. Is this open to other entries?
By Claire at 9:23 pm on Jun 24, 2010
Anyone can enter a photo Claire, just post your pic on my Facebook Page (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ken-Sharp-Photographer/370719932482) or send your pic to lesley@kensharp.com. I will try to respond quickly.
By Ken at 10:48 pm on Jun 24, 2010
Thanks Ken – really appreciate you taking the time to offer some great advice, will take on board all you mentioned and it’s now my mission to take some fab photos, thanks again. Carol
By Carol at 11:30 pm on Jun 24, 2010
No problem Carol. Try experimenting and post something in a month or two and we can see how much you have improved. One of the great things about digital is that it doesn’t cost anything to practice.
By Ken at 4:29 pm on Jun 25, 2010