foxgrrl | Julia's Secret Photographic Technique PART 5

Composition

What you don't show in the frame is far more important than what you do show.

I see lots and lots of convention photos, where the photographer has used an ultra-wide lens to get an entire person in the frame, all the way from their head to their feet… But… nobody wants to look at those feet, they're just not interesting. You don't need to fit someone's feet into every shot with them. If the feet are interesting, then take a picture of the feet directly. Give everyone a good look at them, because when they're at the bottom of a person, in the center of the frame, you can't see them — you can't see that much else either. Choose what you want the subject of the photo to be, and only show that. Most people, being animals, find eyes and faces to be interesting. You won't go wrong using those as a subject.

Use a fast lens, at a wide-open aperture (f/1.4 to f/2.8 if you can) to blur out the background too. Nobody is interesting in the background, unless it is interesting. At a convention, the background is a hotel, which isn't as interesting as whatever drove you to take the photo.

The lens which I recommend for everyone to use is an f/1.4 50mm prime. To which most people say: "But! But! How will I zoom?!" The solution is very simple:

If you want to subject to appear larger, move closer to the subject.

If you want to subject to appear smaller, move away from the subject.

If you are at a party or convention, where you can hold a normal conversation with your subject, you don't need a zoom

Take these two photos for example:

Burning Man Decompression 2007

I was speaking with

veleda while I took these. For the close-up one, I moved myself and my camera closer to her. For the wider angle one^† I moved further away. If you could see that she was laying on a fold-up cot, near the ground, it would only detract from this photo. The subject is her, not where she's laying down.

You're not stuck in one place when you take a photo, move around.

In summary:

Showing less, is actually more. There is less to distract the eye and the mind from the purity of essence, of whatever it was you wanted to capture by taking the photo in the first place. Make your photo be about one thing, and one thing only. The totality of it's meaning should all be focused on it's message.

(I guess you could say "Take a picture, of what you're taking a picture of, and don't take a picture of what you're not taking a picture of.")

(Does anyone think that I should give a presentation on this stuff at FC? "How to take convention photos that don't suck")

† Technically, from a scientific-optical point of view, it's all the same angle: 50mm.