Any old picture with all its flaws from red eye to unbalanced light is fine for posting on Facebook, but holiday pictures require a little more attention to detail: after all, they’re going to be cherished and enjoyed for many years. Here are some tips to help achieve that goal.
Off-centre the Subject
Pictures where the subject is perfectly centred are fine for professional photos, but they tend to look too posed for holiday pictures. Save the posing for driver’s license photos. Try to balance the subject with something in the background. Set the focus based on the main subject with the background slightly blurred. Off-centre pictures provide some context by including background details in the shot. Off-centre shots tend to work better if they are taken outside since there is likely to be more going on in the background.
Get Up Close and Personal
Sometimes there might not be anything really interesting in the background or the subject is so captivating that a background is not that important. For example, if a baby is crawling around on the floor, get down on the floor and take a close-up shot of the baby. The expression captured is likely to be adorable. These shots probably will not be balanced. In other words, a head shot will look as if the person has a giant head. That is generally fine though: candid shots are supposed to be a little off balance.
Candid Shots
These tend to be the ones that standout from other photos. Taking candid shots does require a quick trigger finger, since the “magical moments” in life tend to happen with very little advance notice.
For example, if a child is opening a gift, do not give them advance warning that a picture is being taken, just take it. Candid shots, by nature, are taken quickly without the subject being aware of it, which is part of the fun of these shots.
Group/Family Shots
These photos will be posed – there is no getting around it. These shots usually start with somebody saying, “let’s all gather around for picture.” Take multiple shots – the first one will likely be people randomly gathering together in no particular order. For the sake of getting everyone in, take another shot with people organized by height with taller subjects in the back and smaller subjects upfront. It may be a cliché, but saying a phase such as “cheese” really does help people smile!
These days, most people have digital cameras and with so much choice on the market you can choose one that will best suit the type of photograph you will most often be taking. With these features pictures are less-likely to be “ruined” if they are slightly blurry or turn out wrong as they can be fixed later on, so just relax and smile!
Tyler Morton is an avid blogger. He focuses on consumer goods in the UK market.
