If you are in the market for a camera, especially a compact or fixed lens point and shoot camera, you’ve probably come across the terms optical and digital zoom. But what do these phrases mean? Is one type of zoom better than another? Camera manufacturers use all kinds of jargon to entice you to buy their products, but the important fundamentals are actually quite straightforward. Hopefully, after reading this article, you will be better informed on all things zoom.
I believe we are all storytellers. But as we are mastering our craft, we can find ourselves so absorbed by the new concept or technique we are trying to learn that we often end up neglecting the story.
The purpose of a photograph is to say something. Sure, we have to learn the technical aspects of light, the exposure triangle, composition, and so much more. But all of those skills are learned so that we can better communicate with our audiences.
Storytelling is always happening in photographs. Both beginners and seasoned photographers are conveying narratives through their images but with different levels of intention, complexity and ease.
As we begin to understand our visual voice, it’s much like learning a new language. We first learn to make simple and concrete sentences. Eventually we are able to express more complex and abstract thoughts.
Today I am sharing 5 steps you can take right now to help you elevate your storytelling game. Wherever you are in your photography journey, you can use these tools to better communicate with your audience.
Most of the time, we see a moment, snap a photo or two, and then put the camera down. Then later, we look at our photos and find that they are just okay. Which is a bummer because there was a story in that moment and we wanted to capture it!
So next time you see a moment that makes you reach for your camera, take a second to identify the story. What emotions do you want to express in your photograph? What characters, plotlines, and actions are guiding the moment? Spend the time to identify what about the scene draws you in and work to photograph that.
Take some time to plan. Think about the story you want to tell with your image. Ask yourself questions to create a detailed plan to help you find your story.
Who is your audience? Who are the characters in your story? What is the best location, environment, or backdrop for your story? What time of day or year will best illustrate your story? Do you want to photograph the plot (main story) or is your story more about a struggle or a happy ending? What is the title of your image? What is the intended mood? Can you identify details that you should include so that a stranger can understand your story?
In this image, I was shooting a family session with my partner. Typically when we shoot together, we alternate from primary to secondary shooter throughout the session. In this instance, while he was capturing the family playing together with this orange ball. I was on the sidelines capturing different perspectives.
All of a sudden, all I could see were this little boy’s legs. A title instantly popped into my head: “friendless”. I quickly positioned myself to emphasize the loneliness (lot of greens and negative space) and waited for the ball to come close to his feet. Click!
In this moment, I saw that *my* story was going to be different from that of my partner’s. It was this little moment alone on the ledge. Once I found my story, I was able to get my photo.
Now that you know the story you want to shoot, it’s time to pick the right angle. Your position in relation to your subject is key in creating a strong image. You need to decide which angle will best tell your story.
Who will tell the story? Will it be a removed narrator, an active participant, or the subject himself? What is the best point of view to illustrate this point of view? From above? From below? At eye level? From behind?
As decisive moments don’t last forever, I recommend first taking a safe shot and then changing your point of view until you find the optimal angle. A less-than-ideal photo of a magical memory is always better than no photo at all!
In this image, I began by shooting from the side so my subjects would be facing my camera. It was my safe (and kind of boring) shot.
Once I had the moment captured, I started to move around. First I moved behind my son (the boy in the back of the final frame) but didn’t like that the girl was hidden in the picture. I moved again and ended up behind dad and daughter (and hoped for the best for my lens!).
I liked the fact that this point of view gave the viewer the feeling of being right in the action. Even better, I was able to capture this extra layer of splash to add depth while also including the antagonist (my son) in the frame. From this perspective, I am able to construct a more complete story.
This is an image of my son writing his letter to Santa. (It’s in French…he wasn’t writing to Cher!). While he was writing, I tried different things but found that the story I was striving toward was incomplete. I tried creating a double exposure. I tried capturing this as a dramatic low light image.
Then I finally realized I was getting far from my initial intention. Him simply writing a letter was the story and that was what I wanted to capture.
Again, an idea popped into my head: the letter to Santa would be a pretext to document his six-year-old handwriting. I chose the “participant” angle and the “from above” perspective and captured an image I really like!
If you were writing a 1000 word essay, you would structure your ideas according to their relevance and importance to effectively communicate your story. Even the best story fails if the ideas within it are not structured properly.
In photography, we structure our images using composition techniques. You can utilize leading lines, framing elements, and implied triangles to guide your viewer through the frame.. This will take your audience on a visual path where the elements of the story are organized in such a way that the story makes sense.
This image is an example of implied triangles. Do you see them? Our eyes naturally connect the points of interest to form a natural shape. Here, the mother’s gaze acts as an indirect line which leads us to her first born who is looking outside of the frame. This can weaken an image as it throws our eyes out of the frame. However in this case, with the help of the triangle our eyes stay in the frame. There are many other triangles in this image: Mother’s arm, mother’s face, son. Mother’s face, son, newborn. Mother’s arm, bottle of milk, newborn. Can you find more?
The image here is an example of using leading lines (the path), centering with intention (subjects are at the vanishing point) and including a framing element (the arch of the aquarium). I also used a lot of negative space around them to echo the quietness of the family and the silence of the underwater world.
You should also learn to avoid certain things that can weaken your message. Ineffective composition, unintentionally chopping limbs, or failing to isolate your subject from the background can all work against your story.
I am not talking about just physical depth here. Though of course you should seek out opportunities for adding dimensionality to the frame. Rather, I am talking about looking for opportunities to add emotional depth to your imagery.
Compositional elements are truly helpful in reinforcing depth in your narrative. You can use juxtaposition to accentuate differences between contrasting elements in your frame. Use a reflection to emphasize the importance of a character or to show something the viewer otherwise couldn’t see. Explore how negative space helps you create mood.
I love this image of my daughter running away. She was biking and decided to stop to take a sip from the sprinkler. And of course she got all wet! She ran to the patio door for her dad to dry her. I decided to use the bike and the sprinkler in the foreground as a layer. I then placed my daughter in the middle ground of the frame and my house in the background. The layers of abandoned fun and golden sunlight add both physical and emotional depth as the child who would be expected to have fun with them runs away.
Once your plan is well thought out visualize your plan and carefully compose your frame, you wait for your moment. This is what we call “macro-composition.” Of course, these are guidelines! In real life, we make these decisions on the fly and we correct our plan while looking through the viewfinder! We take the safe shot and then we improve on our composition to strengthen our storytelling.
Related: Just a snapshot? How to use composition to make better photos
Picture yourself in the shoes of a hunter. Instead of hunting down a prey, you are hunting the decisive moment in the scene unfolding in front of you. You have already determined that you are in the best possible position to capture your story. Commit to your composition and wait for your characters to move into your frame.
Coordinate your ideas. Your task consists of micro-adjusting your macro-composition to make sure your image follows the rules and guidelines of composition (subject isolation, depth of field, no limb chops, etc.). Move your feet a tad, incline or tilt your camera a little, make subtle changes to your point of view until you achieve nice subject separation.
Shoot through the scene. You want to capture your subjects in the right light, with a great expression, doing the right thing at the perfect moment for your story. All of this without forgetting the aforementioned rules of composition. The smallest details can mean the difference between making art and taking a snapshot.
Annick Paradis is exploring storytelling more in her new Click Photo School breakout Fleeting to Timeless: Composing Stories that Last a Lifetime. You can register now for the live run April 23-May 8!
The post 5 Steps to telling better stories with your photographs appeared first on Clickin Moms blog: Helping you take better pictures one day at a time.
Clickin Moms blog: Helping you take better pictures one day at a time
In this week’s video, I’m going to show the story behind a photo I took a few days ago in Great Sand Dunes National Park. Because it’s our first case study video at Photography Life, I wanted to shoot an image that I already had in mind – hopefully lowering my chances of returning empty-handed. In the end, I definitely got a photo I liked. But it didn’t happen quite how I had expected.
I’ve now been using the Nikon Z7 for more than six months, and I’ve also tested the very similar Z6 extensively for our review at Photography Life. The takeaway in both cases is that, despite a few flaws, Nikon produced an excellent and surprisingly refined first-generation mirrorless camera. But the more I use the Z7, especially side by side with my older D800e, some of the mirrorless camera’s strengths really shine for my favorite genre – landscape photography.
If you were to briefly glance at my portfolio, you would notice that color plays a key role. Rich and colorful tones are one of the driving forces in my work.
Black and white photography has its place. But for me, color is always the first choice. There are only two reasons I will ever convert to black and white. When I find that color is distracting the overall story (such as color casts and neons), pulling attention away from the emotion of my image. The other reason I would choose a black and white edit is when color isn’t enhancing my image in anyway. This could be that my image lacks a lot of color, contrast and overall punch that I strive for within my work.
But color has my heart. It can add another layer of visual interest. It can guide the viewer through your frame. And when used with intention, it can enhance storytelling and evoke strong emotions.
Let’s explore how color can add to your images and how you can make simple choices to help it tell your stories.
Use of color however, can be extremely powerful if used correctly. Let’s take a look at repetition of color.
As photographers it’s important to be intentional about guiding the viewer through our frame. We want our subject(s) to pop. We want our viewer to linger awhile and be led deeper into our image.
One of my favorite ways of doing that is with repetition of color. You can do this by including similar colors in the foreground, on your subject, and in the background.
In this image I include pops of red both on my subject, the apple, and in the background.
In this shot of my youngest son exploring with balloons, the viewer is immediately drawn to the red balloon. It is a complementary color to green which allows it to stand out in the scene (more on this soon!).
Related: What are color casts and how to avoid and remove them
However, it is the repetition of the red that leads the viewer deeper into the frame. The color plays a key role in moving my viewer just as my son would move through the scene.
In this image you can see there is repetition of color with the gold and green tones. The viewer is first drawn to my boys wearing gold and green clothing, and these colors are repeated in the environment surrounding them leading the viewer deeper into the frame.
This still life image utilizes repetition of reds and greens to help create movement. The viewer’s eyes travel through the frame, following the colors in an organized fashion.
Repetition of color plays an important role in this image. The greens of the houseplant and towels help guide the viewer through the frame and make them linger longer.
Complementary colors are simple hues that are directly opposite one another on the color wheel. When together, they make each other more pronounced in any given scene.
As photographers we want our subjects to pop. One way I do that is by consciously dressing my children in colors I know will pop against the background and their surroundings. Utilizing complementary colors is the perfect way to do just that.
If I’m going on a hike with my children, I often gravitate towards dressing them in red. I know we are going to be surrounded by green and red will create some contrast. At the very least, I’m going to avoid dressing them in green so that they don’t blend in with their environment. Dressing them in warmer tones like reds, oranges, or yellows will make them the first thing a viewer sees in any frame.
Red and Green. The repetition of the reds pop against the complementary color of green in this image.
Blue and Orange. My son was intentionally dressed in this gold/orange coat so that he would pop against the moody blue sky.
Purple and Yellow. Again, the clothing choice was intentional here. We were visiting a local lavender farm and I dressed my son in yellow to make him stand out from the background.
Going more in-depth on color theory, we often assign colors a particular meaning. That meaning is often universal but it also is cultural.
Using certain colors within your images can add symbolism and evoke a strong emotional response. Color play can create powerful storytelling, making it a big reason I gravitate toward using it.
As an advertising major, I studied color vigorously in college. Ever wonder why stop signs are red, or organic brands use green on their packaging in grocery stores? It’s all intentional and we can be intentional too about the colors we use within our images.
This intentionality is doubly important as color can sometimes have dual and/or conflicting meanings. The context in which you use color will help guide your viewers to its meaning.
Red often symbolizes love. But it can also signify a warning or danger… hence why it is on stop signs.
Yellow signifies happiness and youth, energy and joy but it can also symbolize cowardice. Remember the old saying, “You are yellow-bellied.”
Green tends to mean growth and freshness but it can also symbolize greediness.
Blue is a calming color. It evokes feelings of peacefulness and serenity but on the other hand it can evoke feelings of distrust or sadness. A perfect example is the saying, “I’m feeling pretty blue.”
With colors there can be positive and negative connotations. These connotations can enhance the overall emotion in your image, whether it’s a good vibe or melancholy one.
These images show how I use color with intentionality:
Red often signifies love. It was no accident that I dressed my son in this color. Since it’s a complementary color to green he also pops against the grass.
Blue often symbolizes calmness and tranquility. In post processing I tend to try and enhance the colors any way I naturally can.
My children are often dressed in mustard yellow. it happens to be one of my favorite colors, but it also signifies youth and childhood.
For me, the question is never simply, “Should I keep color or convert to black and white?” Instead, I seek to use color in ways that make my images stronger. I use color to help tell my story.
Color theory can be incredibly powerful. I’ve always been drawn to the way it can enhance mood within images. It can guide the viewer through your frame, evoke an emotional response and enhance storytelling. Utilizing things like repetition of color, complementary colors and color symbolism can transform an everyday photograph into a work of art.
The post Color matters: How choosing the right colors can make your photos better appeared first on Clickin Moms blog: Helping you take better pictures one day at a time.
Clickin Moms blog: Helping you take better pictures one day at a time
