Your guide to making, taking and faking better pictures.
Even if I wasn’t a photographer by trade, I’d be taking pictures. Make no mistake, there are two kinds of people out there: those who take pictures, the Takers, and those who hate pictures, the Haters. In some sort of twisted cosmic practical joke, Takers and Haters usually end up friends or worse: married.
Even before I learned how to use a fancy camera and a couple of lights, I reveled in documenting the life around me: friends, family, pets, cool stuff I saw on the street. First with film and eventually with my phone, photos have always served as a memory keeper, my own personal time machine. Haters around me have always squawked about having to smile, pose or otherwise look interesting. Even now, when people actually hire to me photograph them, they express reluctance or doubt about the outcome.
“I’m not photogenic.”
“I hate pictures.”
“There is no way anything you take will turn out.”
I think what we have here is a failure to communicate, people. You are not as ugly, fat or unphotogenic as you think you are. No, I’m not lying to you. The real problem is that most Takers don’t know how to take a good snapshot and the resulting images are so unflattering, it’s traumatized the Haters. With good reason: with the advent of social media, crappy snapshots are no longer hidden in a box in a closet. They’re posted, tagged and ridiculed within mere minutes.
Here’s where I break out my superhero cape and tell you I’m here to help. I’m going to teach you some very basic, very untechnical, very easy things you can do to make both of our lives a bit easier. Better Takers will result in fewer Haters. It’s not a cure for cancer, but perhaps it will make the world a wee bit better. Or at least a little more photogenic.
Stop taking pictures of people eating.
Perhaps you think you’ll want to remember Mom’s homemade spaghetti dinner or your co-worker’s farewell party, and I don’t doubt your intentions. It’s just that no one looks good taking a bite, chewing a bite or swallowing a bite. Save the photo op for before dinner or after dinner or at least have the decency to announce you’re going to take a picture so that everyone can stop chowing down.
Food is interesting. People chewing it is not.
Stop shooting upward at people.
Only slightly less attractive than a person eating, is a photo of a person taken from below their eye level. This is possibly the least flattering angle you can use. Instead, try shooting from a slightly elevated vantage point. This flatters and slims the face. Bingo. Of course, sometimes the right angle from below looks good, too. But for the sake of argument, please play along and try it my way.
Shooting down on people (and dogs) is nearly always flattering
Don’t use your flash for everything.
Learn how to turn your flash off because on-camera flashes are the whitest, brightest most ugly-making lights on the planet. Opt for moving the picture so that a window is on one side of your subjects and the natural light will make them much prettier than your dumb old flash.
Use natural light, even indoors, when you can
Bright sun is the devil.
I don’t know who started telling people that you had to have the sun at your back when taking pictures, but I’d like to personally trip that person in public. Where’s the logic in making everyone squinty, washed out and hot? Get those poor people out of the sun and put them in the shade, or at least not in direct sunlight. Unless you like the leopard look, opt for shade without dappling light from leaves.
Get out of the sun and opt for shade
Get closer. For real. Closer.
Stop taking pictures with a lot of background showing if what you’re after is a picture of a person or people. Get closer than you think you need to be, and while you’re at it: have them get closer to each other than they think they need to be. Crop out all the background stuff and focus on the faces. That’s what you want to remember, right?
Close is good. Close is interesting.
Helpful? I hope so. Feel free to post some questions in the comments and I’ll see about answering a few in next month’s post. Until then: go make some pretty pictures!
