Christmas Tree Farm Last Year
Once again, I find myself digging through old photos on my hard drives hoping to find some decent photos. Lately I find myself focusing on improving my people photos and portraits so I've been studying my older shots to see how I can improve. Of course, I also study portraits of photographers I find interesting and then try to figure out how to get my work to improve in the direction toward the things I find interesting in portraits I like. This evolution comes easy for some and more difficult for others.
Backgrounds are exceptionally important in portraiture. By "backgrounds", I am not necessarily talking about a cloth backdrop. I simply mean what can be seen in the background of each of my images. Trying to shoot in a location which has few background distractions can be difficult, especially when shooting in your home. My home has a LOT of background distraction which ruin shots. Outdoors is a better place to shoot... giving yourself more distance between your subject and the background. When shooting portraits, this can be fairly easy to arrange. When shooting candids of family members, this can be difficult because you have no control over where people are at any given moment.
If we look at this photograph here in this post, one of the beautiful things about this shot is the separation between the background and my subjects. Also, there is nothing distracting in the background. So, although I was using a cheap kit lens here, I still end up with some nice separation because I have such a great distance between the background my subjects. I knew the limitations of my equipment and I was able to work around those limitations.
Another thing I am struggling with is that I don't really have any good portrait lenses. I have 'decent' lenses but nothing of a professional quality. The lens is the most important piece of equipment. Poor quality lenses can really limit a photographer. High quality lenses open up possibilities for more interesting and pleasing portraiture.
Don't get me wrong, the photographer's abilities are more important than the type of camera or equipment. "Seeing the light" is also more important than high quality equipment. The photographer, however, needs to understand the limits of the camera and equipment and work around any shortcomings. That being said, different lenses do different things and I am short on lenses which are good for portraiture work.
Anyway... Here is another one of my favorite images from a year ago. This was shot at a Christmas tree farm while we were searching for Christmas trees. I think Grammy likes this shot a lot too!
Edit: I forgot to tell a little bit about this photo when I wrote this blog entry. As you can see in the photo, Lukas looks a bit bewildered and is not looking directly at me. I suspect Sheila said, "Look at Papa" but he couldn't find me. I was using a long telephoto lens so it would be possible for me to shoot some nice candid photos of everyone while they were searching for and cutting down Christmas trees. As a result, I think I may have been about one hundred feet from Sheila and Lukas crouching down on one knee (and, at this point, that knee was a cold, muddy knee after doing this about 150 times while at the tree farm). For kids this young, a hundred feet may as well be a hundred miles. Lukas had no idea where I might be nor why he was supposed to be looking at me. I'm sure I was just a tiny part of clutter in a distant background cluttered with trees, people and cars.
Backgrounds are exceptionally important in portraiture. By "backgrounds", I am not necessarily talking about a cloth backdrop. I simply mean what can be seen in the background of each of my images. Trying to shoot in a location which has few background distractions can be difficult, especially when shooting in your home. My home has a LOT of background distraction which ruin shots. Outdoors is a better place to shoot... giving yourself more distance between your subject and the background. When shooting portraits, this can be fairly easy to arrange. When shooting candids of family members, this can be difficult because you have no control over where people are at any given moment.
Another thing I am struggling with is that I don't really have any good portrait lenses. I have 'decent' lenses but nothing of a professional quality. The lens is the most important piece of equipment. Poor quality lenses can really limit a photographer. High quality lenses open up possibilities for more interesting and pleasing portraiture.
Don't get me wrong, the photographer's abilities are more important than the type of camera or equipment. "Seeing the light" is also more important than high quality equipment. The photographer, however, needs to understand the limits of the camera and equipment and work around any shortcomings. That being said, different lenses do different things and I am short on lenses which are good for portraiture work.
Anyway... Here is another one of my favorite images from a year ago. This was shot at a Christmas tree farm while we were searching for Christmas trees. I think Grammy likes this shot a lot too!
Edit: I forgot to tell a little bit about this photo when I wrote this blog entry. As you can see in the photo, Lukas looks a bit bewildered and is not looking directly at me. I suspect Sheila said, "Look at Papa" but he couldn't find me. I was using a long telephoto lens so it would be possible for me to shoot some nice candid photos of everyone while they were searching for and cutting down Christmas trees. As a result, I think I may have been about one hundred feet from Sheila and Lukas crouching down on one knee (and, at this point, that knee was a cold, muddy knee after doing this about 150 times while at the tree farm). For kids this young, a hundred feet may as well be a hundred miles. Lukas had no idea where I might be nor why he was supposed to be looking at me. I'm sure I was just a tiny part of clutter in a distant background cluttered with trees, people and cars.
Comments
Post a Comment