Rule Number One

I am not pro photographer or teacher of photography, but over the last ten years or so have learned some useful things. Whether I look back at my first point and shoot photos or the photos from the various upgrades all the way up to my SLR, I see that the same basic ideas that make one photo better than another. When I say better, I don’t mean from OK to National Geographic’s, but from “This is useless, horrible and Sucks b***s” to “This is nice.”

Even before I learned the official rules of Composition, Focus, Light and Exposure I created my own rules

My three personal principles, rules or ideas, whatever you want to call them are:

1. Know what you are trying to photograph (Focus).
2. Know where your light is (Light).
3. Position things properly (Composition).
4. (Exposure is generally handled by the camera, so no regular rule for that.)

In this first post I will talk about knowing what you are trying to photograph.

I would like to start with a confession. I have a pet peeve, people doing Self Photos. Most people with cameras absolutely creating Self Photos. In Eastern Asian countries this normally involves people standing next to something interesting, turning to the camera and throwing up two finders and a huge smile. Old people, for some reason, feel the need to look like someone just died, but that is another problem for another day.

“So?” I hear you say.
“What is the photo of?” I ask.
“Of the painting,” You reply.
“Really? Then why are you in the photo?” I ask
“To show I was there, of course,” you say, looking at me like I am stupid.
“Show who?” I ask.
“My friends!” you say.
“Do your friends normally mistrust you?” I ask
“What?!” You ask, so I explain.

When you take a photo of a painting, say, then surely that is enough proof that you were there. Unless your friend don’t trust you, or you are a liar who needs proof to show you are NOT lying this time, you have no reason to be in the photo yourself. You should be able to just show the photo and say “See, we saw this. Nice, huh?”

As soon as you put yourself in the photo you change the photo dramatically. More often than not the photo becomes about you. This is where you will need to ask yourself, is this photo about me, or about the painting. You can’t really make it about both of you at the same time without putting a bit of thought and effort in to it.

Puzzled, and wondering why this would this be an issue for me? I don’t know. It just is.

Let’s go back to the painting. Let us say it is a great painting of a nice landscape, done by some Dutch master. The scene is tranquil with not much action. Next, we put you next to the painting, even covering it ever so slightly, looking straight at the camera, smiling and doing something, most likely a peace sign. Maybe you are even filing half the photo area. What do you think people will look first when they see your photos? I’m guessing that 99% of the time they will look at you, making YOU and not the painting, the subject of the photo. I ask you again “Why are you in the photo?” and this time think before you answer.

Instead of being the subject of the photo, consider just getting the completely out of the frame. You usually have no reason for being there anyway. If you must, make yourself part of the photo. Do something that looks very natural, face the painting at an angle and pretend to read the description. That way the photo is saying “Here I am admiring this great painting”, instead of “Look at me, oh, and there is a painting next to me.”

Humans are programmed to look at faces. When you interact with the scene instead of facing the facing the camera I will look at your face sometimes, but it will be a fleeting action. When you are deliberately facing the camera, smiling and doing something to specifically attract attention to yourself, then my instinct will draw my eyes back to you every time. I will look away, but just pop back to you again. If you want me to look at you, then take a photograph of yourself and call it what it is.

“But Otto, this is a photo of me and my friends.” Groovy! You are right. Now get everyone in to a nice pose and everyone smile because none of us are pretending it is not about your group.
“Demmit, Otto Teacher! We want the place in the background to show that we were there!” Aha, more progress! You are trying to tell a story, are you? Well, not to worry, because I will explain later how you can have yourself and they background in the frame and still have a nice photo.

When it comes to inanimate objects then making the fill a larger area of the frame, thereby cutting out irrelevant parts, will usually do the job.

*****

All about you.

Not just about you any more.

Just what is the photo about?

Obvious what this is about, innit?

 

* I took these photos with my phone because I don’t want people to complain with "Yea, but I don’t have a good camera.” The camera does not make the photographer.

** The second two photos are from a previous post about depth of field and was not initially intended for use here, but for the purpose of explanations I think they get the point across.

*** Thanks to Meg for standing there looking silly in the first photo and then fitting right into the second photo.