A fault very common to amateur photographers, or "snapshooters" as we used to call them, is that they include much too much in the shot. Seems like they try to get practically the whole world in, sometimes. And then they leave the subject just a little dot in the middle of the photo. And if it's a person, he or she is so small that you can't see what he/she looks like. (Posters of your own personal photos on the Web, take particular note.)
Why does this happen? I think it's a matter of human perception, how our brains work in vision. Cameras can zoom, but our eyes do not. So, we tend to "see" that central object and mentally tune out everything else.
I've always felt I was well attuned to his fault and could avoid doing it myself. Yet, when I took a course in photography (more specifically, photographing a model) from a pro some years ago, he'd take our negatives (including mine) and, with an orange crayon, mark a rectangle showing just the part of the area on the negative that we should have included.
Notice professional photography, both still photos of people and camera shots on TV. Notice the framing (that's the technical term for what we're talking about here). They even cut off the tops of heads! Probably the people who appear on TV hate that because, now that lots of us have TVs with better detail, you can see the wrinkles on their faces!
Nowadays a majority of people own little digital cameras. I believe those cameras generally have a zoom function. So, use that "tele" button to zoom in closer. Remember what you want to focus on, and include only that—not the whole world!
Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein
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