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
Showing posts with label photography. Show all posts
Showing posts with label photography. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Monday, October 11, 2010
Parents, Beware! . . .Lest Your Actions Backfire
Sometimes parents' actions, with respect to their children, backfire. And sometimes, I think, the parents deserve it.
When I was a kid, I think I can say that religion was more or less forced down my throat. I was made to go to Hebrew school (two hours a day, after regular public school, four days a week), even though I was terrified of my Hebrew school teachers which caused me stomach aches that landed me in the hospital. But attending Hebrew school had to be done, so that I could have a Bar Mitzvah. (I didn't want to have a Bar Mitzvah, but, in my parents' eyes, how could a boy not have a Bar Mitzvah?) Also, where religion was concerned, I felt I saw hypocrisy in my parents, that they were saying, Do as we say, not as we do.
So I later rejected the ancestral faith pretty completely. I absolutely don't observe it at all--although, to be completely honest, my parents' actions don't get all of the blame for that. But I think my parents richly deserve that outcome.
In another example, when I was a kid I was into photography (I still am). I would use my mother as a photographic subject. So, maybe as a birthday present, my mother gave me a book called How to Photograph Women.
After she gave me the book, my mother discovered that the book had pictures of naked women (I was an adolescent at the time, I believe). Well, one day when I was not around, Mother seized the book—and cut out all the pages with the nude photos.
I think that that's screamingly funny when you consider that I grew up to be gay. I mean, what were the photos supposed to have done to me, make me feel lust for women? Of course I can't say that not having those pictures made me gay; but in hindsight, maybe my mother might have wished that she could have fostered lust for naked women in me.
Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein
When I was a kid, I think I can say that religion was more or less forced down my throat. I was made to go to Hebrew school (two hours a day, after regular public school, four days a week), even though I was terrified of my Hebrew school teachers which caused me stomach aches that landed me in the hospital. But attending Hebrew school had to be done, so that I could have a Bar Mitzvah. (I didn't want to have a Bar Mitzvah, but, in my parents' eyes, how could a boy not have a Bar Mitzvah?) Also, where religion was concerned, I felt I saw hypocrisy in my parents, that they were saying, Do as we say, not as we do.
So I later rejected the ancestral faith pretty completely. I absolutely don't observe it at all--although, to be completely honest, my parents' actions don't get all of the blame for that. But I think my parents richly deserve that outcome.
In another example, when I was a kid I was into photography (I still am). I would use my mother as a photographic subject. So, maybe as a birthday present, my mother gave me a book called How to Photograph Women.
After she gave me the book, my mother discovered that the book had pictures of naked women (I was an adolescent at the time, I believe). Well, one day when I was not around, Mother seized the book—and cut out all the pages with the nude photos.
I think that that's screamingly funny when you consider that I grew up to be gay. I mean, what were the photos supposed to have done to me, make me feel lust for women? Of course I can't say that not having those pictures made me gay; but in hindsight, maybe my mother might have wished that she could have fostered lust for naked women in me.
Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein
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