Perspective Photography
By Grace Tolman
As a scrapbooker, photography seemed to go hand in hand with our “craft”. They are after all one of the most important parts of our layouts. I don’t know about all of you, but choosing my photos is always my first step when I make pages.
Now I’m not a professional photographer (although I wish I was!) but with a few years of snapping with my camera and learning tips and tricks from the experts, I could say that I have a skill in it. So with that being said, I wanted to share a few things I’ve learned along the way about photography.
My hope is that this little share will inspire and empower you to better capture those special moments in your lives.
I want to focus my article on Perspective photography.
You don’t have to have the most expensive camera or be very good at PhotoShop to capture that one shot that will be “worth a thousand words”. In my experience, just shooting from different angles makes the biggest difference and can make even a simple photograph turn into a work of art.
Shooting from the top
This photograph was taken last year at my daughter’s preschool. They were celebrating St. Patrick’s day with a fun leprechaun activity. She gathered her “gold” and wanted to put her new found treasures in a safe place. I told her to put it in my pocket and while she was doing that, I focused my camera straight down and got this shot. This method still showed the theme of the event (gold from the leprechaun and all the green around the photo) as well as captures the special trust she has for me by letting me keep her “treasures”. I was also able to capture her small and sweet hand. Something I know will change in time.
Follow your model with your camera
With any sport or moving photo, you need to keep your camera on the subject at all times. In this photo, my son and I were playing in our trampoline. He was doing all sorts of jumping tricks and for me to be able to capture them, I decided to keep the camera on him. I was literally moving up and down with him and when I felt that the time was right, I clicked!
Shooting from the bottom
If you are trying to take photos of tall buildings, it’s best to shoot from the bottom. When my family and I went to Las Vegas early this month, I wanted to take a shot of the tall hotel building as well as the beautiful ship on display. Being that they’re both very large and tall, I knelt down and took the shot looking up. With this method, I was able to get all the building and ship in my photo without missing any detail. Plus the angle instantly tells you the size of the subject.
It’s all in the details
Sometimes zooming is the best thing to capture some very small details. With this flower picture, I wanted to show the intricate beauty of the flowers. You can see the ruffled petals, the two toned color of the flowers and some of the greens in the stem.
Give the camera to somebody else or use the self timer
And finally something that’s very important…. You need to be in the photos too!!!
This is something that I neglected for a few years but then I realized that I need my future family to know how I looked as well. They need to get a vision of who I am and that’s never going to happen if I keep taking the photos and is never in it.
With this shot, I actually used my self timer and propped the camera on top of a nearby wood table while my family was at the park. This takes a few minor preparations, making sure everyone is in the right spots and that you can easily run back to the group after you’ve programmed the camera to take the photo. It usually gives you about 10 good seconds before it snaps.
So there you have it. Hope these few tips will improve your skills in photography and will make your scrapbook pages even better.
Signing off,
Grace
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