framed realityCreative vision

9 tips to make this year’s Christmas photos better than last year’s

Marius Waldal — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 13:40:01 +0000

Once again, Christmas is just a few days off. Grown-ups are fuzzing around to get everything done and kids get more and more butterflies in their bellies. And even though it may not seem that way just yet, everything will be ready and the calm Christmas mood will be upon you. You’ll have a great time with friends and family, and of course you will want to capture it all with your camera. Take heed to these tips, and your Christmas photos will be even more interesting than those you shot last year!

Christmas Shopping HBW, by Photocillin on Flickr

Watch the background

Christmas time is decoration time. Often loads of it. This is of course an important part of creating the right Christmas mood (good), but it can also generate very fuzzy backgrounds for your photos (bad). Be sure to take your background into account when shooting, to avoid elements in your background that takes too much attention from your subject.

Move closer to your subjects

If the background is fuzzy, consider moving closer to your subject. More often than not, a photo will improve by removing the surroundings and filling the frame with your subject(s).

Christmas-time is bokeh-time

Day 4, by Phil Peck on Flickr

In no other time of year is your home so filled with various light-sources. Candles, the Christmas tree, stars in the windows etc. And why is this great for photographers? Because this is great for bokeh!. Being aware of your background will enable you to use these lights to best effect creating great bokeh in your Christmas photos.

Don’t take only posed photos

When you look at Christmas photos, they often include people looking straight into the camera (“Say cheeeeeeese!”). In gatherings like these, I usually prefer that people are not posing, as this often looks unnatural. I want my photos to capture the mood as it was, not how it was staged. Candid shots are great. Capture the intense glee the kids show, instead of the unreal calmness when they are posing.

Use a tele for kids

Speaking of kids. They have an uncanny ability to notice that someone is taking their picture (“Can I see, can I?”), so why not try and make it more difficult for them? If there is sufficient light, try using a tele lens so that you can get more distance to the kids and perhaps get some really nice shots of them playing.

Get down on children-level

Let’s not leave the kids just yet (after all; they are the most important part of Christmas, right?). Too many photos of kids are taken downwards. Get down to their level. This perspective is a lot more pleasant and interesting. Or even better; get lower! Photos of kids taken from below creates an unusual perspective that will add an interesting twist to your photos.

Cross-process some of your photos

Unique, by pixelprints on Flickr

While this isn’t really a tip that will help you take better Christmas photos, it will make your Christmas album even more interesting if you choose to cross-process some of your photos. Cross-processing adds an interesting “old style” feel to your photos.

Try to avoid flash

If you own one (or can borrow), go for a fast lens like a 50mm 1.4 or 1.8. This will enable you to take a lot of your photos without flash. If you use the built-in flash, most photos will have hard shadows and unnatural lighting. And a quality flash won’t help you much if it isn’t used right. To capture the warm, cosy Christmas mood, it is better to shoot without a flash. A fast lens (and a little higher ISO) is your friend!

Capture the details

As I said earlier, Christmas is very much about decoration. Which means details details details. Many of these details can be interesting subjects if you use your creative vision. Photos of details will add a nice touch to your Christmas photo album (you do print some of your photos, right? They don’t all just stay on your hard drive…?). Well, they look great in digital albums as well, of course

I hope these tips will help you take better photos this year! Do you have some tips on your own? Please share them with us! And if you’ve taken Christmas photos that you are particularly satisfied with, do share them in the comments section.

I wish you all a wonderful Christmas!

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Wedding photography: How to capture the mood of the celebration

Marius Waldal — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 09:17:25 +0000

A wedding is a big event. For people in many cultures, it’s one of the biggest and most important events of their lives.

It’s customary to hire a photographer to take photos of the couple, the best man and woman, the family. Often lined up. Many photographers do some “classic” setups of the couple, and some creative, using the location to best advantage.

But, when this is done, the photographer usually goes home and it’s up to the guests (that means you!) to document the rest of the celebration. In this article I aim to offer some advice on how to take interesting photos of a wedding.

The wedding shoes

I’m married. For my wife Hanne and me, this was a huge event. We invited a great many of our family and friends. And we wanted lots of photos, so we bought disposable cameras, put them out on the tables and asked our guests to use them during the celebration.

Lesson 1: Disposable cameras are wasted.
Scarce light + unskilled photographers + poor quality cameras = mostly junk (even vulgar) photos!

We also asked those of our guests who brought their own cameras to kindly send us their photos when they returned home.

Lesson 2: Most guests shoot lots of frames of the wedded couple, and little else. And as we’d already hired a professional, we had enough photos of us. (And besides; we spent quite some time getting everyone to send us the photos.)

So, is all this rambling leading anywhere, or am I just high on exposing my private life?

It leads up to this core question:

How to take better wedding photos?

Most photos from a wedding are of the couple. What you often don’t get are photos that catch the atmosphere of the celebration. All the small, but important, details that contribute to the success of the event.

Weddings are, of course, very much about people. But also about details. Lots of details. All of which play their part in creating the atmosphere of the celebration. In remembering the wedding, thinking back, many of those details disappear. And with them, a part of the atmosphere.

As photographers, we can capture those details. And often, they make for nice subjects!

This is all about using your awareness. As you walk around, you must try and put aside your role as a guest and focus on mood and details. Close-up photography is key to capturing lots of details. Get close to small details, and use bokeh actively.

If you’re going to shoot guests, try doing it candid. Leave most of the posed shooting to the hired pro. Posed shots can be nice, of course, but we’re aiming for mood, remember?

If you can, try adding a humorous touch to some of the shots. The above photo of the wedding shoes is a great example. That specific photo is guaranteed to trigger a memory!

Prepare! If possible, visit the location on beforehand. You’ll probably get several ideas you can work on when the day has come.

Do you have other tips? Or maybe you have wedding photos that may inspire others? Please share, we’d love to see!

All photos featured in this article are shot by Astrid Tvedt. Check out her photostream on Flickr. The wedding photos have their own set.
A big thank you to Astrid for letting me use her photos!

Creative vision – Enhancing your awareness

Marius Waldal — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:34:15 +0000

When looking at a scene, do you think you see the same as the person standing next to you? Most definitely not. What we see is colored by who we are, what our interests are, our likes and dislikes etc. Imagine a scene containing trees, a couple of houses, a roadway and all that can usually be found around such a location.

If you’re an architect, you might notice the houses and how they are built.
If you’re a landscape architect, you might notice how the houses are placed in the hillside, how the gardens are planned out and how the roadway is placed.
If you’re a biologist, you might notice that one of the trees is home to a woodpecker, that there is a rare flower growing in the shade and that some of the vegetation is about to die as a result of some waste that is lying around.
If you’re an entrepreneur, you might notice how the hillside would be perfect for building terraced houses that would sell for big money.
If you’re… well, you get the picture (pun intended).

My point is that in most scenes there are LOTS of details. Most people are used to experiencing their environments as “a whole”, with few details standing out from the rest, except specific details tied to their occupation or special interests.

Some people are naturally receptive to details in everything around them, but for most of us this is a skill that needs to be developed. It’s called “awareness”. I like to call it creative vision.

As your photography skills are being developed, so is automatically your awareness. You become more and more attuned to details everywhere around you, but it is a good idea to work consciously and specifically on developing your awareness.

So what should you be looking for?

Elements of design

Disappearing steps by Marius Waldal

Train your eye to look for the elements of design: lines, shapes, forms, texture, patterns and color.
To use lines as an example:
How many lines do you see?
What directions do they have? Vertical, horizontal or diagonal?
Are there receding lines? Advancing lines?
Be aware that eylines (the direction people are gazing) are also very powerful lines, as they are perceived though not actually seen (called implied lines).

Scene lighting

Try to get an impression of how the overall light is in the scene. Is the dynamic range very high? Strong reflections or highlights? Is the light soft or harsh? Does the light create interesting shadows? Are there dense shadows that may block up? Is that okay?

Look for contrasts

Contrasts often make for interesting photos. There are contrasts everywhere! Light vs dark, contrasting colors, curved vs straight, large vs small are all obvious contrasts. But there are also other, more subtle contrasts. If you photograph people, there might be contrasts in rich vs poor, happiness vs sadness, many vs few and a whole lot more. Imagine a photo of a playground with lots of kids playing ball. On the side there is one lonely child not participating. The contrast in this scene would be very powerful indeed, though it is felt more than seen.

Get closer

In any given scene (except maybe for macro images), there will be other scenes if you just get closer. Often a whole lot of scenes!

Color of corrosion by Marius Waldal

Looking for smaller scenes in large scenes is a great exercise for enhancing your awareness! Read more about this in the post “There’s another picture in that picture!“.

Get really close!

Small parts of otherwise mundane and ordinary objects may present interesting and unusual, often abstract, scenes. There may be strong contrasts, angles or forms “hidden”, that you notice when your creative vision is enhanced.

Natural framing

A great way to draw attention to your main subject is by using natural framing. Learn to notice possibilities for this technique as you walk around, also when you’re not out shooting. Sometimes you will find one that seems so good you will want to return with your camera!

Look down!

Warm forest bed by Marius Waldal

When you were little, you probably often looked down on all the exciting stuff on the ground, like insects, litter, rainwater-rivers etc. But as we grow older, we lose interest in this view (and besides, our mama told us to keep the eyes in the direction our feet are pointing). But, as a photographer, the world on the ground gets exciting once more. A little creative vision, and there are lots of interesting scenes on the ground!

Anticipation

Develop your skill in anticipating possibly interesting scenes. One example is morning frost that may look flat in shadow but can represent a stunning image when lit by the beautiful morning sunlight. Find a place where you expect the sun to shine soon, use your creative vision to find a scene that may be interesting, try a few different framings and then just wait for the sun to hit. In this specific example you may have just a minute or two (sometimes only seconds!) before the sun has melted the frost, so you do well in anticipating the scene and planning it up front!

Bokeh

ground level by kpriceWicked on Flickr

Do you see a collection of small lights or reflections somewhere? These may very well make for a great background utilizing bokeh. Bokeh can significantly enhance a photo, or even be the main subject of a photo. For more on bokeh, see the article Using bokeh actively in photographic composition

Colors

Colors can be an important part of an image, or the actual subject itself. The impact of colors should not be underestimated. Learning to make good use of colors will definitely improve your awareness! Read more about colors in the article Color in photography – Color theory.

Okay then!

Don’t keep all these things in your head at once in the beginning. Pick one tip, grab your camera and go out and shoot as many pictures as you can. Look through them all when you get back and try to analyze how successful each photo is at conveying that particular theme. And if you like, add a comment on this page with a link to your photo on Flickr so that we can all see!

Do you have other tips to enhancing your awareness? Share them with us in the comments!