In the last tip, we talked about the Rule of Thirds. Did you try it in some photos? What difference did it make in the look of your images? I guess writing that post made me think more about the rule of thirds this week and I kept seeing examples of this everywhere I looked. It kept popping up in different pictures in magazines, artwork, etc. Even while I was watching Grey’s Anatomy! You know how they do the dramatic close-ups? Next time you are watching a show like that – see where the face is located. The rule of thirds is everywhere!
Ok, enough of that – on to the next tip. Filling the frame…this is one of my personal favorites when taking pictures of my son, and I’ll tell you why. I almost always have a messy house (that’s what happens when you have kids, right?) Anyway, yep – always have toys or laundry or mail (you get the idea) sitting around. And I definitely don’t want to document that for all to see! My solution – fill the frame with what I do care about showing in the picture – my son! By doing so, I’m not only hiding the fact that my house is messy, but I’m also bringing attention to the main focus of my image. When you zoom in, or move your feet and get closer, you eliminate any background clutter that may get in the way. For this example, I will pull some pictures from my personal stash – messy house and all!
One day I noticed the light was good in this particular room so I got my camera out while we were just playing around and took a couple snapshots. In this first one, you can see I am zoomed out a good bit and you can see lots of clutter in the background. My subject is also positioned in the middle of the image. Overall, just not a very good shot at all.
As my little subject played with the brush, he kept giving me some really cute smiles – which is really what I wanted to capture – his sweet smiling face! In this next photo I positioned myself so that I could fill the frame with him smiling at me. To me, this is a much better shot – by getting close I eliminated some of that background clutter and got a shot of what I really wanted.
And yes – I realize I cut the top of his head off and some people might have issues with that, but I’m ok with it. I still like this shot better! Anyway, just another quick tip to think about as you are taking pictures of your kiddos this week! Hope everyone has a great halloween! Don’t forget to take lots of pictures of those costumes!!!
~Sarah
