photographing stuff that moves... like people

My wife and I went over to the home of some friends of ours this morning. They’d asked us over so that they could sit for my wife and have her take a family portrait for their Christmas card. My wife is very good at taking pictures of people. I, on the other hand, do much better photographing things that don’t move—like mountains.

Despite the fact that my wife was today’s official photographer, I decided to take my camera along anyway and mess around “behind-the-scenes.” So before and after they sat for my wife, I kind of snuck around getting informal shots of the family.

For having taken pictures of stuff that moves (like people), I’m actually pretty pleased with my shots. I won’t post the photos on Flickr, to respect our friends’ privacy, but I thought I’d share one shot here on my blog. I chose this one, since it’s my favorite from today. While this little guy’s mom was busy putting his socks & shoes on him, I sat down on the floor and got a few shots. This one turned out the best because it was the only one where he was looking directly at the camera, and it’s also the only shot with his hand in the frame. For some reason, having the hand in the shot made it a better composition. I guess that’s just a subjective call on my part, though. Anyway, after getting home and opening up the shot on the computer, I used Photoshop Elements 6 to convert it to black&white.

You have to be pretty flexible (taking advantage of opportunities as they arise) when you’re shooting informally like this, but it still helps to (quickly) think about what will make a good composition. In this instance, I saw the little guy lying there on the couch and realized that if I got down so that I was at eye-level with him & that if he would then turn his head toward me, it’d make a nice shot. And even in that moment, I also had it in the back of my mind that it’d probably look pretty darn good in black&white.

Thanks for reading about stuff I’ve photographed. -Rich