People Photography – My Initial Thoughts

In the last month or so I have had two opportunities to do photography of people subjects as opposed to my usual landscapes or people subjects. Unfortunately at this stage I have not been able to confirm that I am permitted to publicly display any of the photos thus far however I hope to shortly.

The first chance I had was with a friend who offered herself as a model for the day in which we both went down to Manly Beach to take some photos. I managed to learn some key lessons on this first outing which included:

1. Prior to a shoot, take the time to really plan some ideal shots that you would like to get
2. In the initial planning stages ensure you take into account the terrain of a location, crawling over rocks is not always comfortable and/or easy with camera gear
3. If working with a person that has never modeled before, give them a briefing before hand of what you are going to do/try to achieve as it is better that they have a rough idea than to dump them in the deep end

Having said that, it was a great first experience and it showed me that I have a lot to learn, especially surrounding the composition of the photo and how the model should pose within the shot. Granted it was a first attempt but I look forward to giving it another go soon.

Then today I had another opportunity to do group shots at a work Social Club Christmas Party. It was a rather interesting experience in which I kept the camera in auto mode virtually the entire day. My reasoning was that I needed to get comfortable getting people to pose and get the actual photos prior to attempting to do artsy photos on the fly. All in all I feel that it went quite well, I was able to get some really good photos and had my first real experience using the flash on the camera. After using it a bit I honestly think (nay KNOW) that I need to get my hands on a decent diffuser, a lot of the photos worked well bouncing the light off the roof but some I feel needed a direct diffuser to really get the lighting correct.

After having a look back through my photos I feel that today I was far more comfortable turning the camera on the side to get a decent profile shot rather than always leaving the camera in landscape mode. I think this is something that I have struggled with in the past but it seems that today this came really quite naturally.

Anyhoo, that is enough of a brain dump for now, I am going to pick out a few individual photos and ask the staff members if they would mind me using them on the blog then hopefully I can analyse them in detail.

Until next time, behave!

Stuart