This is a very visual world. It is true to say that a picture paints a thousand words, and to have impact - to be noticed - in today's chaos of visual images, we have to compete. I hope these tips will help you to maximise the impact of pictures you submit to our web site and to our Newsletter. I would very much like to hear your comments on this page, and I would really like to see your photographs!
Tips on photography for our Website and for our Newsletter
I am often sent photographs of Mothers' Union events with a request to 'put these on the web.' It isn't always that simple.
Photos, whether on the web or in print, need to have impact. That's the reason to use them. And many of the pictures I'm sent lack impact for one of these reasons:
The image isn't big enough
Compare these two images of Liz Clark who happened to stand in front of the camera when we were discussing this recently
In the left hand picture I was standing too far away from Liz and the result is pretty boring. Too much background, not enough Liz. So I moved in closer to get a shot of her face. Instantly more striking and more interesting... but wait a moment: it's distorted. So getting closer, at least with a standard lens, doesn't always work! So now compare that distorted picture with these:
Still a nice close-up but not distorted because I used the camera's zoom lens to get further back and still filled the frame with Liz's face. Notice too that I chose a less cluttered background. The difference between these two pictures? Liz is smiling in one of them! Which to choose to illustrate an article or a web page would depend on whether I wanted to portray her as being cheerful or serious!
So tip number one: get in closer to your subject but remember sometimes to use your zoom lens if you have one, especially with faces! And because it's easy to review the pictures you're taking with a modern digital camera, don't be afraid to experiment with different viewpoints and so on: you can always delete the ones you - or the subject! - don't like!
Incidentally, of course it's possible to enlarge a small part of a picture. Here I've taken a small part of the first, distant, shot and enlarged it:
The picture on the left is a straight enlargement, the picture on the right has been enhanced, so some sort of picture can be rescued from most originals, but definition and detail is lost and neither of this can be further enlarged (e.g. for the newsletter) with any confidence.
Fill the frame with the interesting stuff
In many ways an extension of tip one - get in close - it's sometimes necessary to arrange the picture to make the best use of the space available. Look at the group on the left:
There's already a lot of background and foreground, and if we had to add more members (this was at Selby Abbey Branch's Centenary Service) they would stretch wider, the camera would have to pull back even further to get them all in and the foreground and background would get proportionately even bigger. The solution? Get some chairs and expand the subject upwards without making it wider: see the right hand picture. There's one more chair you can't see: the one I'm standing on!
Here the interesting part of the picture is the people, and beautiful as Selby Abbey is, I didn't want too much of it in the picture.
So, tip number two: fill the frame with the interesting stuff.
Lighten our darkness
After images where the main point of interest is too small, the second commonest problem I have with photos - my own, as well as ones sent to me for the web site and for the Newsletter - is that they are too dark. Here's an example of an under-exposed picture.
Notice that the woman on the left tends to blur into the dark background, and the thick block of black on the right. You might think that's how a wet day in Scarborough ought to look! But I wanted to uncover some of the missing detail and here's the result of a little manipulation on the computer.
So some exposure problems can be helped by using the computer to manipulate the picture, but there are limits and obviously it's best to get it right as far as possible. Using modern digital cameras you can get a good idea of what the picture looks like as soon as you've taken it, and if it looks too dark, try to add some exposure if your camera lets you, or use a flash.
Tip number 3: if it looks too dark, it needs more light! (The opposite is true: if it's too light it needs less light. Details of how to change exposure with compact cameras are beyond the scope of these tips, I'm afraid)
Sharp's the word!
I have to confess that the next two pictures are actually digitally manipulated cheats, but I wanted to talk about blurry pictures, and didn't have a suitable one to use. they are meant to show that if you take a picture of something which is moving fast, it's blurred:
That's why the picture wasn't really suitable, of course: number two grandson can't work up too much speed on a pedal car! But even though the picture's a cheat I hope you can see that it's better to move the camera to follow the interesting bit (technically called 'panning' the shot) and have the background blurred.
Of course, a little blurring suggests speediness, but please - not too much. And never accept a shot which is out of focus...
Tip number four: Only blur when you mean to blur!
The next two tips are less technical, but probably even more important than any of the others:
Tip number 5: Always carry a camera. A modern compact camera will easily fit in a handbag or pocket and will take some great pictures. Be ready to photograph the unexpected! And finally,
Tip number 6: Please don't be put off by any of the above! Please don't let anything I've written here put you off submitting your photos to your parish magazine or to the Mothers' Union Newsletter! It's better to send a picture that's less than perfect than not to send a picture at all! Many can be rescued, and we rely on you to keep up the supply of pictures on the web site and in the Newsletter.
Happy snapping!