Twilight is a magic time for photographers. The setting sun bathes the landscape in a warm glow, providing a beautiful backdrop for portraits. Twilight’s an ideal time to shoot any type of picture. The result can be an incredibly striking image that makes your travel pictures the talk of the office. It’s a great technique when shooting somebody standing in front of illuminated monuments and buildings at night, sunsets over the ocean, and festive nighttime lighting.
Slow-synchro or Nighttime flash mode
This automatic mode synchronizes your flash with the very slow shutter. It may have a “stars and mountain” or “stars and person” icon. The camera opens the shutter long enough to compensate for the dim twilight lighting, capturing all of the rich, saturated colors. The flash, meanwhile, throttles down, emitting just enough light to illuminate the subject from the front.
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If you really want to impress your friends with your budding photographic skills, try capturing star trails. Surely you’ve seen these dramatic shots: one star, located in the center of the frame, remains a point of light, but all the other stars in the universe seem to carve concentric circle segments around it, as though the galaxy were spinning dizzily. (That one fixed star, in case you were wondering, is the North Star. It remains steady as all the other stars seem to travel in a circular path around it, thanks to the rotation of the earth.)
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You’ve seen this shot on postcards and in magazines: neon bands of light streaking across the frame, with a nicely lit bridge or building in the background. The trick to these shots is to keep the shutter open long enough for the cars to pass all the way from one side of the frame to the other.
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Your camera usually does a good job of exposing the sky during sunset, even in automatic mode. Keep the flash turned off and shoot at will. The biggest mistake people make when shooting sunsets has nothing to do with the skyit’s the ground that ruins the shots. Your eyes can make out much more detail in the shadowy ground than your camera will. Therefore, it’s not worth trying to split the frame in half, composing it with the sky above and the ground below. The bottom half of your photo will be just a murky black blob in the final image.
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Over the years, you’ve probably seen plenty of indoor flash pictures that have a pitch black background and a washed-out, overexposed subject. Many factors conspire to produce these stark, unflattering shots, but one of the major contributors is, once again, your camera thinking on its own. You’re letting it decide when to turn on the flash and which shutter speed to use.
First of all, you don’t always need the flash. Indoor photography offers many opportunities for stunning existing-light portraits and moody interior shots, as discussed in this chapter. And when you do have to turn on the flash, you can make certain adjustments to preserve the ambiance of the room so that your background doesn’t fall into a black hole.
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Whether the celebration is an elaborate wedding, a formal bar mitzvah, or a simple home birthday party, photos are a must. They preserve the details and emotions that everyone wants to remember. If there’s no hired photographeror even if there ischarge up your digicam. When they see the prints, folks often prefer the shots taken by guests over the formal professional photos.
One of the advantages you may have over the hired photographer is that you know people at the event. You’re in a much better position to take candid, relaxed pictures of the guests that capture the true flavor of the day. Even so, be careful not to interfere with the professional photographer’s posed shots. Introduce yourself to the photographer and ask if it’s OK to take a couple of shots right after the pro has finished each setup. You’ll generally receive permissionand the opportunity to capture the highlights of the day.
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Taking effective photos during plays, music recitals, ballets, and other performances is difficult even for professional photographers. What makes theater lighting tricky is that the bright main light on your child star is often right in the same frame with a subdued or even darkened background. If you use automatic mode under these conditions, then the camera calibrates the exposure, brightening up the image enough to display the dominant dim background. As a result, the spotlighted performers turn into white-hot, irradiated ghost children.
The good news is, most digital cameras let you easily adjust for uneven lighting. And once you master features like spot metering and exposure compensation, you can use these techniques to shoot in any theatrical situation, even Carnegie Hall. (Your kid is going to perform at Carnegie Hall, isn’t she?)
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Wherever you find kids, camera-toting parents are never far behind. (OK, they’re usually far behind, but doing their best to catch up.) And now that email makes it easier than ever for parents and grandparents to share those precious images with the world, the gross national production of kid photos has risen from gazillions to bajillions.
If you’re one of those parents, you’re right to capture those memories before childhood flies by. But try to sit still long enough to read this section. With a little technique, you can shoot photos that make your kids look even more gorgeous (just don’t expect the other parents to admit it).
Children are challenging for all photographers. They’re like flash floods: fast, low to the ground, and unpredictable. But with a little patience and perseverance, you can keep up with them and get the shot.
If you want great-looking kid shots, you’ve got to play on their turf. That means getting down on your hands and knees, or even your tummy.
Many of the action photography tips you learned at the beginning of this chapter are great for kid photos, too. Highlights include:
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Change your camera angle often. Go Low, Go High. Look at your subject from a few different points of view before choosing the best place to shoot it from. For example, put the camera on the ground and study the composition. Raise it over your head and see how the world looks from that angle . If possible, walk around the subject and examine it from left to right.
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Tip: When you first approach an interesting subject, snap a quick picture. Once you’ve got a “safe” shot in the camera, you can relax. Move in closer and take a few more shots from a variety of angles. Experiment as long as time permits. More often than not, the safe shot will be your least favorite of the series. You’ll probably find the latter frames far more compelling.
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Top: To really capture the feel of this breakfast nook, raise the angle of the camera, even if it means standing on a chair to do so.
Bottom: Try going low, too. “Getting to the bottom of things” provides you with dramatic angles and impressive images.
Busy backgrounds destroy photographs. Just look at the top photo in Figure below. Of course, sometimes your intention is to confuse and irritate the viewer’s eye. But unless you’re shooting a headbanger music CD cover, eliminate distracting elements from your picture as much as you can. Make it easy for the viewer to locateand appreciatethe key elements of your composition.
Top: What’s this picture about? The people? The boats? Linear elements in the background usually spell doom for people shots.
Bottom: Avoid clutter and opt for a more subtle background, like water or sky. Your subjectsand audiencewill thank you.
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