FiTZBiTS
Photography, media and community
November 5, 2008 at 4:58 pm
filed under Newspapers, On Assignment, Photography
Tagged backgrounds, photo instruction, photo tips, portrait photography, profiles
Photographers are control freaks. You have to be when you need to worry about a million things, from the power supply for your strobes, to the proper f-stop and shutter speed, to the batteries and proper equipment needed for each shoot. And-oh, right-the subject, the location, the time of day, etc. etc.
The list is neverending.
In my life as a newspaper photojournalist, control over the setting, subject and other variables was taken largely out of my hands. Aside from the infrequent fashion shoots or photo illustrations, as a news photographer I had to be out there, shooting under whatever conditions happened to exist where the news was happening. Even with the all-too-frequent portraits I had to take, I often had no choice of when the assignment was set up, and couldn’t always switch the time or location to produce a more interesting image.
So, I learned to embrace the lack of control. As a consequence, I was able to develop an ability to quickly size up any scene or subject, developing a list of possible shots and scenes that I could work. Unlike a commercial photographer I couldn’t build a set or alter the scene so it was up to me to arrange the subject and make creative use of ambient and/or flash to produce interesting results that also matched the story the photos accompanied.
It’s this ability to roll with things that continues to serve me, and many other photojournalists, extremely well.
So, my long-winded way of saying, Use Your Environment. When you first reach a scene where you know you’ll be shooting a portrait, look for something that is visually interesting or somehow ties the subject to their environment.
An example from not long ago is this photo of Penobscot elder and WWII veteran Charles Norman Shay. The river that flows just below his home on the Penobscot reservation is an important feature of his life and of his reservation’s history. Also, being a veteran who fought in both Korea and in Europe, landing on Omaha Beach as part of the D-Day invasion, his military experience is something that helped form him. So I wanted him to wear his vest with the Silver Star and Bronze Star medals on it, but it was raining and cold. He happened to have a wooden teepee outside on his property–a museum–and I considered it, but it seemed to be a bit cliché. Instead, after a lot of conversation, Shay mentioned that he had turned many family photographs into a large mural that covered the inside of the teepee-shaped building.
I went inside and all I could think was, Thank you, Photo Gods. I owe you. Using this unique background allowed me to show Shay’s amazing, lined face juxtaposed with paintings of the Maine outdoors and family members wearing headdresses from long ago. Even got the medals in there. I like this photograph because the environment adds so much to this photo–but doesn’t overpower the most important part, Charles himself.
Incidentally, this approach works equally well when shooting a news or sporting event and you have no control over the subject. Take a look at this photo of a high school volleyball phenome practicing her spiking skills with her coach. The environment adds additional information to the photo and the inclusion of the school’s mascot is serendipitous…but not accidental.
no comments
RSS / trackback