When you are taking family photos, it is easy to overlook the importance of what is in the foreground and background of your shot. Chances are, you don’t want to miss the “party” and you are capturing life as quickly as you can so you won’t miss out. Taking an extra minute on each shot to think about what it will look like on print or screen is a small price to pay for superb “frame-quality” photos. It is always nice to see that you have a few “keepers” when you get home and pop your CF card in to your computer.

A common misconception is that you have to be in a spectacular or exotic place to get a great photo. A perfect photo can come from wherever you are. It starts with your eye, your mind, and your heart. What is beautiful to you? Even dirty downtown cities can have wonderful photography treasures waiting to be discovered (if you carry a can of pepper mace and antibotic ointment). You don’t have to look farther than your own back yard. Add just a few moments to “set up your shot” and hone in on the subject matter, and you can be a “photographer” that produces quality work!

Here are a few photographs and their stories… to get your creative juices flowing:

This shot was taken with my Canon 40D. I never use the green “auto” setting. I always put it on a creative setting. I don’t know how to use the camera well yet, so I couldn’t tell you now what I used for this shot, but it was a point and click photo that I took in my neighborhood while we were walking around the block. We weren’t anywhere special - just on my block. The ladybug landed on Morgan and I saw her looking at it. Her hair was blowing in the wind and she was giggling because his little feet were tickling her. I had my camera in my hand because we were shooting the flowers as we walked along. I asked her to hold him up so I could try to get a macro shot (my camera doesn’t have a good macro lense). Interestingly, her eyes were blurred in the background and I stopped to center her face while zooming in on the bug. I purposefully got her eyes to catch the “feeling” of the moment. There’s nothing like seeing a child’s face in the background when they are discovering nature. It brings the photo into a personal realm.

CHALLENGE…
Place: any generic neighborhood neighborhood
Light: sunlight (avoid throwing shadows on the subject)
Idea: focus on a small bug or object and allow the child holding it to be centered in the background slightly blurred

I was on my recent trip to Michigan when I took this photo. I was in LaGrange Kentucky across from Norma Jean’s Trackside. It was an ordinary small-town street lined with lovely blooming pear trees. I could have shot the pear blossoms like my mom wanted me to. I did actually get a couple shots of the blossoms themselves. Those photos didn’t have character like this one, though. It was just beginning to get dark (the time of day has a huge impact on your photography). I noticed a bird in one of the trees. The silhouette was as pretty as his chirpy voice. I snapped a quick shot after closing in on his branch with my zoom lens. Even though the detail of the bird is lost in dark shadow, the silhouette of his body and the blossomed branch are a unique subject matter that capture attention.

CHALLENGE…
Place: any blossoming tree with low branches
Light: twilight (sunset works well, also)
Idea: find an object with an interesting silhouette against the twilight sky

Everyone loves wildflowers. Istock Photo has so many flower shots that they don’t want any more! They are abundant (thankfully) and are easy targets for practicing your photography skills. This particular flower was in a field near my neighborhood. We noticed it on an afternoon nature walk and I got quite a few photographs of it because I hadn’t seen it before. It was softer than it looks to the touch. It was also growing about one INCH from the curb - not a great photo area. Who wants an ugly street in their photo? The answer is to move your camera around the photo until you have a nice blurred solid-colored background. I had to get beside the flower and turn the camera towards the grass beside it to avoid getting white curb or black plastic rain-tarp in the photo. It took a few extra seconds to crop out unwanted background image, but it was so worth it! I love this shot… and it preserved the flower without reminding me of the concrete that it was growing near.

CHALLENGE…
Place: on your street
Light: bright sunlight
Idea: capture a macro of an interesting budding wildflower that you haven’t seen before (try to blur the background and make it as solid of one color as you can)

Western poses are easy shots. I was going to have a cowboy and cowgirl birthday party for these two kiddos and wanted to take some shots for the cover of the invitation. I didn’t have the money to take them to a professional photographer, so I just took them outside in the back yard. I looked for a spot that had plenty of trees and some depth with shadows. I did it in the evening about an hour or two before sunset on an overcast day. You can get softer colors on overcast days. I wanted to capture a serious pose - in the spirit of the “determined West”. I had my son lift his leg and rest his boot on a flower-bed rock and told both of them to look at a specific point in the yard. I absolutely loved the shot that resulted… in fact, the whole roll of film came out wonderful. I even got a picture of my son kissing his sister on the cheek with their cowboy hats on. This whole shoot took around 30 minutes from the time I popped in the film and got the kids dressed until the roll was finished. The thing that took the longest was waiting for the film to be developed - since these were taken with 35mm (my pre-digital days).

CHALLENGE…
Place: a wooded back yard or park
Light: overcast day after 3pm and before 8pm
Idea: have your kids dress up and plan to take them for portraits, make sure to consider the background and poses, shoot a whole roll (around 24 shots or more) - don’t let them look straight at the camera the whole time (try to get some natural shots, some playful shots, some serious shots, and a few smiles)

Close up faces are one of my favorite things to photograph… especially my kids’ faces. You can do these types of shots indoors or outdoors. A window will provide a wonderful soft indoor lighting source. Avoid flashes if you can. The flash ruins portraits if it is pointed towards the person’s face. I take a LOT of flashless photos. Tripods are handy tools if you like to take pictures this way. I have to delete a ton of shots because I don’t have a tripod and end up blurring shots on accident. This photo was taken INSIDE a school gym on our trip to Michigan to compete in the robotics championship. The lighting was awful. There were teeming masses of people everywhere. My kids were hanging over the railing to see some other children competing and I “saw” the photo. I zoomed in with my macro and took the shot after asking Morgan to stand behind her brother. Usually you would want both of the kids in focus - but this particular day was my son’s big day… so it was kind of telling the story of the event from his perspective. Allowing people to be somewhat blurred in certain photos gives the image intrigue.

CHALLENGE…
Place: anywhere
Light: enough light to not use a flash
Idea: get a close up of one person’s face while getting a blurred image of someone else beside or behind them (a good way to use this is to get the “birthday kid” in the foreground and a sibling in the background - telling the viewer that it was the birthday kid’s special day)

Hope you have enjoyed these photos and tips. Don’t be afraid of your camera - get out and have fun taking pictures. The more you practice, the better your photos will become. You don’t have to be a rich jet-setting National Geographic Photographer on assignment in some remote jungle to get interesting shots. Take photos of what is familiar to you - what you love - and take them well. You will treasure them!

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