Getting Down and Dirty

This post is a guest post by my dear friend, Tara. She's an excellent photographer and today she is sharing some photography tips with all of us. I know I will definitely be using this tip about perspective this summer while I'm traveling. I hope you all find it helpful as well!

Taking great pictures of your kids…or anything for that matter…may just be all a matter of perspective. Our first inclination upon snapping the shutter is to stand directly in front of our subjects, which although it produces a nice image, may not have an AMAZING quality about it.

So may I propose a Red Thread summer photography assignment? Every time you take a picture, take 3 more. Get above your subject, get down on the ground, and yes…you may even get dirty!

Let me show you the difference perspective makes from this collection of images of my favorite Superhero!

Here I am taking the picture standing directly in front of this flying wonder. Sure it is a good picture. It shows a concentrated super hero expression and definitely shows him jumping from some sort of height. But to be honest, it is not super…and superheroes need SUPER pictures!!

In this picture, I decided to get down on my knees, but still directly in front of our Boy Wonder. (You know, the lovely thing about Superheroes is that they LOVE to perform their feats over and over and over again. Makes for great photography practice!) So…this picture is much better and getting closer to super status. Just the change in my perspective makes it look much more like a spectacular jump.

So for this image I not only get down, but get dirty…but I think it is worth it. I laid down on my stomach, still directly in front of this flying champion. But this time he looks Super!! Because of the perspective at which I took the picture, you can see the swing set behind him and his whole body is almost fully “in the sky”. He is obviously (from this perspective) able to leap tall buildings in a single bound!!

Just when you think you are done, I say that you get dirty one more time. Since you will already be down on your belly, just roll over onto your back and take the picture from there – almost upside down! You never know what that will do for a superhero image…

Of course, once you’ve mastered taking 4 different pictures from 4 different perspectives, you could always move you location and start again…

So here is hoping you get down and dirty this summer!! AND you get great pictures to prove it!!

Tara Malouf makes her home in the Seattle area with her husband and two kids. She loves images and words, quiet and beauty, walking and prayer. She sees with “connectedness” eyes and thinks life is lived in story. She aspires to be a professional friend.

You can check out her photography at www.redthreadphoto.blogspot.com and her occasional musings at www.stroyformed.wordpress.com