On Tuesday evening I had the privilege of speaking with a local Girl Scouts troop (which my Lily officially joined on Thursday morning). I love sharing what I know about photography with others, especially young, budding photogs. They following is what we covered. Feel free to share it the young photographers in your life!
1. View~ Take an old matboard or cut a rectangle from an empty box of cereal (recycling at it's finest), hold it up and see what is inside. This represents the viewfinder of the camera. Move around until you get the picture you want in the frame. (This helps them to concentrate on what they are taking a picture of, instead of pointing and shooting at everything.)
2. Holding steady~ Learning the proper way to hold the camera helps you avoid those blurry pictures. Your right hand should grip the right side of the camera, with your index finger loosely above the shutter and your thumb on the back side of the camera. Your left and should support the weight of the camera or lens. Using the viewfinder makes it easier to hold the camera closely to the body. Tuck your elbows in to your sides, for extra stability lean against a wall or other sturdy structure. Taking these steps will help with camera shake although using a tripod is the ultimate way to avoid shaking.
3. Backgrounds~ Check your back and fore grounds. Make sure that your subject doesn't have anything that looks like it is growing out of their head. Like tree branches or someones fingers! If you notice something either have your subject move or you could move over for a clearer shot.
4. Straight~ Hold the camera straight when you snap the shutter. While this has been blown out of the water as of late, with all of the new trendy tilted pics, it is still an important factor to teach young photographers. After all you have to know the rules to break the rules!
5. Close~ Get in close to the subject for greater detail. You don't get the detail of a persons eyes or the texture of a flower or wetness of an animal nose when you are several feet away from your subject. If your camera doesn't have a zoom lens, then use your legs and walk closer to the subject. My favorite lenses are my primes, and I use my little 'ol legs all day (walking closer and then backing up to compose the perfect picture).
6. Balance~ Shoot lots of different things, people, animals, flowers, landscapes and anything else you can find.
7. Interest~ Find a focal point (something of interest), it adds interest to an image. Ask yourself, "What is my subject?" Then find a way of framing it to draw the attention to the subject.
8. Thirds~ The infamous Rule Of Thirds, by knowing this one little rule, you can add much more drama to a picture, then again it also goes back to Knowing 'Em Before You Can Break 'Em! This is a harder on to teach to younger photographers, but simply teaching them to get they subject out of the center of the frame, can have tremendous impact of their images.
9. Experiment~ Have fun with perspective. Shoot higher or lower than your subject or even get on the same level as your subject. Don't just stand with your feet on the ground. See the world from different levels. It can be a lot of fun.
10. Settings~ Learn the settings for your camera. The owners manual can be very enlightening!
11. Review~ Review your child's images with them. Let them tell you what they like about each image and then you tell them what you like, and discuss what could make the image better.
12. Shoot~ Go out and shoot, we all learn from doing! Try different techniques, find what you like.
I for one can not wait to see what images will come from the next generation of photographers. They have such a learning advantage over us older folks. They are getting instant feedback from their efforts. Whereas when I was younger, I would shoot a roll and wait, when it was finally developed, most of the time I had forgotten what techniques or settings I used to get the image. I was also limited to the number of images that I could take, film and developing could get quiet expensive, so my mother always told me. So let your children shoot away, review their pictures, set a limit on the number of keep pics (because it does take up space on the hard drive to keep loads of pictures), and print only their most favorites.
At the end of our meeting each girl received a shirt, that said "Take a picture, it'll last longer" and a camera (film of coarse, keeping it old school). I offered to have them developed for them along with a critique of their work. I am really looking forward to their images. Good luck girls, and most of all have fun!
