July, 2010
© Tim Pannell Photography
Shoot through stuff guys…..now that’s real technical sounding isn’t it? If any of you have watched the show “24″…..they do it all the time. There is almost always something very out of focus in the foreground of most of their shots.
If gives the image a little bit of mystery, a little bit of depth and a little more interest than just a straight photograph.
I love depth in imagery. I usually want my images to look as 3 dimensional as possible.
For this shot of my neighbor’s daughter I thought it would be much more interesting if I shot the image through the French door rather than on the inside of the room with Jillian.
She’s by far the cutest little girl on the planet….she comes over and visits 4 or 5 times a week to eat “white” cheese and “good” pickles…”not the icky kind.”
When we lived in Arizona we had neighbors with 2 little kids that would come over and visit us as well…..we miss them dearly…..Jillian’s visits have helped us through our “withdrawal” period from Trenten and Cadyn.
As always, when shooting 2 or 3 year olds you can’t get too technical in terms of directions……gently nudging is about all you can do. Let them have fun….see what they naturally come up with……you’ll be surprised what great images you can make just observing what a 2 year old invents on the spot.
The next time you shoot, find some different objects with varying degrees of opacity to set really close to your lens in the foreground. See what happens to your image when you shoot through it. Play around with different things until you find something you like. Shoot through windows……play around with reflections.
If you go too far with something, just dial it back a little. Experiment with different depths or distances from your lens. Try different f-stops……typically wide open, or close to wide open works best, but try stopping for a few if only just to see what it does.
Most of all…..just have fun playing around with your photos. The beauty of digital is that it costs you nothing but your time to experiment.
Good luck!
© Tim Pannell Photography
I’ve been looking around at some of the “photo blogs” that are out on the internet lately and there is one thing that has really surprised me. Why do so many of the blogs use the exact same template with almost identical images to other “photo blogs?” Heck…..even some of the verbage is word for word the same as other blogs. The images almost always look like they were shot by the same person as well.
I’m disappointed that so many just go out and copy the work of someone that is basically already copying the work of Anne Geddes. Not only is that plagiarism, but it is as far as one can get from true creativity.
© Tim Pannell Photography
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with getting inspiration from someone’s work or vision and using that as a starting point or jumping off point…….but to do the same shot and then call it your own…..that’s not what photography should be about.
My advice……try harder. If you want to recreate someone else’s work as an assignment to learn a technique…..that’s great…..just don’t promote it as your own work. Any self respecting professional photographer knows there are laws in place to protect against that and would never do this.
There is a big difference between owning a professional digital camera and being a professional photographer. I’m a little taken aback by all of the misrepresentation going on of late. My niece is getting married in August and gave me a list of several “wedding” photographers’ websites to look at.
To my surprise….they were all just bloggers. All of them did something else for a living and did photography because it was their “passion.” Each of these blogs featured ” fully retouched or “edited” images” awash in posteriziation, clipped highlights and clipped shadows. Many of the images were very beautiful. Interesting crops, interesting use of available light (only available light) very limited scenarios because of their inability to do anything other than just point their camera and shoot.
This is a recipe for a wedding disaster. If you’re looking for a wedding photographer….don’t hire a blogger……get a professional that knows what they’re doing….it’s worth the extra money.
They initially wanted me to shoot their wedding, but I declined because even though I’m a professional in the biz for over 25 years….I don’t shoot weddings. It’s not what I’m good at and it wouldn’t be fair to them to misrepresent myself.
If you’re learning photography……admit it. If you’re still struggling with Photoshop……admit it. Don’t promote yourself as a professional baby, teenager, wedding photographer when you are consistently posterizing every one of your images that happens to have red in it. It’s not honest.
That being said……we all start somewhere….just be yourself…..not Anne Geddes, not your next door neighbor, not me.
© Tim Pannell Photography
Learn your craft so that you can try new things and experiment. It’s when you experiment that you come up with images that can look unique. Unique is a lofty goal to aim at since seemingly almost anything worth doing has already been done, but I think you get the point.
I spent a couple of days last week shooting with an art director friend of mine from New York. It was a blast to be working together again. It’s kind of like this intricately intertwined photography dance we have going. She knows me well and I know her well and consequently its a joy to shoot together….she brings out my best.
We spent several hours on a neighbors porch. She had so many wonderful knick knacks all over the place that made for wonderful props for my kids and families to use.
It felt a lot like play time for me as well as the models. We wanted the images to have kind of dreamy whimsical quality to them. We chose specific colors in the wardrobe and props to achieve that.
My personal opinion is…..it worked.
In any case…..don’t copy other people’s work or websites or text……it’s not ethical.
Sorry I got off on a rant there…..ooops…..I’ve just plagiarized Dennis Miller……ahhhh crap!
Just go out and play, have fun……..try something new and different………and most importantly…….be yourself!
