Cameron Conner : The Orange Lemonade

This photograph is of my family on Mother’s Day.

This is a photograph of a flower through a shoebox

These images have dramatically different subjects, and dramatically different shooting styles. The first one is a family portrait, and the second is a landscape, shot through a shoebox. However, while the styles are different, you must consider the same things when shooting them.

Subject

#1) Obviously this is of people. However, who exactly is the subject? While, yes, you can have multiple people be the subject of a photograph, in this case there is only one real subject, and the others are less important. In this case, the true subject is my Grandmother. Everyone else is looking away from the camera, doing their own thing– in motion, you might say (and I do). Everyone else is simply providing lines in the image. You’ll notice pretty much everyone is looking at grandma, or in her general vicinity. Keeping your photographs interesting is very important: and this one most definitely does that. You’re probably wondering, as I am now (since this photo is a few years old and I don’t remember the context) what everyone is doing, and what they’re thinking about. If you look closely you’ll see what seems to be a cup in front on grandma, and so you’ll guess that maybe they’ve just finished a meal. Or maybe they’re looking at each other and are mad because no one will cop to eating the last piece of pie. Or dropping the mashed potatoes all over the floor. Whatever you’re thinking, that’s the magic of photography. Photography was created for this kind of a shot: movement. Never before could you accurately capture people in action, everything was from memory or completely staged to look like it was action. While some painters got really good at it, it was photography that did it perfectly.

#2) This one is, clearly, of a flower. While this isn’t the best thing I’ve ever done, I still like it. I recommend clicking on it to see a larger version. This was shot using a shoebox.

I’m not sure, but I think the amazingly talented (and French) Remi invented this. See some of his brilliant videos on vimeo here… Sadly, it looks like he hasn’t been posting for awhile. Basically, you take a magnifying glass, some tracing paper, and a shoebox and put them together. Result: Really cool pictures and videos with a small area for your subject. Using one of these basically automatically gives you a vignette (dark fading border around the edges), which pulls the viewer’s eye toward the center.

Check out the next post for Lighting (and more talk of vignettes).