Perspective is one of my favorite topics when teaching photography because a new perspective can completely change a photograph. As a mom photographer you have the opportunity to document your child’s growing years in ways that showcase your child and your life together. Perspective can play a huge part in that. In this post you will learn how to find your unique photography perspective and learn to look at your world with a new perspective.
What’s the focus of the image
Before you start taking a photograph, think about what you want the focus to be. This doesn’t always have to be your subjects face. The focus might be your child’s hands as she plays, the book she is reading, or her sandy toes. It might be eyes, shoes, a tiara, or anything else you want to document in your child’s life at this moment. When I look at a scene I try to think of how many different elements I could focus on and take photos that show each one.
Think about the composition
There are many composition rules you can learn and put into practice in photography. The purpose of these rules is to give you a more interesting photograph that will draw the viewers eyes to a certain focus point, add depth to an image, or create a unique photograph. When you are taking photos, try to use these composition rules to help you exaggerate your perspective for your viewer. If you don’t know a lot about composition, this is one of my favorite articles to help you get started.
Feelings and Emotion
What feelings and emotions do you want to come across with your image? Knowing this will help you find the perspective you want to have when taking the image. Use your lens to tell a story. If you are showcasing the pride of a new parent, focus on the face of the parent looking down on their brand new baby. If you are showing the peace of the newborn, put the focus in the baby’s face. In any given moment there are several different photography perspectives you could have, depending on what your goal is with the photograph. Thinking about the feelings will help you decide what perspective you want to take.
Think outside the box
For most of us, we take photos looking straight at our subjects from whatever view we happen to be at. These are probably nice photos, but not the kind that stand out and make you stop and remember the moment. Try to think beyond this standard perspective. Get yourself up high or lower. Look for new ways to create an interesting photo of the moment rather than shooting the way you normally would. Rather than the standard portrait of your child looking at you and smiling, challenge yourself to get a photo that captures the essence of your child. This may not come naturally at first, but the more you think about each photograph the ore natural you will become at finding your own composition and perspective to create the image you want.
Get out of your comfort zone
We all have a comfort zone when it comes to taking photos. Mine is closeups. I love taking close up portraits of my kids and my clients, focusing on the eyes. You probably have a go to photo of your kids as well. Take it upon yourself to try something new and get yourself out of that comfort zone. You can’t ever grow if you aren’t being challenged. The best way I have found to do this is to do a photography challenge where you do one photo every day. This could be the 365 challenge where you are a new photo everyday or you could do 30 days or whatever works for you. The point is to seek out images you wouldn’t normally take and push your photography to new levels.
Find a detail you can enhance
This might be similar to finding the focus of the image. Look at you scene or your subject and find one detail you could really enhance. For example, if you are taking photos of your child painting, you might choose to focus on his hands and paintbrush. You could take an image from e same level of his hands and blur out his face in the background. You could get above him and take an image looking down at the artwork while his hands are painting. You could take a picture while he is dipping his paintbrush in water or more paint. You might get an image of his hands covered in different colors of paint. There are so many variations of the same photograph. Choosing one small detail will encourage you to try out new perspectives as you photograph.
Tell a story
This is my favorite part of photography. To me, this is what it’s all about. Think through the story you want to tell in photographs and try out as many perspectives as you can to tell that story. Move around as you take photos of the scene, capture all the details in different ways, get the emotions behind the images, and document the whole story.
As you continue to take photos and enhance your photography skills you will start to find your voice and photography perspective will come easily to you. There is no one right photo at any given time. There may be one photo you are trying to get while someone else would see the moment completely differently. It is your photograph, your story. Finding the right perspective for an image will transform it into the unique image you are trying to capture.
What to do now:
Finding a new photography perspective is exciting. As you take photos, move around a lot and tell the story you want to tell. Practice, practice, practice! I know I say this all the time, but it is SO important! You can pin this article for later by clicking the Pinterest icon on the side. My goal for you is that you have fun with photography and make it a part of your every day. Tag me on Instagram (@athomewithkidsblog) and show me your favorite photos.
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