How The Photo Was Made: Behind The Frame, part iii

Favorite Photograph’s I’ve Taken, some behind the frame details, and why I love them, part iii.

This is a showcase of a few client and personal images I’ve taken over the years, focusing on color, composition, connection, and joy. All of my favorite things!

Family Chilling Out As Viewed From Above

One of my favorite tools in my photography toolbox (and one that is free!) is utilizing varying perspective. Getting down low and shooting up, shooting at the subject’s eye level, and shooting overhead are all perspectives I love to use. Taking a photograph from overhead and getting the composition or space around your subject can be a challenge without a step ladder…so, when I saw that you could see into this families living room from a staircase overhead, I was so excited to take some photos from overhead. To get the perspective, I held my camera out over the railing (when you do this always secure your camera to your wrist in some way just in case you loose your grip…nothing would be worse than dropping your camera, and dropping it on a client/person!).

I will sometimes use an aperture of around 3-4 (if it’s possible) to ensure that more of the subjects are in focus to see what is occurring in the story.

Girl In A Yellow Dress

While exploring the urban neighborhoods in Portland Oregon for the shooting video for my Composition and Color in Photography course, we came upon this area with the neutral black background and two yellow poles. I loved how the two yellow poles could surround or “frame” my daughter who was also in a yellow dress. If you participate in the course and watch the shooting video, you will see that there were a few activities that I had my subjects doing in this location. There were some fall yellow leaves, and we took some of them throwing the leaves, used the stairs as a jumping off point, and also just as a space for my subject to walk, etc. Based on my perspective, there were some lines painted on the parking lot that also added interest to the frame, but this image was my favorite one. I really loved how this image came out, particularly with the juxtaposition of the black and the yellow with the young girl.

Spring Smiles

Negative space is one of my true photography loves, and when I can utilize foliage as the negative space it’s a bonus. This image was taken during a family photo session during the spring season when we have cherry blossom trees blooming in Portland on the waterfront. My young client here was having fun twirling, jumping, and throwing the flower petals that were calmly falling out of the trees. So, when she stopped for a break I asked her to lay down on the grass surrounded by the flower petals. I encouraged her to laugh and make eye contact. For this image I actually extended the frame and made even more space of the grass and flower petals with the subject smaller and in the very bottom of the frame.

Children’s Lifestyle Environmental Portrait

As a family we lived in Taichung Taiwan for almost seven years, all of which were in high rise urban apartment buildings. Due to the frequent air pollution, and humid weather, we didn’t spend much time out on our balcony. But, the city view really was spectacular, and it was very important to me to create an environmental portrait of each of my daughters on our balcony. This is my oldest daughter, just looking out at the city. I utilized the railing on the balcony to create a diagonal leading line into the image from camera right to the subject, who is also on the left rule of thirds line. There is a nice balance between the child subject, and the city scape. The urban landscape isn’t too tiny in the distance, so it feels much more tangible than when you look down at a city from a really high place. (This is on the 11th floor for reference.) Also, the light on this evening was just beautiful, adding a twinkle to the subjects eye, flattering skin tones, and sparkle to the city scape.

Would you like to learn more about how you can incorporate multiple compositional elements into your photos? You can check out details about my online course ‘Composition and Color’ and I even have a guide on ‘conscious composition + color’ that you can download for free.

Learn more about what inspires my photography, behind the frame thoughts, and photography education related blog posts: