ORIGINAL: Juice
When you carry around a big camera with a big lens, you can never avoid the requests to take the ''me and my airplane'' pictures. The question is, how do you make them more interesting than just a plain old ''me and my airplane'' picture? What do you guys do?
Ohhhhhhh man...now you're gonna get me started.
Hope you wanted a long reply. *heh*
Ok, first of all, you're absolutely right. become known as the "camera guy" at your field, for whatever reason, and you
will get "me and my airplane" picture requests. You have, imo, two choices:
1) Shoot "me and my airplane" and be done with it. There's certainly some merit here. After all, the guy's really probably only looking for "me and my airplane". There's probably about .01% chance he's going to show this to anyone and start critiquing the photo, ya know? Bottom line...snapshots have their place.
2) Do a lot of things "wrong".
There's absolutely nothing wrong with the rules of thumb...such as the "rule of thirds" you mention in the first picture below. They are long standing guidelines for a REASON.
The issue, however, is that....well...they're long standing guidelines. EVERYONE (or at least, everyone who desires to shoot beyond snapshot quality photos) knows them, and tries to obey them. So EVEN if you take a QUALITY photo of "me and my airplane"...it'll be just like EVERY OTHER QUALITY PHOTO of "me and my airplane".
So break a few rules.
Pilots are usually posed behind one wing or another specifically to accommodate the rule of thirds. Why not put them somewhere else? For that matter, why not put something in the background?
Ok, I know...I'm dealing with a professional model there....so it's a little easier to command what I want out of her. But drop that for a minute, and treat that photo like a collection of inanimate objects and a piece of meat. (Sorry, but the reality is...that's what models are, in a photographic sense)
Notice...SHE'S bisecting the photo, not the airplane. The airplane also crosses into 2 vertical thirds, and is way too "low" to be "correct".
Put that shot in a blank, empty patch of grass, and the model dominates the scene, no question. It becomes a picture of "a pretty girl with an airplane". NOT what I was after.
So why does the airplane jump out? Simple...I broke another rule. Look at the background. There's a bunch of dark vertical things (you might know them as trees), right? Guess what...the model is a
dark vertical thing too!
She suddenly becomes nothing more than
another part of the overall scene. We're at a park, with a pretty girl, taking airplane pictures now. And holy cow, that's a BIG airplane! Possibly because it covers 2 vertical thirds of the picture, DESPITE being shot at an angle.
So let's see...I've got lots of background clutter, a distracting building, I've placed the DESIRED subject too low, and off to one side, and shot it at a bad angle, meanwhile CENTERING the very thing i don't WANT you to focus on.
But it works.
The lesson here is this...
When you read about rules, think about WHY they're "rules".
As an example, you point out the "clean background" in several of your shots. Nothing wrong with a clean background, and it's a very common "rule". But...why?
Well...the simple answer is that things in the background can distract us from the subject of a photograph. They also tend to weasel their way into JUST the right angles to make things look REALLY silly. Take this one for example:
Either that airplane's got a REALLY poorly finished (and incredibly long) tail section, or someone didn't finish processing the lumber before starting the build. Your eyes will almost never catch things like that while you're shooting, because our brains KNOW the tree's 20' back, and just discount it. Very realistically, it simply DOESN'T EXIST in the photo while we're standing there pushing the button.
But by golly, put that in 2 dimensions, and show it to a set of eyes that's never been to that park, and that's one BAD picture. That background so effectively blows that scene up, you not only notice the airplane ONLY because it looks funny, but you almost don't even notice the model either! It's quite close to a "picture of a tree with some stuff in the way".
So...ok...a background can distract us. But hey...aren't there times you WANT a bit of distraction? Or at least some context?? Sure...my 1st shot above is an example. I don't WANT you focusing on the model. I want you to SEE her....and I'd like her to be pleasing to the eye (a task she fulfills nicely, I think)...but she's NOT the point of the photo.
And here's the whole thrust of all of this. Understand WHY you want to break a rule at times. In my case, i had a real dilemma. How do you put a model THAT attractive in a picture, and NOT have her dominate it???
Your only option is to hide her...right in plane site. So...we break the background rule. if that's a portrait of that model, it's horrible...she's lost amongst the background elements. But it's not...it's a picture of the airplane...which JUMPS out at you, PRECISELY because it's so unusually positioned (as compared to "rules of photography")...an viola, we get what we want. An airplane with a pretty girl next to it.
Having said that...I hope you'll allow me to offer some critique below. Please understand...I'm not picking on you, I'm just offering some critical thoughts. I promise you...I'm MUCH harder on my own stuff than I'll EVER be on someone else's....and I ABSOLUTELY would welcome you returning the favor to my own work, if you're so inclined.
This is ''Evan and his airplane''. I used the rule of thirds here. I also positioned him so that there are no benches, fences and people in the background. It was a sunny cloudless day, and I couldn't avoid the harsh shadows and I didn't know the white surface was so washed out.
First the background. You're right...it's clean...no fences, benches, or people...which pretty much means this coulda been shot in any front yard in suburbia.
It's a model airplane! It's SUPPOSED to be at an airfield...so why not include some context in the background? Some random person standing there would, indeed, be a pointless distraction...but what about someone at a flightline with a radio around their nexk, looking up at an airplane? Or what about a starting bench? Maybe a runway? For that matter, even another airplane, or some field boxes. ANYTHING that says "model airplane field" gives us some context. It stops being "Evan and his airplane", and becomes "Evan
out flying his airplane."...."Evan
having fun at the field."
Of course, we don't want ANY of those things to be too close, or too sharply focused...but with a moderate Depth of Field, they become recognizable CONTEXT, but not distractions.
As for the shadows and glare, 2 suggestions:
1) Buy a good handheld flash...and use it. You'll be STUNNED, even on a bright cloudless day, how much of that a fill flash will get rid of.
2) Always always ALWAYS travel with a white bed sheet, or at least a piece of posterboard. Snag someone for 5 minutes to play 'professional cloud", and have them stand just out of the shot, between your subject and the sun. The sheet will do a very nice job of diffusing bright light, and a piece of posterboard can provide a handy bit of shade just where you need it most.
This is ''Dave and his airplane''. Again, rule of thirds and clean background.
Dave's GOT to lose those shades. *heh* They're a HUGE distraction...so much so, I noticed them before I even realized Dave's plane was broke.
Other than that, i really dig the composition on this one.
This is ''Rod and his helicopter''. He wanted to show off his freshly painted shiny canopy. So I posed him so that I get his reflection off of it.
A REALLY neat idea. If you get a chance, shoot it again...three times. Make one of the following 2 changes in each of the first two, then both in the third.
1) More (or possibly less) Rod. I presume that blue thing at the right edge is his...Arm? Hat? Elbow? Uncomfortable sitting position? Some part of him, anyway.
In either case, either give us enough Rod to know what part of him that is, or take him far enough out that there's not a vague blue fuzzy thing in the shot.
2) Turn the helicopter. Just a few degrees is fine. It looks awfully 2-dimensional here, and barely suggests "helicopter". Turn it just enough to give it a bit of length and definition.
Again...i TOTALLY dig the idea of showing off the canopy by getting Rod's reflection in there...that's damn creative, don't know that i would have thought of it.
These are ''Max's helicopters''. Nothing fancy. I was just practicing my composition with this one.
Watch the reflection of yourself in the canopy.
This is my combat plane. Again, working on composition.
I LOVE this shot. This is, whether you intended to do it or not, EXACTLY what I was talking about above. There's so much "garbage" in there, this picture SHOULD be ruined. Bench, field box, blew the rule of thirds right out of the water...
Heck, you didn't even put the distractions far enough away to be blurred. You went ABOVE AND BEYOND to screw this one up. *lol*
BUT IT WORKS!
That picture SCREAMS "Man did we have a BLAST today!!" That airplane has a PERSONALITY. It's tired, worn out, hurt, and sore...just like WE are after a hard day of playing. But...despite all that, it's CLEARLY eager for you to fix it so it can go RIGHT BACK OUT next weekend, and do it all again!
One last comment on this one, since it sells one more point I often like to make.
Don't underestimate the power of a VERY minor detail.
Want to know what I mean?
Take your finger and cover the eyeball on the airplane.
Congratulations on you picture of a pile of junk.