The Importance of Being Careful
Not a long post today, just a short note about being careful when you’re taking photos, especially when you are in a controlled environment and you have the time and ability to move things around. The shot above is from a recent shoot I did at Box-2B-Fit, a fitness-through-boxing gym in Raleigh, North Carolina. I like the shot a lot, and the mistake in this shot is probably not a deal-breaker, but it was worth mentioning and discussing, as I think one of the big differences between “professional” photographers and “amateur” photographers is the pro’s ability to eliminate distractions and/or incongruous elements from their photos, usually at the time of capture.
I say usually, because as you can see in the photo above, I’ve left a studio strobe in the background of the shot, the round reflector visible just under Aiden’s left elbow. Fortunately for me in this wonderous age of digital technology, I have access to Photoshop and content-aware fill, so with a little careful work I feel confident that I can clone out that light. In the effort to create strong visual stories, though, that’s something I should have noticed before taking the photograph. I was controlling the lights, I was directing Aiden, I didn’t have any particular time constraints.
Indeed, after taking this photo, I noticed the light and moved it out of the way, but the lesson here is to be looking for those things, and making sure you are eliminating them. In this case it’s a light I left in the frame, but distractions–things that draw a viewer’s eyes away from your primary subject–come in all forms. Sometimes they are controllable/movable, sometimes they are not. In every case, though, YOU have the ability as a photographer to compose your photo in such a way that you either minimize or eliminate such distractions. I’ll illustrate with another example.
San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge from Yerba Buena Island
If you look carefully near the bottom-center of the frame, just under the street light on the bridge, you’ll notice another, silhouetted street light jutting into the frame. I tried several different compositions, focal lengths, and positions to minimize or eliminate this street light, but in every case other unwelcome things (branches, twigs) entered the frame on the sides, or it involved a very difficult scramble to a precarious position. In the end, I settled on this composition and did what I could to minimize the light as much as possible. Again, if I really wanted to, I could probably go in with the healing tool and get that light out of there altogether. I’m not particularly skilled with the tool, though, and I don’t believe in a lot of photo manipulation when it comes to adding or removing things in the frame (mostly, probably, because I’m not that good at it).
In both cases, I don’t think the distractions are ultimately dealbreakers, but the best images are focused and free of anything extraneous. Just like a good short story, every element matters and serves some purpose.
