nadine henley

Brent Acie was our judge at the NEPG camera club last night and there were so many tips in his merciless but very humorous comments that I thought I would try to capture them quickly and share them here. (apologies to Brent if I misrepresent or misremember!):

- when photographing models, use misdirection – ask the model to put her hands on her thighs and slowly bring them upwards if you want the area around the neck and clavicle to relax – she’ll be concentrating on the hands and thighs and the tension in her neck area will disappear; similarly, if you want the face to relax, ask her to do something with her hips!

- don’t photograph hands overlapping – it’ll make them look much bigger

- when the model is wearing a sweater and you want to photograph the hands, either have the sweater down to completely cover the wrist area or pushed up to show the wrist and part of the arm, otherwise the hands look fat!

- one of the appealing things in photographs is creating the sense of depth – can be done using layers (e.g. of mountains) or by leading the eye into the image – for example, Elana’s stunning shot of a shearing shed with a door in the foreground and then lines on the floor leading us through the first room to another door and then a light beyond in a far room. He said the eye naturally goes towards the light. Congratulations, Elana , on that superb shot and 1st place. He liked another shot of people walking on the beach because, again, it drew us in to where they were and you could see where they might be walking to (a house in the distance), and want to go along with them.

- Yellow is the most attracting/distracting colour – even more than white – that’s why it’s used in danger and warning signs. So if your focal point isn’t in yellow and there’s another element in the image that is in yellow, the eye probably won’t stay on the focal point.

- If you know you’re likely to be shooting your kids, dress them in plain t-shirts – nothing is as distracting as the writing and graphic designs on most kids’ t-shirts! (Of course, don’t know how cooperate the kids will be! They might start insisting on wearing distracting t-shirts to put you off shooting them!)

- if the catchlights in your subject’s eyes are too sharp, the viewer won’t be able to make eye contact and hold it – their eyes will slip off – I haven’t heard this before but it really makes sense to me – usually the tip is to have good, strong, sharp catchlights but I find it quite unnerving if they’re too sharp

- he also talked about the importance of being able to see the iris clearly

- good to position the edge of a complete reflection on the centreline of the image

- good to play with position of reflection so that more of the reflection is shown than we can see of the object, lends intrigue and interest

- make sure a subject’s nose is not on the same plane as the cheek – should either be turned in a little or out completely

- don’t crop at the chin – either above or below

- lead the eye in to the focal point – we don’t want to jump straight there

I may come back and add to this as I remember other points. But that’ll do for now.

(PS – my least technically good image on my least expensive equipment was the one of mine he liked the best!)