PMP #1: Eye Power

Welcome to Practice Makes Perfect, ToadMama Edition. Or PMP, for short. My new, weekly, photo challenge.

Daughter, Shannon, inspired this challenge when she asked me for some photography practice tips. First, I tried wracking my brain for ideas. I got nothing. Then, I did a Web search for “photography practice tips” or something like that. That’s how I found this post, which has quite a few (40!) good ideas. I actually used a modified version of one of that author’s ideas for our first challenge. (I suspect I may be borrowing some more of those tips to use later on.)

But first, the PMP GUIDELINES:

1.  Have fun.

2.  Anyone can join. No demerits will be issued if you miss a week or ten.

3.  Photos you share must be captured specifically for the challenge. That means you can’t use old images or even a recent capture that accidentally fits the theme. This “challenge” is not a contest. The primary goal is to get you taking more pictures. Other objectives are to get you thinking about making good photographs, learn how to use your cameras various settings and lenses (if you have a DSLR), learn basic photographic techniques that anyone can employ (framing, composition, etc.).

4.  When sharing, link directly to your post or album (not your main blog URL, not your main Google Photos or Flickr feed, etc. I reserve the right to delete improper links.

5.  You MUST link back to or share the address for my PMP page, to the current week’s post, or both.

6.  I strongly encourage you to look at and comment on the work other participants choose to share. Who knows, you might make some new, like-minded friends.

7.  Have fun. (Yes, repeating this rule was intentional. If you think of this as a chore, you might be wasting your time. Of course, it could start out as a chore then morph into something you look forward to and maybe even love!)

For now, I think Sunday morning is a good day to target for sharing. I’ll create a new PMP post on that day. Participants can add comments to that post sharing a link to their images.

That’s it for now. Lets just get started with the theme for this week…

Eye Power

Personally, I hate having my picture taken. I’m not sure why. And since I have been working on NOT always going down a rabbit hole to figure out the reason behind anything and everything, I will leave it at that. I don’t care why, I just know that I typically freeze when people ask me to pose for pictures.

I am definitely more-comfortable behind the camera than in front of the thing. That’s true for a lot of people, actually. So, how do you avoid the ole, very unnatural, deer-in-the-headlights stare? Shoot candids. (For the sake of speed, or perhaps a little Saturday morning laziness, I’ll rely on Wikipedia to explain what is meant by candid photography.)

The author of the PetaPixel post I referred to earlier said…

If I’m shooting candidly, I will get close to my subject, and take multiple photos, until they notice my presence. Then I wait for them to notice me, and then I take a photograph when they make contact. Then when I go home, I have the decision of choosing between two version of a photo: one with eye contact, and one without. Sometimes eye contact works better, sometimes it doesn’t.

Sometimes, eye contact is good. Sometimes, it isn’t. It depends on what mood or tone you are going for. If your main goal is just a nice photo of someone you love, have them sit and pose for a portrait. If you want a more-powerful image, have them get comfortable doing something they love and shoot them from a bunch of different angles. Have them look at the camera sometimes and then look away.

Be creative. Your “someone” could be a hated neighbor (captured from a safe distance, of course), significant other, your pet, the cow who lives across the street… whatever. Just experiment and see what you end up with.

I look forward to seeing the results. Happy shooting!