Making the best out of your pictures

INSIDE

Making the best out of your pictures

By Mindy Leatherman

Every house in

America

has one common household item on its coffee table - the family album. Bound with delicate care, this album holds years of the family’s memories. From the first baby, to the road trip to Colorado, these memories are considered priceless. After all, if these fleeting moments aren’t captured, they could be lost forever.

That’s why it’s important for the person behind the camera to get the best out of every snap. Here are some tips to get better pictures so that you can ensure that your family’s lifelong memories are safe with your shutter-finger. Pictures are priceless.

Jenny Binder, owner of a digital scrap-booking business in Craig, Missouri (http://heirloomscrapbooks.com/) agrees. She said that when she asks families what three items they would save from a house fire, pictures are always included. “Memories are precious to me and I think it is important to help preserve them. That’s why I started my business. I want to help other families successfully save their photos.”

There are two elements to a good photo presentation:

The actual photo
Documentation or the story behind the photo

Kodak’s website recommends these tips for better pictures:

Use flash outdoors
Move in close
Move the subject from the middle
Lock the focus
Know your flash’s range
Watch the lighting
Take some vertical pictures
Be a picture director
Use a plain background

Here is the same subject with different backgrounds. You can see that the influence the background has on the quality of the picture…


(Too busy)	(Good)

For tips in taking pictures, Jenny offered similar tips as Kodak, but also listed a few personal tips:

Get a good camera.
Crop.
Do not be afraid to throw away bad pictures.

Jenny stresses the value the documentation element has on making the photos last. She goes on to say that pictures are certainly priceless, but “a bad pictures is worthless”. She even went further and commented that even a good picture with no documentation is worthless. “Just look at antique stores across the nation. They are filled with precious photographs that become worthless to the owner because the story was not attached to the picture.”

Jenny has owned her business only for a year, but has been scrap-booking her families pictures for four years. When she began scrap-booking, she would take 4-6 pictures of the same thing, but now her technique has changed. She points out that in order to get the complete story, she will take six pictures of the same theme, but every snap is a different part of the theme.

When snapping your family’s party or next Christmas, note the distinguishing characteristics of event or person. Ask yourself why it is important to you and your family. All these things together tell the complete story of the picture.

After you have the pictures, it is time to document the event in words. At the basic level, you should cover: who, what, when, where, and why. Jenny suggests that picture-takers go even deeper to make the photo more personal. Paint another picture with your words as you describe in detail how you feel.

To give your picture emotions, you might want to start off by finishing these statements:

“I’ve always wondered...”

“What if…”

“Someday…”

See layouts that Jenny created on her website (http://heirloomscrapbooks.com/).

You can practice getting the best lighting with Kodak’s online camera at:

http://www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQuerier.jhtml?pq-path=317&pq-locale=en_US

References:

Binder, Jenny. (2005). Heirloom Scrapbooks. Retrieved [July 8,2005], from http://heirloomscrapbooks.com/

Kodak. (2004). Kodak, Tips for Great Pictures. Retrieved [July 8, 2005], from http://www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQuerier.jhtml?pq-path=38/39/317&pq-locale=en_US