Taking Pictures at Thanksgiving

It's not too early to be thinking just a bit how you'll take pictures at Thanksgiving. It was once simpler with a point and shoot throw-away film camera that you took to the drugstore and got pictures and negatives back. Now, however, we not only use cameras: we also use iPads, other pads, iPhones, other cell phones, and a pin-hole camera or two.

In spite of that, I'm going to pass on a bit of wisdom from the catacombs of photogrpahy. 

First. Think about priorities. Do you want the turkey to be the main feature or your shoot, dwarfing Great Grandma Johnson deep in the background? Do you really want to photograph another damn turkey, no matter how gorgeous, to dwarf Great Grandma Johnson? This picture comes from a well-known photography school, but clearly the photographer's priorities were on that bird: It's a fine bird, but where's Great Grandma Johnson? Oh, she's sitting over there behind that glass. 

Well, if you don't like Great Grandma Johnson, if you want to pretend she's already gone to meet her Maker, that she's an expired Great Grandma Johnson, then go ahead and shoot the bird.

But it might just be better to take a decent picture of Great Grandma Johnson before she dies. So...some suggestions:

1) position yourself at eye-level with Great Grandma Johnson. Eye level, I said. And come in close. New photographers hate coming in close on the subject. No no no no. Let Great Grandma Johnson know that you're going to take her picture and then get up close enough that her face and maybe her upper body fill the frame. Otherwise, you'll get a whole lot of distractions in the picture and not enough of Great Grandma Johnson.

2) Take pictures from an angle that favors your Great Grandma Johnson. If Great Grandma Johnson has multiple chins, for heaven's sake don't take the picture from below so that the rolls of chins that she despises--you can be sure she despise them--are accentuated. Take the photo from slightly--just slightly--above her eye level. The chins disappear or at least play a minor role in the shot. Spare this woman. And she's not even old:

3) Similarly, if you're taking pictures of a child, get to the child's level. Sit on the floor. get way down and close up. You want that child's face in your frame. Don't you? Don't just stand there and point your camera down. No no no no. And if that child has a dirty face, so much the better.

3) Long shots of people in the distance, looking like a bunch of elves, are always throw aways. Here's the guys out playing a little soccer after dinner. Can you see Johnny? Right over there. See? The kid wearing the red shirt. Yeah. That's Johnny. You can almost see his face. Save yourself the trouble. Get up close in the game, in the middle of the game, even at the risk of being knocked on your derriere, or sit on your derriere, and get some really fun shots of the guys playing. What's the harm if you have to buy a new dress or pair of pants? You got the shots that mattered.

So my one suggestion: get up close. Even if it makes you a little uncomfortable at first. Practice a few times before the big day. Take some really close pictures of your spouse or a friend or a baby or your dog and see the difference.

Of course you can get too close.

I feel a limerick coming on. Wait. It's coming:

There once was a guy from St. Paul, 
Whose visuals were not good at all.
He shot photos from a distance
Because of his passive resistance,
And his photos were nothing but gall.