People – the ultimate photographic subject?
Having just looked through some of the shots on the Photo of the Day links that Mark provided, it kinda confirmed something I’ve been thinking more and more about re. photography.
People add so much to a shot, be they the subject or part of the scene.
Things they add to a shot, amongst other things, are..
- sense of scale
- context
- sense of location
- emotional input
I’ve tended to avoid them in my photography in the past, looking for those perfect cliched landscapes that 10000 photographers have done before, but now when I look at a similar shot but with a person in, I think it does add so much more.
There’s a shot of a farmer tending his oil seed rape on one of Marks photo of the day pages. I’ve done loads of oil seed rape shots as it’s all over the place where I live, but the difference with someone in shot is that you:-
- get a sense of scale, these plants are tall – also you get a sense of how big the field is!
- get a sense of purpose, the bloke is clearly working the field so we know it’s a farmed crop
- get a sense of location, he’s in western clothes, so we know it’s probably in the western world
All of that comes from the inclusion of a tiny person in the shot – amazing what difference such a small addition can make. Were there no one in the shot, we’d just have an anonymous sea of yellow – I know, I’ve got loads of them!
I think the inclusion of people in a scene also adds that feeling of connection with an image we don’t get with people-free shots.
For example, if you see a photo of an indian slum, it looks pretty grim and you’d not really want to go there – add in some human interest, a dirty child with wide, sad eyes, and the whole context of the shot changes. The same scene with 3 of 4 kids playing cricket would give a whole different message again.
So I’m not saying that portrait photography is the holy grail, but adding human interest to a shot can add so much. You can’t always get the right people, they’re not as predictable as a sunrise, but rather than waiting for people to get out of shot, it may be worth waiting for people to walk in to shot.
“…it may be worth waiting for people to walk in to shot.”
Ay, you just know that they will not walk in while you are waiting…as when you want them ina shot, they spot your camera and patiently wait till you have finished.
I agree though Ade, and I’ve been thinking about doing a human interest landscape series for some time now.
from what I can gather, they may well have a higher commercial value too – fair enough, the fine art prints may want to be “pure” but if you want to sell to a leisure company, say, having happy-looking people in shot can get you the sale.
Given the market today, who’s actually buying fine art landscapes? Conversely, ad agencies still need stock stills…
oh – I often set up the shot on a tripod, look as though I’m not taking a shot at all and use the cable release to shoot – people just act reasonably normally then.
if you’re stood hand holding, looking straight at them, they are a bit more “affected” by your actions