Get Closer

Some of our photography tips are pretty complicated and technical. Some are very simple. Here is one that will improve your photography whether you are using an old box camera, or the latest digital camera.

Here it is. Are you ready? Write this down

Move in closer to your subject!!!

Nearly every shot will improve if you move a little closer – even if you just take two or three steps will help. Whether you are shooting landscapes or people, filling the frame entirely with your subject will make a big improvement.

Of course, there are times when you can’t get any closer. In those cases, use the optical or digital zoom of your camera to get a closer shot.

Instead of putting the whole body in a shot, try framing the head and shoulders – or even just the head. Think of how much more dramatic and old man’s face, with it’s wonderful character lines, would be than a full body shot with almost no details.

We all naturally look at the eyes. Make sure they are in the sharpest focus – even if the background is out of focus – we’ll talk about how to achieve ‘selective focus’ in another post.

Sometime you can't get close enough and you might not have a zoom lens on your camera. All is not lost. In another post, we’ll talk about cropping your images, using Photoshop, or some other image manipulating.

One final note: The zoom lenses on digital SLRs are optical zooms. Most point-and-shoot digital cameras have both optical and digital zooms. Avoid the digital zoom -- which isn't truly a zoom. You can achieve the same zoom effect later, when you edit the image in your software. Stick to the optical zoom and crop the image in 'post-production'.