Capturing People…with Photos

I love photography. But some people are very camera shy. No, I’m not talking about the subjects, I’m talking about those behind the lens. Most people never take out their camera and take very few pictures. The truth though, is that it takes a fair number of shots and a lot of playing around to get some good photos. Sure, eventually you might get good at it, but it takes a lot of practice.

I mention this because yesterday I did some playing around with my camera, and it was fun :). I need to read some more about photography, but it’s still great to play around. And I do have a goal: I want to capture people.

What do I mean? I’m talking about shots that are very telling of that person. It’s like when you hear about a wild friend going sky-diving or a sweet friend working at a nonprofit organization… you just think, “That is sooo (insert name here)!” In the same way, every once in a while a photo really says a lot about its subject.

What makes it even cooler is that it speaks from the photographer’s perspective. While a bad photo might say little or nothing about the subject, a capturing photo offers insight as to what that person is like…through the photographer’s eyes.

I’ve never been artistic and nothing good has ever come from my taking a paintbrush to canvas, but my camera’s offered me an alternative approach to visual expression. Sure, I take take a lot of shots and carry my camera often, but anyone could do that. A digital camera is a nice aide for this, but it’s not necessary. Even more, anyone can take good pictures. It’s just about being ready with your camera and being a little trigger happy (and also patient). It’s very worthwhile.

That’s all. But it did want to provide captions… The first three photos on this page were taken yesterday. Felix took the first one (we posed for a good twenty seconds, so we were laughing pretty hard when he took the shot). And I took the next two (of Rebecca and Amanda, respectively). The others are of Laura and Dave. I wanted to add more, but there’s no more to say, except take pictures!