Make Great Photo Stories Even With A Beginner Small Digital Camera

Most of my photography these days is based around my children and the events in our family life. The days when I could spend half the day setting up a studio shot of a flower with lighting and a medium format camera are long gone. Instead I’m in demand to photograph a school concert or record the details of the class camp. For the concert a digital SLR camera is essential, but my son’s class camp next week, (it’s summer and the end of the school year here in South Africa) to a windy camp site on a sandy beach is another matter. The SLR will stay at home and, like a beginner photographer, I’ll be taking a small digital camera along – my Canon Powershot of three years, old technology now, but still working as well as ever.

I’ve started creating photo diaries of the class camps, two days away with only the vague function of helper leaves a lot of time for creative photography. It’s refreshing to take time away from my computer and kitchen and see life through a lens again.

To record an event in photographs without words, and capture the feel of the place, you need to tell a story in pictures. This means having your camera with you at all times, snapping the details as well as the big picture.

One of my favorite pictures from last year was this close up of a pebble tower the children had made with, distant and out of focus behind, their figures frolicking in the waves.

Here are a few tips to keep in mind when you are taking photographs to record a special day or vacation as a photo story.

1. Photograph the preparation as well as the actual event – for me this was getting shots of the kids trying to put up the tents, loading their bags into the van, gathering wood for the fire. For a family event this could mean going into the kitchen and taking photos of the cooks at work, snapping friends putting up decorations and so on. All these things are part of the day.
2. Photograph the small details as well as the big picture – get close ups of a decoration or a special dish. At camp I took close ups with my macro facility of pretty pebble on the beach, shells in the water, a piece of driftwood, children’s hands holding a sea snail. All these details add hugely to a finished album or slideshow, giving a real feel of the place and event.
3. Take at least a few photos of every single thing that happens, even if you are cooking or having to do other things as well. It takes no time to whip out your compact camera from your pocket and shoot off a few candid pics of the kitchen in chaos. In my case at camp I was photographing while grilling sausages on the fire at dusk, getting pictures of the sausages, the barbeque tongs, the girls crowding round wanting to help.
4. Don’t worry about your pictures being technically perfect – better a blurry shot in low light than no picture at all. Blurry shots can have plenty of atmosphere – professional photographers use blur creatively, so why don’t you!
5. Try and take a portrait shot of each person present at some stage of the day. Use your zoom and snap them while they’re busy with something if you like but do catch everybody at least once. It’s great to have those pictures years later and see the faces of everyone again.
6. Take a group shot at some stage. Make it fun and informal. This year I’m planning to photograph all the children crowded into one tent with their faces looking out of the entrance or perhaps something else will occur to me once we’re there.
7. Most of all, use your eyes and be spontaneous, snap everything that catches your eye but don’t forget to enjoy yourself too and get someone else to take at least one photograph of you –so you’re not just an invisible presence behind the camera in the record of the day.
   

Mum and Photographer

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