Tuesday Tips #302 – Finding Your Way through Documenting

You know that documentary photography is all about the honest depiction of what is happening in your frame but the choices you in camera make will determine how true to the documentary style you are. For one, using a large aperture like we often prefer in portrait work will actually tell less of the story and make the photograph more about just the subject and less about the subjects’ experience with where they are and what they are doing. If you’re looking for the story, stop down a bit and let the atmosphere and setting be part of the frame.

Once you have stopped down and can see a great deal more of the background, now is the time to be discerning about what you let into your story. Are the items along the edges, foreground and background adding or hindering to the story you are telling? Assess and reframe if necessary.

“Successful design is not the achievement of perfection but the minimization and accommodation of imperfection.”
-Henry Petroski