Portrait Photography | Capturing The Moment
© 2011 Wazari Wazir | The Love of My Life | Lake Garden Kuala Lumpur | 50mm | ISO 200 | 1/800 | f/2
I take a lot of photograph of my family lately with my new toy iPhone 4 but that doesn’t mean I’ve abandon my DSLR altogether, I still carry the camera wherever I go out with my family because sometimes I need the quality of the big file size, maybe in the future I wanted to print the picture big on my wall and I don’t think the quality that come out from the iPhone can do that, maybe they still look great at 8×12 inch print but not at a poster size because they are not design to produce a quality for that size, otherwise why do we need a DSLR if iPhone can do that.
Photography for me is all about capturing the moment especially if it involved human beings where they move a lot and if we can capture the right moment at the right time, the picture will look great. Before I took this shot with a DSLR, I’ve already take few shots with iPhone camera and after I finished with my iPhoneography, I switch my camera and take this shot with DSLR, the reason is that I wanted to use fast shutter speed which iPhone can’t do, my son move a lot, my wife have to hold him tight so that he will not ran away.
In order to capture the moment at it’s best so that any movement will be freeze, make sure that you choose the right shutter speed. Use fast shutter speed like what I’m using here where I set the shutter speed at 1/800 and shooting with wide aperture f/2. The reason why I choose to use aperture f/2 is because I want to throw out the background out of focus,I just wanted my family to be the focus in this picture and this photograph were taken under the shade area, under the tree, so the lighting were soft and even with no harsh shadows.
Unlike formal portrait photograph where your subject pose for you, you can always repeat or reshoot the picture until you satisfied but a picture like this, a moment like this can’t be repeated, even if I were to asked my wife and my son to pose for me, the moment will never be the same on the next frame and it is highly unlikely that my son will follow my order, he is big enough to have his own mind, so I just let my wife playing around with my son and I just photograph the moment frame by frame continuously and among the shots that I mange to captured, I like this moment, I like the expression of my wife and my son here.
But before that, there is a little “housekeeping” that I’ve to do before I took this photograph, I need to choose the place where there is not many people walking around, I don’t want a messy background where people walking and running behind, I need to find the place where the lighting is good enough so that I can use fast shutter speed at lower ISO which in this case I use ISO 200. The background is very important, can you imagine if I get this moment right but at the same time I’ve also captured someone walking behind with a bright color T-Shirt, then the person behind will become a distraction to this beautiful moment, so choose the background or the location carefully beforehand and also make sure that your family wear the right clothes, can you imagine if both of my wife and my son wear a black r dark colored attire, the visual interest is not there, choose a bright colored clothes so that they have a chance to stand out from the background.
After everything was set, all you have to worry is to captured the moment, it may look easy but a lot of people doesn’t know the background work that I’ve to do beforehand. Sometimes you take a photograph, sometimes you make a photograph but the moment in this picture is real, a bonding between a mother and his son, a moment that I will cherished forever with my family. Truly a moment to be remembered because my son will grow up and I don’t think my son will remember this moment vividly without this photograph. A photograph is a visual documentation of our lives.
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