Photojournalism | Choosing The Best Point of View
© 2011 Wazari Wazir | An elephant leads the procession of the arrival of Malaysia’s outgoing king Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin and queen Nur Zahirah (unseen) before departing for their home state of Terengganu, at an airport in Sepang outside Kuala Lumpur on December 12, 2011. Sultan Mizan, Malaysia’s 13 king, proclaimed in 2006, completed his reign on Monday (Dec 12, 2011) after a five-year rotation period. Sultan Mizan is the sultan for the northeastern state of Terengganu.
What is point of view? Basically it is the position, direction, heigh of the camera that will define the point of view of a picture. If you asked me what is the best point of view? My answer is, it depends, it depends on your intention, how do you wanted to tell the story. In this historical event above, my intention is to tell a story about how grand this procession is and for me the best vantage point is from a higher angle. I wish there is a much higher angle for me but unfortunately, there were no other higher angle for me other than to share my position with live camera TV platform. It is not that hight as you can see from the result of the picture above but this is the highest that I can go.
I chose to use telephoto lens 70-200mm to get the picture, I just want to pull the background together to have more impact. I’ve to carefully chose my angle because I just can’t stop the elephant on track and chose another angle, so I’ve to decide which is the best angle to tell the story in it’s grandeur. For this type of assignment, our photography department sent few photographers covering this event, actually there were five of us. Each photographers were assign to different position and the reason to do so is to make sure each angle is covered since this event does not happen everyday and we don’t want to leave anything slip away.
Choosing the best or the right point of view will either make or break your photograph and for this kind of event it is crucial to decide what is the best point of view to tell the story the way you wanted it to be told or the way your news agency wanted t to be told. Unlike taking architectural or landscape picture where the subject does not run away, you can freely change your position as you wish but for this event where the subject is moving and where it is not easily for me to move around because of the crowds, the security an et cetera, it is crucial to just pick one position and wait. I stay in this position until the official car of the king pass by which is rightly behind the dancers carrying the yellow umbrella procession.
Next time when you wanted to photograph something grand like this procession, always keep in mind about the point of view, which is the best or the right point of view to tell the story, the way you wanted it to be, your intention or the way your news agency or your department required it to be told.
