Basic Photography Tips | Give Your Photographs a Sense of Scale

NATIONAL MONUMENT

The idea for the construction of the National Monument was mooted by the then Prime Minister of Malaysia, YTM Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra Aljhaj in 1963 to commemorate the warriors who died defending the sovereignty of the country. An area measuring 48, 562 square meters facing the Lake Gardens was set aside for its construction. The monument complex encompasses five components, the National Monument, fountains, pavilion, a war memorial and the surroundings gardens

The monument embodying seven bronze statues also represents the triumph of the forces of democracy over forces of evil. The monument was designed by an American sculpture, Felix deWeldon and was completed in early 1966. It was unveiled on 8th February of the same year and from then on a ceremony to commemorate the passing of the warriors is held here annually.

Just wanted to share some basic photography tips when it comes to photographing landscape, man made monuments, building, or anything that is huge in size. Most of the times when we travel, we always attracted to something that is huge in size especially the monuments. So in order to tell the viewers how big the size is, we need to give our photograph a sense of scale, so that viewers will have a clear idea about how big or tall the things is.

The simple way to do that is by adding a human element into it. Most famous landmark or iconic monument in this world attracts a lot of tourist, so you can just include some of them in your photograph. I know that some of you may think that the people in your frame will pose as a distraction, you wanted a “clean” shot without the added of any human element into it, some will even go as far as cloning out the people in their photograph with Photoshop. I cannot say that what you did is wrong but come think of it, human elements in your photograph will make your story completed, viewers will know the size of the statue that you are taking without asking you, how big or tall the statue.

Maybe it is your preferences not to include any human in your photograph, nothing wrong with that but if you take a look at great travel photography especially in travel photography magazine, most of the times you will see a photograph of a monument or a statue with human element in it.

For the photograph of our National Monument above, I did wait until a lot of tourist came by, then only I took the photograph, I welcome them in my frame, I did not find them as a distraction, in fact I should thanks them for decorating my frame, for giving a sense of scale to the monument. The national monument is among the “must see” things if you take a travel package in Kuala Lumpur, a lot of tourist bus and van park outside the main entrance of the National Monument and most of them will spent at least half an hour here, appreciating the sculptures, take few pictures before move on to another interesting places here in Kuala Lumpur.

So the very next time when you have a chance to visit any huge iconic monument in any country, just take a few shots to include some of human element in the frame as well, but then, it is not a necessity to include just a human, any animals also will do the job, the idea here is to give the viewers a sense of scale, about the size of the things that you photographed.

Wazari Wazir