Get down to their level!

When we are doing candid photographs of family and friend, we are usually standing and chatting while taking pictures. This is common because we are at the same level as the people we are conversing with. Rarely are you standing on a tall ladder or asking everyone to sit on a chair while we stand on a table to photograph them.

If you have ever gone to have an executive or even a passport photogaph taken, you will see the photographer is just slightly above your eye level with the camera.

When you go to an art museum to look at paintings or photography you will see most of the pieces are hung at our eye level. Even the artwork we hang in our homes is at eye level also.

So why then with children and even our pets do we hesitate to do the same? Is it the fear of getting more exercise, hurting our backs or are we just complacent? Even I forget from time to time to stop and realize what my subject is.

With children, they are much lower than we are, either lying on the floor, or just standing at their height. In order to get a more pleasing image of these little tykes, we should be photographing at a lower level. This, of course, can be at the artist discretion!

Below are some examples -



Don't just bend over, lay down if you need to! As you can see in some of these examples, I'm laying on the carpet!





And don't forget to get the interesting photographs, like this one ---



Try this and see for yourself - separate yourself from the others who just "snap away"! You may find things are more interesting down here - the perspective is different if you just "Get down to their level"!