Photo-technique [Individual Subject section]07 Taking Photographs from a Different Viewpoint06 Beautiful sky photography05 Enjoy photography on a golf course04 Taking pictures of dishes so that they look delicious, Part 203 Taking snapshots on streets02 Taking pictures of dishes so that they look delicious, Part 101 World Heritage sites photographed in a fantastic atmosphere
Photo-technique [Individual Subject Section]

Taking Photographs from a Different Viewpoint

07 Simply changing the camera angle can spice things up. Try taking photographs from your own viewpoint instead of leaving it up to the camera

I take my camera with me whenever I go out into the city. Without anything in particular in mind to take, I just walk the streets, snapping shots of the city scenery and the never-ending flow of people, loosing myself in the atmosphere. The interesting thing about the city is that, even if I have walked its streets so many times I know them by heart, there is always something different. The most appealing thing about snapshots is how each one is unique. A scene taken is never repeated. Even if they are taken at the same location, the time and weather as well as how you are feeling all affect the snapshot. Each is a priceless record of what you see in your daily life, with an extra unexpected twist. With countless random combinations of factors, you will always encounter a new scene every time. Don’t just depend on your camera’s Auto function. Try and remember how you manually operated a film camera. Select the shutter speed and aperture, as well as the white balance and focus, and tackle the subject from an analog perspective. You are more likely to take fresh new photographs that are a bit different from your everyday photo. Snapshots have no genre. The fun of taking snapshots will increase, with each new encounter.

Beginner’s technique

Advanced technique 1

Advanced technique 2

Sample photo

Taken with: GR DIGITAL III ●ISO100 ●1/30sec. ●F1.9 ●EV1.3 ●WB:Outdoors ●Automatic Aperture Priority

The distance to the subject was about 20 cm, but in order to get a foreground blur effect, I took the photograph using the “full-press snap” function with the camera-to-subject distance set at 1.5 m. Since it was a close-up photo with the aperture set at F1.9, with a shallow depth of field, and since the focus had been set at 1.5 m, I was able to get the shot with the manually-focused feel that I wanted.


Text and Photo: Courtesy of Yoichi Sone


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