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Photography : Art of the Everyday

I wanted to touch on photo because obviously as much as I talk about story based or start with story with your scrap booking, the photos play a huge role, both in terms of adding images to our page and also giving us those prompt for our stories. But there's a fine line between wanting to get the photos perfect and struggling and agonizing spinning hours, removing every little freckle or every little straight hair and the editing and things like that, and then also just capturing the everyday and katrina kennedy is is a master when it comes to the art of the everyday. And I love how she's able to take the simplest subjects and take photos that just convey the emotion and tell the story and that's why I invited her to teach you today because I know no one better than katrina to cover this topic. The katrina has a very vibrant online community of excuse me of her own at capture your three, sixty five dot com. She supplies inspiration, ideas and support for people who want to capture ther...

e every day. So I want to welcome katrina kennedy who's going to talk about the art of the everyday thank you and welcome. I'm really excited to be here to talk to you about my absolute passion, which is capturing your every day. And, you know, I see many of your cameras, we've got point and shoots, we've got phones there, all pointed right now, grabbing photos, I love that I'm a little jealous because I want to do the same of you and every one of us, no matter what our camera is, have the ability to capture art full photos, you don't have to be a professional photographer, you don't have to have the biggest camera or the best gear to be able to do that. It's really about thinking through some basic ideas, tio, look at life differently for me. It really started on february twenty eighth of two thousand eight with this photo, and you can tell it's really nothing special, and when you look at it, you may not see the story that it hold words. I took this photo because my son gave me ah, bucket of red buttons for valentine's day, and it was really special to him, and it was special to me, because my grandmother always kept a bucket of buttons for us to play with. And this day also marked the day that I started taking a photo every day, and I've done it every day since two thousand eight, and I learned a lot of things in that process, and I'm still learning and one of the most incredible things that I learned is how to see the world a little bit differently, how to treasure the world in a different way than I had before. So that's what I want ow do with you in our segment, I want to show you how to notice the moment and how to be ready in that moment, I want you to really be able to shoot for the story. We all have those stories as you've talked about all day today, but really, what can you do to get more of the story into your photos, then find beautiful light? You see beautiful photos, and I know you've all probably tried to copy them or maybe compared yourself and decided you just weren't good enough, and so much of it just comes down to the light and being able to know what good light is versus not so good light and then maybe even orchestrating our life just a little bit to get into that good light. And then I want to talk about exploring perspectives like so many things in life, a different perspective can be a really good thing, and I don't know anywhere else that it improves mohr than in photography, then we're gonna look at working your settings no matter what your camera is, in fact, just tell me right now how many of you know how to work every setting on the camera you own that you all know exactly and so why not why not why why don't you know how to work every one of those settings it's too complicated yes you just stick with what you know and you don't move off of that and that can work really well and if that is getting you the results you want then stick with it so we'll dive into the settings but in a reasonable way in a way that will help you in the situations when you don't get what you want no just what teo wiggle so that you get what you want then we'll look at editing and then finally and probably most importantly letting go of perfection letting go of every photo needing to be perfect people are always surprised when I post really bad photos and I make a habit of it because that's really that's human life moves faster than I can sometimes and so sometimes you are going to be in perfect so let's dive into noticing the moment for me noticing the moment is all about shooting with intention it's about slowing down a little bit and having a camera ready so phones have made that so easy you can have it in your pocket so that when you notice that moment you can absolutely capture it this is a moment that as a mom I should have been livid he was held after school in first great because he hadn't written all of his spelling words and now while I think writing spelling words is a little ridiculous, I had to wait for him and wait for him to go through this exercise and as I was sitting there watching him and his little hand in the little fingers and the little pencil it actually the really big pencil it dawned on may the light was beautiful and he was beautiful and this moment was going to be gone and so I photographed it rather than having, you know, a typical mom reaction that we can have I think scrap bookers air really good about that noticing and grabbing the camera before the child has moved out of that moment. So it reminds me of a favorite quote from the movie american beauty and in that movie there's this amazing scene with a plastic bag and the plastic bag is kind of floating through the wind and the voiceover says sometimes there is so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it and that's what noticing the moment is about from a really seeing the beauty in our everyday lives, whether they're really things that air traditionally beautiful or things that just present them selves to us in a really beautiful way and I want to show you one of those things this is really not all that beautiful but it's also amazingly beautiful. This is the door that my husband walks into every day to teach high school students, which is not beauty in and of itself. It frightens me. Um, but I had I had stood at the store many times waiting for him, picking things up, whatever and one day I saw it. And I thought, you know, there's a photo in there if I noticed this if I text up back and wait there's a photo in there and not only is there a photo and there in that photo there's a great story and so many other stories that have walked through the doors but it's not something that we would think of is traditionally beautiful it's, not something that might catch our eye because of color or or or even light just in the story in the moment, there is something there. So there are opportunities all around us every single day. In fact, I want you just just to do a quick little exercise with me. I want you to just look around right now and find seven things you could photograph seven things you've already perfect. So what are some of those seven things picture of the patterns in the wood I take your camera and the flowers I take you and her hugging I took this guy e I took all of these people and then it took them so you probably could easily find seven more anybody else see something? She didn't the pattern in the rug awesome the books laying on the table, the books laying on the table and in your homes you can do exactly the same you don't have to get up so doesn't have to take a lot of effort but then imagine just moving day today as we live our lives there are so many things it's the faces and the place is sometimes people say to me I don't know what to photograph have you ever felt that way? And though I love it, I'm always surprised by that too because they're absolutely just infinite possibility used to photograph everything these air some things that are absolutely worth photographing that you may not have never thought about you know the books on your nightstand what's there right now that's a story of who you are and where you are today my the book that's on my nightstand right now I just have to tell you on I wish I had a photo to include I should I'll take it when I get home is show your work and I think there's by austin cle on and I think there's amazing irony that that's what I get to do today so anything up there that you've never photographed yeah so what is it said she was ready for the day my son is obsessive about lining up all of his shoes on the stairs and so we have a whole bunch of choose that go up the stairs and he likes them the way he likes them and why I have another photograph that and that's what I had to grab paper write it down perfect because that's a beautiful story of right now that's that's powerful stuff and you're going to see as I show you the rest of my photos shoes for may show up over and over again because they tell so many different stories anything else that's on the list that you've not e I got a text yesterday morning for my husband's saying I'm sorry I took your keys he was like thirty miles away so I was going through the house scrambling finding the house key a spare car key and you know key from my desk and you know so I I need to take that photo and put a working document you could probably leave it there's a template so you know where they go that's perfect is there anything up there that you have photographed or that you do on a regular basis? What is it tracy I do coffee often because I'm obsessed I I often take pictures like at stoplights of like of the commuters light that's coming through the window or something like that ah bedtime routine there's there's a few on there that I've done quite a bit nice and this is a really short list we could we could continue this one of my favorites up here that I try to dio is the feet under your dinner table and it goes back to a story and I think so often my photographs aren't just about the story in the moment but they're about another story and for me that was a thanksgiving dinner in seattle in two thousand four and I was visiting a friend on her father had cancer and they were they were fairly certain it would be his last thanksgiving and he couldn't eat dinner with us he was eating through a feeding tube but he sat at the dinner table and at the head and he let us in the blessing and during the blessing he said and thank you for all the feet under the table and it was just one of those moments that stuck with me completely and after he passed away it kind of became an obsession for me to think about and photograph the feet under the table and as I'm looking at all of you I see your feet I'll get that before we go so as you're looking at all of these things there are some things in them to take notice of these air things that capture our attention and really translate to beautiful artful photos so one of those is reflections any time you see a reflection it's a beautiful way to get yourself into photographs without without them being like that hold my phone up selfie there's something a little bit more artistic to it and in my house we've now learned and everybody looks for a reflection and when we see good ones they they shout them out you know in mirrors and windows and puddles anywhere that can reflect is just can be a really beautiful photo and the next place that that I like to notice is repetition so anything over and over again you mentioned the rug earlier it's a beautiful place of repetition the table has repetition anything that just really conf ill with frame than in a beautiful way shoes often are really nice in the frame because of the repetition they create a movement through the frame that air I naturally wants to follow and it makes for a really beautiful photo and I really believe when your photos or more beautiful translate to a really easy page way it helps you to keep it said that with that simple story helps you to really just add your story and then move on to the next one also notice color color is amazing and you know if you look around right now and just do this for me, just go ahead and look around what color captures your eye what do you notice what just grabs you first the bright green that grabs you and says photograph me because I'm gonna look beautiful in a photo what other colors grab your attention blaine's bracelet lanes race speed orrange that's really close to my favorite color to photograph any others on the top of the tank on tracy's on tracy's collar the orange of the scissors for me I follow what I like to call the red rule that says any time you see red photograph it because it just adds a fun punch and a really interesting visual point in a photo it grabs your eye you want to look at it orange does really the same thing and obviously the green too other things to notice going down that list shadows I think I heard it lunch someone talking about they always took photos of shadows and they didn't know why was that you, denise? Yeah and shadows air interesting because they take what we know and give us something else they give us something that's a little unknown which is interesting and any time we add an interesting element to a photo it's easier to look at we were drawn to it so then when you open up your your scrapbooks in ten years you have points of interest that draw you and then draw you into that story or probably you know, if you think about that that fifteen or sixteen year old kid you might have land in your house at some point when they open it and have the interest it's going to last about five minutes they're going to be drawn to the more interesting thing and that may might help them keep it for longevity then noticed texture texture for me is just that I want to touch it feeling and I love in a photo when you want to reach in and touch it and I know a lot of you have been photographing the background here and that's because of the beautiful texture it provides dimension in shadows and contrast which really translate beautifully into a photograph and then we add to texture the sky now this is an easy one but this is such a marker of where you are and what's happening in your world the sky where tracy lives looks very, very different than the sky where lane lives and so photographing that on a regular basis adding that into your everyday photos tells an amazing story of place and lets you really be able to look back and see a progression then lines lines on the table here has lines in there these fabulous lines that move our eye and any time you move someone's eye through a photo you up the interest again and that that line can be in a shadow that line khun b a fence line that line khun b pathways there are many, many places that lines appear and then we just let them lead us through the photo in a really beautiful way and then the last thing to notice and I think from this list the most important thing to notice is light because when we notice light then we see our opportunities for really beautiful photos ah and it doesn't have to be a lot of light just interesting light light that has an interesting angle or an interesting quality we'll talk more specifically about light so when you look at the things on the notice list which are the ones which one do you notice all the time you find yourself just drawn to the sky tracy a lot of u s so what do you like about the sky pictures mostly it's when it's cloudy or the sunset lot of color and texture in the sky makes me want to take a photo yeah, I love those those really blue sky days that have big puff we like to call them simpson's clouds look very fake because those air absolutely my favorite and cindy you said you liked something let's what color was your alert? Definitely. Is there a particular color you're drawn to? Um earth tones actually interesting. Yeah, okay, nice. Anyone else yours would be color yeah, and is there a particular color um no, just anything bright probably I guess I didn't realize that there is a red rule, but probably anything that attracts, you know, my I immediately, like I can take a hit, so then we really moved in to the heart, you know, shooting for the story when you take a photo every day, one of the things that happens is that sometimes you have to really look for something that you haven't photographed in a different way, and sometimes it's really late in the evening, so this is my son's toy on guy could have photographed in many, many ways, but I wanted it to tell a story, and so by getting in really close, I actually shot this with my phone and used a a macro lens on my phones that I could get an even closer, and that then tells us the story on it may not be the deepest story, it may not be the most important story, but there's a story there, so I'm going to show you some photos, and I want you to tell me what you see is the story, and then we'll talk about what elements in the photo help you to see that story. So here we go, so what? What does what story does this photo tell for you patients, right, payal patients on whose part? Is it? I'm wondering and worrying that he got into something and you having to have a bath to get skunk off of him? I want to know what the back for. Yeah, there's gotta be a reason why he's in here. So there's gotta be a reason, ok? Any other stories that you see in it more dog looks like when he's not I live. You pointed that out, denise, because that's one of the elements that gives its story and then it kind of makes you a little sick. Every time I see it in my blind, we move the toothbrushes, and then I realized, I don't think we ever move the toothbrushes that's just nasty. So what are the elements in this photo that help it to give its story? What do you see? The shampoo, the shampoo texture, just his for hanging so women, theo texture of his. Yeah, I his sad little eyes to me that just black and white automatically says, like you're documenting something, so you have to pay attention because there is no color too, draw your attention so you have to look for what you're trying to convey your eye moves around the framed differently than you'll see that in a lot of my photos that I choose tio convert them to black and white on and if you walk into my house you will see almost every photo hanging is black and white it's a it's a personal preference but it's also a story preference so that's a that's a good catch and you're right he does become a much larger dog when he's not wet we're always kind of surprised what a tiny little thing he is on dh he didn't get into anything he just is a really smelly dog on and when I went to take the photo I almost moved the shampoo and then I decided that it needed to stay because context is really important to our story and if we start removing things that take away from that context than sometimes that changes the story now I probably should've op did take the tooth purchase out but it does tell an interesting story of my family I guess so we'll see him again what story does this tell you and there is definitely interested in the only art is bathing for he's waiting for the boost to be filled either to go outside or where everybody's gone and he's just waiting there because he knows they'll be back for him yeah I like that this is a story to make him a kid growing up the whole foods sir are on the way out in the new boots or shiny and clean he's growing into those they're the same different size and so with this particular photo I was taking a photo of my son's boots because I was going to throw the old ones away it was time and it was a really emotional moment that I'm getting rid of his boots and it seems really silly when I say it out loud but cindy obviously connects with this perfect and so I had set them up in the perfect light I wanted the lines of the floor to lead in and I like that little bit of reflection that was on the floor I had it set just beautifully and then the dog arrived and I was really annoyed I could get you know get out of my frame what are you doing? You're always messing up my photos on and then finally I realized like well the story just changed and that's the story and that's one of those ways that we include multiple layers of story in our photos and so I have a picture of just the boots but it doesn't mean as much it doesn't have that context again to really give me that second layer of story and you know, this is my son's dog as well so now we have this this complete pig sure of my son in boots and he has just outgrown those so we'll be replacing them again tracy with fire with the same boots they're the best foods like be like smooth so now you get to see my son and this is one of those questions that so many people ask me like how do I stop action right? We all want to do it and for many of us if we're using our phones it's it's possible but it's tricky to stop action with our phones so one of the things that I like to do is wait until the actions over I have photos of them going around the arena at my sister's house and you know many of them and they're fun and there's you know they're lively but it was when they stopped that I really saw the story because this is my brother and my son and they have an amazing connection and this for may captured the day that they were they were riding horses it was my son's first time and although he is appropriately geared knows that except for the shoes but it captured the connection between the two of them that captured the relationship they have and it has more story for me than any of the other photos of that they have because this this is really where the moment is this is really the important piece uh and again I converted to black and white because it helped you to really draw to his hand without that his hand gets a little bit lost in the frame and we don't see that that all important high five going up so let's go to the next one and again I'd like to hear from you what you see as the story it's not quite as obvious but what would how would you write it? What would you say bill turner you you really hit it you really hit it and this was one of those moments that he was you know, playing like a cave he's got his gun and a family had spent so much time building this city and he had watched and watched and watched and he said mom, can't I go help which I knew what help meant so I said no and then he saw them leave can I go on? I said no, you can't go now because I didn't have my camera ready on so I got my camera ready because I knew there was going to be a story I knew there was going to be a moment and that what I got and I wanted to catch him in mid air I got really lucky because kids are are not predictable and it does still tell his godzilla story the next frame is everything completely destroyed but it's it's that anticipation of the moment that is the story that I remember and the story that I wanted to have in my photo so the last photo about story specifically eyes my toilet because there is story everywhere there's photo opportunity everywhere, any ideas what this story might be? Kitchen re my kitchen sink is clogged it's a restaurant I was thinking restoration restoration tracy you said your dishes in the bathtub yeah, absolutely. I was not washing my dishes in the back way really way got it. Our kitchen and I had no kitchen sink there was no way t do the dishes and I was so tired of it it had gone on for a while and the contractor and my husband and everyone who was helping in the project insisted on using a new glass every day and they were piling up in the kitchen or in the bathroom because it was the only running water in the house and I was sick of it so I just started piling up them up on the toilet toe have room and I just saw it as an opportunity thought is an opportunity so it tells a great story they're not there anymore. For those of you who are concerned about my dirty home now with my dog toothbrushes and my this's jelly sandwiches closely no forks you're right and all the night so you get that detail I love that you caught that absolutely so way want tio really look for light and in all of the those photos you probably saw light used in different ways and beautiful light can be a lot of light it could be a little light we really want to think about the direction of light think about the quality of light so let me just ask you when in your homes just think about in your home where do you like to take your photos? Most where do you tend to take photos most often in your homes may I have a fake bookcases I d selfies in front of ok okay and what so what is it about the bookcase it's the only non distracting background okay, everything else has got like curtains in a door and you know too much going on okay tracy, what about you? I think outside my house is a dark cave and we get no light so the only place I can take a decent picture is in my living room and even then there's super greeny ok do you have a favorite place? I carry a lot of stuff downstairs we have ah ah, a lot of light in our kind of our living room area but we have ah house rabbit so rabbit the runs loose in the house. So he's always very curious to see what's going on what I'm carrying things down to photograph nice so you have you can have his little nose and the photos that teo excellent. What about you? I do in my I guess living area I have a big sliding glass store and I like the hardwood flooring so yeah everybody's great ten right cool morning of the kitchen evening is the living room because over the way the sun goes nice so it's a really important thing to know and it seems like such a silly thing but I like people to do the exercise of wandering around your house and wandering around your house look for the light find those places where you do see light and oftentimes it's in in strange places I have really good light in my bathroom I have incredible light in my laundry room and then upstairs I have light from one side of the house really well during certain hours and then other hours it's too much so then wait three hours and then repeat and you can do that a few times it's starting the morning when you get up and then do that until you go to bed so that you find those places where you have the best natural light toe work with because that's going to give you a step up in your photos it's much easier to photograph something in good light photography is light so we've we've got to find it so I'll show you one of my favorite subjects to photograph uh if you follow me on instagram, you have I've seen my garden and many many times and my tomatoes that I grow are always my favorite subject because they're they're really cooperative and you can move them any way you want and they're also really excellent practice for catch lights and catch like to lose those those bright areas on the tomato and those really give light life to our photos, so if you're taking a photograph of a person, you want to be able to see that light in their eye that gives the less flat appearance and just gives you kind of sparkly, more beautiful photo. So any guesses where I took this photo on top of that? I'm guessing somebody on the internet knows the laundry room in a sink in a sink on top of my washing machine yeah, on top of my washing machine so you get this nice surface and the light from a really nice direction it's not intense not that really bright light of mid day it's always filtered and it's a north facing window. It is often a really great spot in your house if you have north facing windows now if you don't, you just have to work the light in other areas and that's okay, so look for those catch lights, though the just add so much to a photo so then let's talk about kids and subjects that aren't always so cooperative any idea what kind of light this might be? Say that again garage lee the garage light clothes branches are a great place because you could open the door to the garage and then you get that that indirect light and you can also get some light bounced up off the the a driveway that that lights up faces any other guesses nobody's got his boots on he's got a song you see the mess he doesn't he's re finishing a table for our for our deck so this is kind of a trick question because this is full day this is noon which typically outside noon light is too strong to direct you get really heavy shadows so what we want to do during those really strong light hours is fine someplace where they're shade so this is under a sale cloth and so the light is diffused through it a lot of it's blocked, but you still get quite a bit enough to take a really sharp photo and you'll notice that it's it's really even throughout the photo where if this was direct sun you'd have really heavy shadows and if you're taking a photo of, say, your child after a soccer game or a person outside in an event if you take it in the full sun then you get those really dark circles under their eyes and you lose their eyes and it doesn't have that sparkle so we just step under the shade of a tree so haven't face out but step into that that shady area and then that will really change the look of the photo all right next one low light so you don't need a lot of light t take your photo you just need to have some light and this could be taken with your phones could be taken with your point and shoot it is just about working that little bit of light and making the subject of your photo have the light directed on it so here you can see that my brothers in the photo but there wasn't enough light on him so I didn't even try to make him the subject if I had made him the subject of this particular photo he would've been blurry so why not just work that so just leave him blurry let the wine bottle which may have been more of the subject of the evening thie the subject of the and this same this same concept works with birthday cakes and birthday photos so have your subject get really close to the candles and then you're going to get a better photo if they're holding it out here then that light isn't on them you're not going to get as much so we do really big candles in our house so that you get a little bit of extra light on their faces on dh in my house it no matter what your birthday is you get every candle one of my favorite photos is my eightieth my my aunt's eightieth birthday party my mom's coming out carrying her cake with eighty photos and she's lit up. It's outside I leaned against something to brace myself because it was so low light but she has enough to be illuminated and be able to get the story so another way tio get toe work the light and get low light photos in your house so if you find yourself in that situation like tracy where there's just not available light is to use lamps to use the the light that you've got so turn on an extra lamp I will sometimes go through my house in the evening and turn on every single light it may not be the most energy efficient but for photos sometimes you've got to do what you've got to do and then turn them off so this is one light and I'm just going to give you a little quiz because I think you're a smart group where do you think this light is located in the bedroom okay where is it in relationship to them is over his left shoulder is over his left shoulder it's low somewhat low so if you imagine this photo continuing on and there would be the top of the bed right above the top of the bed there is a swivel arm lamp and that lamp swivels out and then can be directed and so um I have some really cooperative subjects really lucky they know my husband who's in particular to move the lamp so that he can read but also position it well and I retake a similar photo to this about every six months and go in unprompted I just walk in with the camera I don't interrupt them I just let them read whatever book their reading and then work that available light this is also the spot where I will take tooth fairy photos of the of the letter whatever my son has decided is the current way to get in touch with the tooth fairy on dh holding the teeth that will all happen in that really low light and it's a twenty dollars I ke a light that just mounts to the wall it was absolutely one of the best things we ever purchased for for photos and right direction of the light here can you tell it's a phone photo that's coming from its side and this is this is full daylight and this is the rooster that we accidentally purchased and when you live in the heart of the city your neighbors don't really appreciate a rooster so we had to find him another home and he's in the carrying case and so this is the light from the holes in the carrying case coming in and so I wanted to photograph him before he left because he was really beautiful and he was my sons and my son was heartbroken that we were giving up his rooster that he was he was absolutely convinced he could train it to not crow and I wasn't and so I just snapped an iphone photo and used used an app so that I could set my exposure to where the light wass for the rooster and you can see it's grainy there's there's lots of grain in the photo but I'm okay with that I'll totally take it. It tells the story it's a really cool view of of the rooster before he exited his next life on a happy farm not that not the farm some of our childhood pets so the next thing that we really want to think about with our photos, no matter what camera you have, is perspective and perspective ten absolutely changed the way you look at something it changes how the frame feels, so just thinking about the the average photo that you take, you can even look through your photos if you want, what perspective do you usually take? Where do you usually what your stay on, where what's your what's, your usual thing to dio straight on, okay, straight on or looking down, which you have small kids, right? Yeah, so you stand here and then you look down and so for kids that's kind of fun because you're above them, but I like to call those the mom poses those were the ones we use because they're easy, I don't have to think about it much and you can do that and get awesome photos but if we change it up a little bit than you you up you're awesome miss and who doesn't want to up their awesomeness? So one way that I love is to go not just straight on that a little bit lower than straight on just a little bit lower so you don't even really have to move then you can just kind of hunched down a little bit so it doesn't take a lot of extra effort and that gives you just a bit different perspective on something this is also a really good example of repetition and texture this is just the table in my backyard for food especially shooting down is really flattering and you don't have to fill the frame you don't have to make it the obvious and here's my whole plate, you know, cut it off and make it just part of the frame and now with that extra white space I could make this my scrapbook page I could just add my words right to that white area and I'm done and if I really want to do something more I could then print that and put it on another page and to add an extra element to it so when you when you shoot down the it changes the light it changes the perspective and the texture feels different with food as well then with kids and kids especially don't want to do this with with people older people so much because it's not very flattering is to shoot low and shoot up and when you shoot up you give them a sense of being a bit larger it again changes the perspective in an interesting way and just justice fun just is really fun and this is another example of not going to that obvious put it all in the frame and it doesn't have to all be in the frame for the story to be told and again I've got that nice white space that I could fill with text if I wanted teo teo to tell the story of this particular day it looks like eyeballs doesn't it when their position that way then for children and adults and anybody with eyes one of the most interesting ways to photograph them is at eye level so looking right into their eyes and it doesn't have to be phil you don't have to fill the frame with their face like I have here but if you wanted a photo to tell the story about this particular individual at a point in time maybe a birthday and you wanted to tell all of the things about them filling the frame now eliminates clutter and we know exactly what the story is about for me perspectives really important and then really thinking about what I what I include in the photo and what I leave out that helps tio convey the story and I'm in a stronger way so and then step back but I think going wide getting more is such a cool story telling perspective and then you see all the details and I found for myself looking back at my childhood photos the ones that I really love are the ones that I dig into like that's the carpet we had that I remember that book and oh there are national geographics on the bookshelf they see all the details parts and pieces and it really pulls you in andi you know it's it's a busy photo but it's busy in a fun way so when you look into this photo I want you to think about something on this is something that you I'd like you to think about every time you pick up your camera what do you see first where does your I go first it sold it yeah because it's all lit up exactly anything that's brighter is going to draw your eye so your eye goes to where it's bright what else do you notice after you you're drawn to my son what do you see next? My eyes kind of traveling clockwise to the patterns pillow or whatever that is and then it kind of sweeps around the front of the coffee table nice and we will typically end when we look into a photo we will typically end that travel in the lower right corner of the photo it's where eyes naturally want to rest. So if we think about adding a lot of context, think about how you were weighing that bottom right corner and give people that place to rest, and that can help a busy photo be a little bit more comfortable to look at. I love this photo just because it's such a goofy moment, this is just a typical morning in our house, my husband husband's drinking his juice, my son's doing something goofy, there's all kinds of stuff spread out on the coffee table and there's a cow on our wall. It just really sums up our life on any given day and again, if this wasn't converted to black and white, it would be really busy, you're I would get lost, it would be confusing and it would not have the same type of compelling story to it, so the story here is a little bit more obvious. The perspective, though, is a trickier one and it's a perspective that many moms don't necessarily want to take the time to dio. But once you do it, you'll love it so flat on my belly at the bowling alley, which probably is not the cleanest place to be flat on your belly, but it helps tio give a fun perspective. So let's talk just a little bit more about this particular photo on beyond just perspective? What else do you notice when you look at this photo? What else? The shoe size so there we've got an element of story again and that shoe size would have been lost if I had been shooting from a different angle. What else do you notice? Really? Yeah, really strong horizontal lines and I'm I kind of have a reputation for being a stickler for horizontal lines because if you look at a photo and lines aren't horizontal it's really disconcerting, it could be really confusing and it takes away from what the subject is, so those strong horizontal lines air really intentional anything else that you notice the reflection? Eso again, we have one of those lists of things we want to notice anything else skinny little legs so look really closely at his legs and I want you to see the layer of story that happens with this perspective. Do you notice anything about his legs? So he would tell you that he's got a special legs, so if you look at his right leg, notice how much smaller it is in his left leg so he was born with a club foot that was corrected over time through serial casting and now it functions just like his other foot, but his calf will always be smaller and so this helps to convey that story. This really shows it, so we've got the shoe size we've got that comparison of his legs in addition to just the event of bowling there's something else about this photo that I think really helps it with its perspective and it story and that's how I how I actually set the him in the frame and as scrap bookers, you're probably all familiar with the rule of thirds that we want to offset something in the frame so that it's it's more interesting that also leaves this white space for any journaling storytelling we want to d'oh I placed him intentionally in the center of the frame. And what do you see for you? What does that do versus if he was offset? What what does that do for you? It exactly there's no wandering? Yeah, yeah like that is that's where you're going to look that's exactly what you're going to see, he is the focus so you can see that perspective really changes how you photograph things. So your homework assignment is to take a photo from a different perspective, so expect to see you all like laying on the floor afterwards, taking a photo from that perspective, it's one of my favorites.