Here’s How To Ruin An Otherwise Good Photograph!

Does this sound familiar? You haunt all the area camera shops, buy all the interesting photo books, save every penny you can to buy the latest photo gadgets, subscribe to half a dozen photo magazines… Finally you insert a blank memory stick or some film into your camera and start firing away.

You anxiously run down to the photo lab to get your film developed, (or spend a few hours trying to remember how to download your photos into the computer- who can see anything on that tiny screen anyway?). Finally, we get the results.

Horrors! There’s a huge branch coming right out of the head of our gorgeous model! Or kids playing in the background – or cars going by and obscuring our pretty backdrop. Didn’t notice the trash can off to the side, did you? You know, the one that is ruining EVERY SHOT!

Yeah, we fell into the trap of focusing all our attention on the model and not looking around at the other elements in the scene. It’s easy to do. And I don’t care who they are, every photographer out there has done the same thing!

Photography is a very technical art! We have to worry about the light, the f-stop, the shutter speed, film speed and so on. Next we throw in the models’ pose, smile, eyes – and now we’re expected to notice the trash cans, kids and cars in the background?

Yes! Make it a habit to add one more second to your photo setup and run your eye all the way around the edges of the viewfinder. This extra step of looking for potential problems is pretty easy – if you make it a habit.

Do whatever it takes to FORCE yourself to consciously slow down and take a second to let your eye scan all the way around the edges of the viewfinder. But that’s not all. Consider those trees or light poles way off in the background, are they going to be blurred out or will they be sharp enough to be a factor in the final print. Can you move and shoot from a different angle?

Does your background include a street? Watch out for traffic – auto or pedestrian. Can you move to a different location, or change shooting angles and eliminate the traffic? Will you have to wait for a break in the traffic to get your shot?

True, these tips seem to be pretty obvious. If it weren’t a very expensive – every day problem I wouldn’t have bothered writing this article. Spend the extra second or two and you will save a lot of money on wasted prints.