Take Intimate Portraits In Snapshot Situations
Ron
Recently I travelled down east to Southwestern Ontario to visit my family which also meant meeting my grandniece for the first time. Said meeting took place at a family gathering at my mother’s house and as usual I had my camera handy. Let me begin by confessing that my least favourite type of photography is snapshot photography. I’m not denigrating snapshots, much of our personal history is documented with snapshots but it’s just not something I enjoy doing. The gathering took place mostly in my Mom’s average sized livingroom filled with the usual furnishings and knick knacks as well as dining room chairs to provide seating for the dozen odd attendees. A rather crowded venue which would make for busy photos and plenty of distracting elements. With this in mind I opted for the long focal length and versatility of my 70-200mm zoom lens. This lens allowed a degree of stealth and the ability to capture the moment without making my subject uncomfortable or self conscious (no clenched teeth forced smiles while the photographer focuses and composes).
Grandpa and Granddaughter Kylea
For lighting I used a hot shoe flash on my camera to keep things simple and unobtrusive. The built in flash on most DSLRs will usually provide adequate light for situations like this where subject to camera distance is under twenty feet but you are restricted to direct flash which can be harsh and will cast hard shadows. With a hot shoe flash you can use the bounce feature. You do this by aiming the flash upward thus bouncing the light off the ceiling which scatters it making it softer and creating more flattering portraits. If you happen to be in an outdoor situation or a room or hall with very high ceilings consider some sort of diffusion device for your flash. Luniquest make a complete line of flash diffusion and bounce attachments.
Mother and Daughter
Exposure is really a piece of cake with modern TTL flash units. With these the camera senses when sufficient light has entered the camera and simply turns the flash off at that point. I’d suggest you use manual exposure setting the shutter speed to the maximum sync speed, usually 1/250th (if you set it faster your camera will reset it to that speed anyway) and to minimize distracting background elements open the aperture all the way. Take a few test shots and preview the image and histogram to ensure the exposure is optimal, if not use the flash exposure compensation feature either on the camera or flash unit it’s self (not to be confused with exposure compensation or EV) to nail in the exposure.
Father and Daughter
To compose intimate portraits you want to get in tight. Don’t worry about getting full head and shoulder portraits but rather home in on faces, eyes, and expressions to get revealing character studies, leave the head and shoulder shots to the passport photographers.
Thanks for dropping by, comments and suggestions always welcome.
Posted on: Thursday, May 1, 2008 at 10:22 am 
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Welcome back Ron. Hope you are enjoying your grandchildren. They grow up very quickly. Make the most of them.
Very good advice on how to set up flash & use Zoom lens in a small room & lot of people. These sort of practical advise is most useful to all photographers.
Look forward to more tips. Also looking forward to follow up class on Digital Darkroom in Photoshop.
Kind regards
Mahendra
May 2nd, 2008 at 12:10 pmForgot to mention, your grand daughter really looks cute and your photos of her with mum & dad really illustrate your point re: expression & face & eyes rather than full head & shoulders!
Mahendra
May 2nd, 2008 at 12:13 pmThanks Mahendra. Actually Kylea is my grand neice.
Ron
May 3rd, 2008 at 7:29 am