On the heels of whether our fotos should have a subject...., should we include people in our fotos?
Every year Costco has a Foto contest for its members, maybe you have seen the foto issue of the Costco Connection in years past. About eight years ago they had a short tutorial on how to take pictures.
They gave a statistic, that something like 85% of all prize winning photography has at least one person in it! I was a little surprised! I don't remember the exact percentage but it was VERY high.
The moral to that story was that if you include people in your compositions, they stood an 85% better chance of winning a prize than if you did not!
Indeed, how often do we go out of our way to NOT include people in our shots? You hear, "get there early so there wont be people yet". Is that good advice?
I recently saw in the gallery a beautiful foto of a darkened street in a European town with no people. It was obvious that the photographer had gone out of their way to eliminate them. The image also had NO soul! It needed a couple hand-in-hand or kissing or kids or something!!
I'm going to include 3 images that all have people in them. People are an integral part of our world, so why do we sometimes try SO hard to shut them out. We are social animals and NEED people in our lives.
Since that article I've made it a point to include people in a way that they support my subject and indeed some of these photographs have done well in competitions!!
I am following with 3 pics that have people in situations where you often see them purposely eliminated.
So what are your philosophies about including people? Feel free to post shots to support your position and why you feel it works for you.
Maybe after this post you will have a better understanding of whether to include people or not to include people in your compositions!!!
Please wait till I post the images. Thanks!
SS

On the heels of whether our fotos should have a subject...., should we include people in our fotos?
Every year Costco has a Foto contest for its members, maybe you have seen the foto issue of the Costco Connection in years past. About eight years ago they had a short tutorial on how to take pictures.
They gave a statistic, that something like 85% of all prize winning photography has at least one person in it! I was a little surprised! I don't remember the exact percentage but it was VERY high.
The moral to that story was that if you include people in your compositions, they stood an 85% better chance of winning a prize than if you did not!
Indeed, how often do we go out of our way to NOT include people in our shots? You hear, "get there early so there wont be people yet". Is that good advice?
I recently saw in the gallery a beautiful foto of a darkened street in a European town with no people. It was obvious that the photographer had gone out of their way to eliminate them. The image also had NO soul! It needed a couple hand-in-hand or kissing or kids or something!!
I'm going to include 3 images that all have people in them. People are an integral part of our world, so why do we sometimes try SO hard to shut them out. We are social animals and NEED people in our lives.
Since that article I've made it a point to include people in a way that they support my subject and indeed some of these photographs have done well in competitions!!
I am following with 3 pics that have people in situations where you often see them purposely eliminated.
So what are your philosophies about including people? Feel free to post shots to support your position and why you feel it works for you.
Maybe after this post you will have a better understanding of whether to include people or not to include people in your compositions!!!
Please wait till I post the images. Thanks!
SS

On the heels of whether our fotos should have a subject...., should we include people in our fotos?
Every year Costco has a Foto contest for its members, maybe you have seen the foto issue of the Costco Connection in years past. About eight years ago they had a short tutorial on how to take pictures.
They gave a statistic, that something like 85% of all prize winning photography has at least one person in it! I was a little surprised! I don't remember the exact percentage but it was VERY high.
The moral to that story was that if you include people in your compositions, they stood an 85% better chance of winning a prize than if you did not!
Indeed, how often do we go out of our way to NOT include people in our shots? You hear, "get there early so there wont be people yet". Is that good advice?
I recently saw in the gallery a beautiful foto of a darkened street in a European town with no people. It was obvious that the photographer had gone out of their way to eliminate them. The image also had NO soul! It needed a couple hand-in-hand or kissing or kids or something!!
I'm going to include 3 images that all have people in them. People are an integral part of our world, so why do we sometimes try SO hard to shut them out. We are social animals and NEED people in our lives.
Since that article I've made it a point to include people in a way that they support my subject and indeed some of these photographs have done well in competitions!!
I am following with 3 pics that have people in situations where you often see them purposely eliminated.
So what are your philosophies about including people? Feel free to post shots to support your position and why you feel it works for you.
Maybe after this post you will have a better understanding of whether to include people or not to include people in your compositions!!!
Please wait till I post the images. Thanks!
SS

On the heels of whether our fotos should have a subject...., should we include people in our fotos?
Every year Costco has a Foto contest for its members, maybe you have seen the foto issue of the Costco Connection in years past. About eight years ago they had a short tutorial on how to take pictures.
They gave a statistic, that something like 85% of all prize winning photography has at least one person in it! I was a little surprised! I don't remember the exact percentage but it was VERY high.
The moral to that story was that if you include people in your compositions, they stood an 85% better chance of winning a prize than if you did not!
Indeed, how often do we go out of our way to NOT include people in our shots? You hear, "get there early so there wont be people yet". Is that good advice?
I recently saw in the gallery a beautiful foto of a darkened street in a European town with no people. It was obvious that the photographer had gone out of their way to eliminate them. The image also had NO soul! It needed a couple hand-in-hand or kissing or kids or something!!
I'm going to include 3 images that all have people in them. People are an integral part of our world, so why do we sometimes try SO hard to shut them out. We are social animals and NEED people in our lives.
Since that article I've made it a point to include people in a way that they support my subject and indeed some of these photographs have done well in competitions!!
I am following with 3 pics that have people in situations where you often see them purposely eliminated.
So what are your philosophies about including people? Feel free to post shots to support your position and why you feel it works for you.
Maybe after this post you will have a better understanding of whether to include people or not to include people in your compositions!!!
Please wait till I post the images. Thanks!
SS

Boberic, is that so silly?!
Recently, maybe 3 years ago, Annie Leibovitz created a huge stir within the photographic community when she presented her now very famous portraits of famous people. These were people from the past, and no, there were NO people in them.
The definition of a portrait is that there is, as you say, a person present. Well there is NOT one person in her show. She gathered object that belonged to those people to paint a picture in our minds of how the person could have been and used our psyche to create the person in our minds. That show was very controversial and quite famous. A unique spin indeed!!!
No people portraits was born!
SS