Image credit: author
The summer travel season is here (yay!) and with it comes a slew of decisions big and small that are typically made – on the fly – regarding where to go and what to do. One of the big decisions that is often not given very much thought at all is how to best capture all of the fun and excitement during your vacation.
If you’re like a lot of people, you simply pull out your phone, tell your spouse and the kids to “stand over there and let me take a photo” as your way of capturing the day’s goings on. As a professional photographer, I see a few problems with that approach.
First: as a novice, mobile phone photographer, you’re most likely not taking composition, lighting, exposure, and aperture into consideration when you’re quickly snapping that photograph. You’re probably taking photos in harsh sunlight (arguably the WORST light for portrait photography) and will end up with a bunch of photos that shows everyone squinting like they’re on the surface of the sun. Even worse, if you ask some random stranger to take a photograph for you, that person ABSOLUTELY isn’t going to consider those things (a) because they’re not a photographer either and (b) because you just interrupted THEIR fun by asking them to capture YOUR fun. Result: your photo ranges from OK to poorly framed, poorly composed, under- or overexposed, and/or missed poses.
Second: you’re using a phone. Maybe it’s a good one. MAYBE, it’s the latest iPhone 13 Max Pro GigaMega Master Blaster that you just picked up but haven’t had time to fully learn all of it’s camera settings. Even if it is a good phone – but ESPECIALLY if it is an older phone – it’s still a phone with a tiny sensor that is limited in it’s ability to resolve color and capture dynamic range. As Sheldon Cooper once said, “It’s physics y’all.” Here’s a brief size comparison between the sensor found in the iPhone 12 as compared the sensor size on full frame digital single lens reflect (DSLR) cameras and medium format cameras.
Image credit: https://capturetheatlas.com/camera-sensor-size/
The sensor on your phone (or my camera) is what resolves the light and corresponds (roughly) to film sizes back in the day when we shot exclusively on 35mm, 120mm, 4x5, and 8x10 film stocks. That is to say, the larger the sensor, the more dynamic range (i.e., wide color range) you’re able to capture in a given photograph. I use only full frame DSLR and APS-C camera bodies, so the sensor size I bring to the exposure is much bigger, will resolve color better, and will absolutely print enlargements much better than your phone will.
Third: you’ll actually be in the photograph! This is perhaps the most important aspect of hiring me as your personal paparazzi for your next vacation. If you’re like me, you probably have a bunch of vacation photos from your childhood that always seems to be missing Mom or Dad. Because they were always taking photos, they never seem to be in the photos themselves! Don’t do that to your family. Instead, hire me as your personal photographer for a two-hour, four-hour, or full day package. I’ll follow you as you go about your day and will capture your day in a photojournalistic style; unposed, no prompts (unless you want them), and in the moment. You’ll have a COMPLETE record of the day’s events – that includes everyone relating to and having fun with everyone else. You’ll get a sense of the context and environment as well as closeups of you and your family interacting with one another in of their unguarded and spontaneous vacation moments.
Interested? Let’s talk. I’m at 310.614.5119, am available seven days a week, and am ready to make some memories with you!
Image credit: author