Photo Ideas

[Joanne]

Hi guys, I've been tasked with collecting images for the new website.

 

I've brought in my shiny camera, which, in conjunction with a school SD card is going to take some high res images... HOWEVER... I have no vision.

 

What sort of pictures could I stage? How hard is it to get kids to not pose? Think I want some of them working and maybe some with laptops and ipads...

 

I'm no pro photographer soooo.... any halp appreciated!

[featured_spectre]

Sit in a class and take some snaps at random. Organise it with the teacher for the lesson, rinse and repeat. Its how I did it, the kids are more focused on learning than posing, so you get better and more natural shots.

[Joanne]

did you use a flash or not? I am not a fan of the flash...

[featured_spectre]

Well I had a bit of difficulty, I had this issue (see below)

 

http://lolzombie.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/withoutflash.jpg

 

 

All jokes aside, with flash if the room was not well lit or using heavily on artificial light, otherwise no flash.

[hardtailstar]

Take pictures of nice bits around the school, like a display or something.

 

PE lessons are always good for websites

[Joanne]

pah hahahahah!

[edutech4schools]

did you use a flash or not? I am not a fan of the flash...

 

Flash will make the pics better but only if you pay for a decent external flash and defuser.

[Joanne]

Take pictures of nice bits around the school, like a display or something.

 

PE lessons are always good for websites

 

I really wish the building wasn't so damn ugly! I will try some macro shots of displays and stuff.

[6Foot2]

Have a look at some other school websites? There must be some that would give you something to work with.

[Grey-gear]

Take a picture of the welcome sign out the front of the school, or a pic of the head talking with students (with happy faces)

[LosOjos]

If you do have to use on camera flash, a fag paper makes a great diffuser (softens the light, making it less harsh and less prone to giving people shiny foreheads) and you can 'stack' them to control the diffusion amount.

[Joanne]

Check it...

 

 

homepage material.

[JRowley]

If you don't use flash or lighting of some description, Photoshop can do wonders for colour balance and lighting.

 

Here's ours if you want to take a look: Tytherington School | Tytherington School

[featured_spectre]

look at the shiny shiny

[sonofsanta]

Outside shots, taken under trees if possible. Lots of green makes a photo look good, especially in terms of portraying a nice image for the school, and the leaves will diffuse the sunlight nicely for you.

 

Other than that, I'd say crouched down to the height of sitting students, looking down a line of them at a 30 degree angle, focused on the nearest one filling the left/right hand third and the rest blurring out as you go down the line. Get em looking at their books or something. Those are the kind of images that work really well for websites and prospectuses, as you have lots of negative space to overlay text.

[Tapiochre]

I would echo sonofsanta in the idea of working at the same level as the students. Direct them not to look at the camera but to just get on with their work.

 

Here are a few more tips:

 

You need loads of light so open the aperture as much as possible to get as much light as you can into the lens. Try to use natural light if poss. If you have to have lights on, be sure to set the white balance on the camera to the correct setting for the lights in use. Careful though as mixed light (daylight and fluorescent can give unusual colour casts). If you must use flash, try to bounce the light up off the ceiling or, as others have suggested, diffuse the power of the flash with tissue paper or similar, otherwise any colour on the children's faces will be blown out by the power of the flash.

 

Focus: if you really want to wow them, take your time and get things as tightly in focus as you can. Beware that with the aperture wide open (i.e a low F stop number like F4) then the depth of field (what is in focus) will be small, so objects near the lens and far for it will be out of focus while only the subject will be in focus. That can make a nice effect in some circumstances but may be less desirable in others.

 

Shaky shaky: if a tripod gets in the way, you might decide to hold the camera by hand but this can be a good way to introduce camera shake, particularly if light is poor and shutter speed is slow (anything longer than 1/200th sec could end up presenting a blurry pic). So, see if you can lean hard against a desk or cupboard to gain stability. Even better, try and get hold of a monopod, a single leg adjustable prop that will help you keep the camera steady.

 

Backgrounds: I was taught always to consider what is in the background of a shot before I take it. A child at work maybe a good subject but if the background is full of mess and crud it will detract from the overall effect.

 

 

Picture size: remember that a jpg off a digital camera might well be several thousand pixels wide and high. For example, a Nikon D700 DSLR may well pump out a shot that is 5000px wide, huge in size and many MB in data size. These are not what you want to add to your webpage as they are far too large. So use something easy, maybe MS Office Picture Manager (or its Windows 8 equivalent) to crop, resize and export to something sized better for a web page.

 

Given most web pages are no bigger than 1600px wide (generalisation), then this should be your max width. Slotting a pic into a story in a page therefore, you might find 250px wide is enough. Take time therefore to do some thinking and editing to suit the different places where the pix will reside in the end. Thankfully, many web platforms can crunch images automatically but they might cry a bit if to you throw a D700 image at em.

 

Responsive themes might be able to auto size your pix to ensure that they will fit and display correctly on diddly mobile screens vs huge iMac 27" pro monitors... Check what your theme can do... If it can't auto size images, then you may well, have to be sure images are small enough for iPhones as well as desktops.

 

And finally, and MOST importantly, Child protection: Always always always check which children might not be photo subjects. Never take the memory chip out of school and ensure any images used are safely and correctly disposed of or securely stored if needed again. Never take copies. Never move them to optical or memory sticks... Any medium you could lose is a risk to all concerned.

 

I've been doing this stuff for years now, I hope my experience helps you.

 

Chris

Edited December 2, 2014 by Tapiochre