December 28, 2012 - Storyteller

Fly On The Wall

Ever heard someone say that they would like to be a fly on the wall during that conversation? This means you would like to overhear the conversation as if you were not there. You want the situation to be accurate and not know you are there.

Being the Fly-on-the-wall also refers to the documentary style of photography where you work as unobtrusively as possible to capture those candid moments.

In the first photo, I captured the newest addition to our family. His older cousin and great-aunt are entertaining him and loving his reactions.

Body Language

I love this photo of the nieces and nephews getting measured to see who is taller while their aunt looks on. What makes this photo fun is that this isn’t all that is happening; you have the youngest boy being held by his mother and looking at me.

The body language tells the story that most likely happens during the holidays at many homes where the children are measured to see how much they have grown since last year.

Leaving some things out

You don’t need to see everything in a photo to work. Here the proud mother holding her child comes through clearly. Do you need to see all of the kids for it to work? I don’t think so. You may want more in the photo, and if you took it, you would include more. The strength of sometimes leaving something out makes you want to know what is going on. By leaving something out, you help pique the curiosity of the audience. Keep everything in, and often you lose that curiosity.

Details

So often, the small things around the holidays help tell our family story. For example, how often does your family talk about something grandmother cooks during the holidays? Do you have photos of this to pass along to your family?

My sister makes these rainbow cookies every year, so I thought I would document this for our family history. I keep talking about gathering our family recipes and creating a book. Now imagine this photo with a photo of the recipe card in the original family member’s handwriting that started the tradition. Maybe you have a picture of them as well on the page of the family book.

The Patriarch Speaks

Every year my dad likes to remind us how important family is to us. This year he read The Dash Poem by Linda Ellis. Here is a link to that poem if you want to make it part of your family tradition.

Crawling on the floor

Please don’t walk around the room and take all your photos from the standing position. Instead, get down to the little ones’ level as I did here. What happens when you are at eye level with the family’s baby? Well, the last time most of us saw things from this perspective was when we were just children.

When you get down on the ground, you help the audience feel like they did when they were children.

Have some fun

Here my daughter on the right with her friend is making music with Dan Cathy, the president of Chick-fil-A. He had these shakers with egg-shaped cow spots. During my daughter’s Christmas break, she had fun with her friends and Dan Cathy.

Where did you go?