Leo —
From the family 4th of July picnic.
Pictures of family have been a staple of the 4th of July picnic for years — however it’s normally Faith wandering around and forcing everybody to pose for an obligatory “who’s who” of the people in attendance. In all honesty, I don’t think I’ve every seen more than a dozen of Faith’s pictures resulting from the 4th of July picnics.
Most that I have seen are those Faith pulls out to guilt me about my high school years, when I’d pull a blanket over my face at the last second to avoid having my picture taken. Steve jokes about the large number of wonderful photos of afghans they have…
This year I grabbed my camera a bit early on, and tried to get people used to me just pointing the camera and snapping away. I’ve always hated pictures of that type I always tried to hide from, and as I slowly gain more insight into photography I’ve begun to understand why…
A photograph’s purpose is to capture a moment — and any photograph worth taking must capture a real moment, one with emotion and character. When somebody walks over and says to you, “hey, smile! … [click]”, what they’re usually doing is interrupting the moment, replacing it with one created for the sole purpose of taking the photograph. The photograph becomes the subject, not the medium; it fails to convey any emotion or character. The object’s natural emotion is broken, replaced with a usually forced smile. Interaction between objects is interrupted, replaced by forced interaction with the camera.
Photography at family gatherings should strive to be both a passive observer and an active participant. Capture the interaction of your chatting aunts from the sidelines, without interrupting. Or be actively joking with your uncles, and just take a picture as they laugh. You still have the pictures to remember they were there, but the pictures will also remind you of who they really are!