How To Add Emotion

The Oakville Camera Club mentoring session held today (Sat. Jan 24/26) on one of the coldest days of the year so far in Ontario was a warm and welcoming meeting of mentors helping other club members with their images.

As one of the club mentors I am always grateful and honoured to be part of the learning process when it comes to photograpy. As a retired shooter with 50 years (on and off) as a professional news and national magazine photographer I tend to shoot okay shots especially when we look at the technical end of things.

But today, I got a question from one of our session participants than I struggled with to offer a useful answer.

Our participant said she was having issues getting any sort of emotion out of her images.

One of the examples was a shot of the bridge in Hamilton, Ontario much like the one shown here that I shot at one of our club’s outings.

She said there was no emotion in her photos and I countered with there was nothing wrong with her image (which looked a lot like mine) but we had to address the fact that the main object in both photos was a steel structure.

“It’s just a bridge”, I said.

If you want more emotion in your photos you’ve got to go to photo-rich environments. Toronto is one of the best cities when it comes to street festivals and parades. Gay Pride at the end of June in Toronto is a world-famous event and certainly qualiffies as a photo rich environment.

It’s a place where emotion lives on the street and is easily captured with an open mind, a big smile and willing attitude.

But then I got thinking about what a lack of emotion really means when it comes to photography. While getting yourself into a photo-rich enviroment is one thing sometimes equipment itself gets in the way.

I asked our participant what lens was she using and the answer was she had two zooms. One was a small telephoto zoom and the other was a longer telephoto zoom and I knew I’d struck gold.

Emotion in photos won’t often be found at the end of a zoom telephoto lens. if you want emotion – true emotion – then you have to get in front of the people.

I suggested she stop shooting with the telephotos for a month or so and shoot with a standard 50mm lens. By shooting with a 50mm (or a 35mm or 28mm if you have one) you’re forced into getting a lot closer to your subjects. At a lot of the busy street festivals in Toronto a short prime lens is the only way to shoot.

A slightly wide to prime lens will all you to shoot lots of candid shots of people interacting with each other. Not waving a big digital camera with a long zoom in people’s faces but rather shooting with your camera now with a short 50mm lens will make you almost invisible to your subjects.

But it’s also alright to walk up and ask your participants to pose for you. And you’ll be amazed at how many people will say yes.

Asking to take a photo implies permission and ruins any spontaneity but (as in the photo above) can result in a special moment where all pretense is dropped and an emotional truth is revealed.

And sometimes it’s the candid shot that runs up to you and by your being ready and willing to shoot magic just happens.

If you want to add more emotion to your photography then go join a photo walk group or local club and go out on shoots that involve people and at least for awhile stay away from the bridges and buildings.