Photographing people in Rome

There are many wonderful photo opportunities possible while walking around Rome. I look for relationships between people and the environment. If I see something or someone that looks like it would make an extraordinary photo I ask myself first what are the conditions of light, contrast, color and potential composition. If a certain criteria is met I make all the necessary manual adjustments on my camera, approach the subject, often with discretion, and shoot it. 99% of every photo I take is done mentally before I shoot it mechanically.

In the above image I combined the gesture of a statue with the action of a person playing guitar. The location is Ponte Saint Angelo, a bridge that crosses the Tiber River. I visually recognized a connection between the statue of the angel and the guitarist, thus framed them as a visual pair. I especially saw the relationship between the hands of each figure and the 'repetition of form' they exemplified. The light and contrast were perfect for black and white photography. The soft hues of dusk filter evenly over the subjects and the background adds just enough information to give a 'sense of place' to the overall composition.

William Shepley - Master Photographer in Rome

Getting The Details Through Cropping

Photography is not only cropping, cleaning and auto balancing your image to make that great shot.  However, I understand that in commercial, portrait, and creative photography, cropping, resetting, and altering the images is the norm.  Who wants to look at an advertisement for beauty cream with the face all blotchy and full of pimples? Have you ever seen a real live person that looks a perfect as they do in the magazine?

The secret for taking beautiful images lies in your aspiration, passion and admiration of the subject, if it be landscape, people, buildings or food.  For some reason, when you are attracted to the subject it shows in your images and they reflect your passion. Using techniques such as composition, angles, and light can help you to create a wonderful image that can only be tools to help enhance your images.  Using light can draw your focus onto your subject; the angle use can change the representation of your subject from short to tall for example.  Perspective is important while deciding on what angle to use, what light is best to set up your shot.  Rule of thumb, take your time and never be in a hurry before taking a shot.  Imagine in your mind that instead of using your digital camera that allows you to trash the images you do not like, you are using film.  That precious film that costs so much to develop each roll and each shot depends on your angles, perspective, and lighting.  This way, you can learn to be careful and think before snapping and shooting your image.

Perspective

Don’t just walk up to something that you want to take a picture of and snap a shot!  Don’t only look at the subject from eye level!  Walk around your subject, if you can, or take a one -meter step to your left, to your right, up and down while looking through your viewer.  Do you see anything that stands out to you?  Which position reflects what you want to show in your image?  Take a series of shots from different angles.  I saw a new stature in front of the Pitti Palace in Florence, Italy and walked around it. Like This!

You can see the difference with the various perspectives, just by walking around the statue and taking my time to look at what I am seeing.! Which one do you like best?

Susan Robens – Adventures Thru The Lens Florence Photographer, Guide, and Muse