Documentary. That word is a fancy way of saying recording/keeping track of/record/register… In the world of photography as we know it the style ‘documentary photography’ is in its basic form what we do on a daily basis with our cell phones.
We document.
We want to record a specific moment in time.
A specific place.
In most cases a specific feelings.
My oldest kiddos birthday is a few weeks before Christmas. And as you can see, he is a lego human. (I’ll start a go fund me later lol). Something that I loved watching was when he would wake up early before school and work on building whatever crazy lego set he got for his birthday. The way our house is set up, we get really, really good morning light in our front living room (and kitchen too).
This type of image is called a Backlit image, because the light is coming from the back of the subject. As you can see most of the window is blown out (too bright to see any details) because of the light of the sun. I am ok with that because I love the way the sun fills the space. Directly behind me is a mostly black wall, but there is some light paint on it also which helps reflect back into his face.
For this type of image you want a wide angle lens so that you can see what is going on all around the subject. A 24mm lens is perfect for documenting. I use the Sigma Art 24mm. The image directly below settings are: f/1.4, 1/320, ISO1000.
f/1.4: so that I can let as much light into the sensor as possible
1/320: because I want to stop the motion and not have any blur
ISO 1000: because I have to equal out the aperture and the shutter speed to get details in him.
Tips for making documentary images…
- Move around your subject. If you notice in some of the series I am not always in the same location. Sometimes I move to be in front of him and sometimes I will choose an overhead image to capture what he is working on. The only place NOT to be is between the light and the subject.
- use the light you have, experiment with it. try different apertures and exposures until you get the right setting. a big help with this is buying a big lego set, it takes them longer to put it together.
- when in doubt, photograph what you want to remember. These images are from 2019. My kiddo would have been a Sophomore in high school… right now he is a sophomore in college. But looking back on these images today takes me back to when he would sit in my living room and legos would be everywhere. To be honest, I miss finding legos in the couch cushions.
Try it around the house with your camera or even your cell phone (just not on portrait mode). Don’t be afraid to practice documentary photography around the holidays
If you have any questions or need any help documenting, email me or message me on fb or instagram!
