Portraits are the most common type of photographs. We’d like to share some of our know-how for taking better people pictures.

Lighting Tricks Portraits are usually composed using soft, even lighting. However, you can put strong and high contrast lighting to good use by carefully posing your subject.
This photo was taken in the shade where the light was soft. This type of lighting made the young girl’s skin tones equally soft.	Here, I’ve placed the subject in a location that has strong side lighting. I like the effect on the highlighted side of the face. Take care not to overexpose the highlights.

Taking pictures of kids is one of the most popular uses for digital cameras. From time to time, we’ll present tips for taking better kids pictures.

Fill the Frame When shooting portraits, the usual tendency is to carefully frame the subject in the viewfinder.
In this snapshot, we’ve left an even border around the head and upper body of the child. It makes for a nicely framed shot although the background is a little distracting.	For this shot, we moved in closer to fill the viewfinder with the child’s head. There is almost no border around the photo, yielding a more dramatic view of the child.

In just a few days, our family will be having our bi-annual reunion. Mom comes from a large, extended family and we’re planning to have about 100 “Wong” relatives from various places across the USA gather again for a few days, this time in Grand Rapids.

One tradition of our reunions is the family auction. Everyone brings an item to be auctioned and the proceeds from the auction help to finance future reunions.

As it turns out, I’m again late getting my item ready for the auction. I need some help so I make a few calls to Mom and Aunt Jean. They frantically comb through their basements looking for old photographs. After meeting for lunch they hand me a few shoeboxes filled to the brim with photos.
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