Adding Action to Portraits

 

As a grandfather with a camera, I’m very often snapping away when the grandchildren are nearby. So it shouldn’t be surprising that I have hundreds (maybe thousands) of photos of these kids in my collection.

Yesterday, three of them were out playing in our backyard. Here’s a few snapshots that I took. I’m a big fan of trying to incorporate action into these portraits. You be the judge of whether the action helps to make the picture.

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My favorites are the candids. These are shots where the subject is totally unaware. When they’re preoccupied with having a fun experience, they may not know that you’re “spying” with your camera.
Obviously this is not a candid. Eden knows that I’m taking her photo	But here she is unaware that I’m snapping away
When it’s not possible to be totally candid you can use a semi-posed action shot. The action helps to avoid a face that’s preoccupied with the picturetaker.
This full length portrait of Logan shows little motion	Here the angle of the shot emphasizes his action on the slide
With a little patience, you can turn a static shot into a live action photo. A few minutes after taking the photo on the left below, she was being doing calisthenics – making the photo on the right much more exciting.
Here Ezra is clutching the wooden post that’s supporting the swing set	Here she’s showing me the agility that I wish I could still muster.

 

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While each of the left-hand photos are OK, I’ve learned that adding a little action to the mix can turn my snapshots into real “keepers”.

Do you agree?

 

 

Written by Arnie Lee

 

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You needn’t panic if you accidently delete your photos from your memory card.

You probably move (or at least you should move) your important photos regularly from your memory card to a safer and more permanent location. But what can you do when the original images stored on your memory card never make it to your computer? What can you do besides PANIC if you accidently delete or format the memory card before you’re able to move the photos? This can happen to anyone at anytime (usually the wrong time). The good news is that you may be able to use recovery software to recover some, and hopefully all, of the deleted photos from your memory card – SD, CF, MMC, and most other cards.

Photo recovery software is designed specifically to recover deleted photos. You can find many affordable recovery programs on the Internet (usually from $19 to $39). All of these programs have similar features and the good news is that none require expert knowledge to use. Most programs have a trial version that you can download and install. You install the software, connect your camera to your computer (or insert your memory card into a card reader connected to your computer) and run the recovery software. This lets you run the program first to test whether it can recover any missing photos.

The program then displays thumbnails of the files it can recover. Then you have the option of buying a registration key for the program and recover the files. If you purchase a registration key, select the thumbnail image(s) you wish to recover and save them (for obvious reasons) to a new location.

One important note is that Windows unfortunately may not recognize your camera as a drive, which is what happened with my Canon XSi. If so, you’ll have to use a memory card reader but they’re not very expensive ($10 to $20).

Make certain to set aside enough time for the program to work. It depends, of course, on how many files are on your memory card but it took some of these programs thirty minutes or so to check out my SD card.
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Innovative New Feature Makes the Eye-Fi Even More Valuable

 

A few months ago, I ran into Ziv Gillat, one of the co-founders of Eye-Fi at a photography trade show. His company developed a set of SD-cards that can send images directly from your digital camera to your personal computer by way of a local wi-fi network.

For background information about these cards, you can read the original review of the Eye-Fi from a few weeks ago here.

Anyway, Ziv was excited to tell me about a new feature that the company was developing. Finally last week, Eye-Fi unveiled a fascinating new capability for any of their X2 series cards. With this free update, the Eye-Fi can now send images directly to a mobile device – either an iPhone, iPad or Android. By itself, this provides an automated way to backup your images. On the mobile device, you’ll need to download and install either an iPhone/iPad app or an Android app. These free mobile apps (also provided by Eye-Fi) receive the images from the Eye-Fi card. The apps provide another very useful feature – they let you resend the images to other online sites. And since they use cellular to upload, the mobile devices replace the personal computer.

To use the new capability which the company calls Direct Mode, I downloaded and installed an update to the included Eye-Fi Center software that is used to configure the SD-card. Using one of the dialogs, I added my iPhone and Android device to my list of supported wi-fi networks. Next I installed the Eye-Fi iPhone app from the iTunes website (and later the Android app from Market) and I was ready to give Direct Mode a try.
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