Visiting Charleston? Love taking pictures? Here’s a little nugget to take with you on your next photo excursion. One way to really step up your game when it comes to vacation photos is simply to vary your angle. Instead of just shooting your subject (for example, the Angel Oak tree on John’s Island) straight-on at eye level, there are some very simple steps you can take to make that photo much more interesting.  

 

 

• Shoot low
• Shoot high (if you can)
• Get close
• Shoot from far away
• Try shooting through things (like branches in this instance)

  

Varying your shots gives you more options and more interesting compositions, which can make your photos that much more dynamic. For example, in the second photo, we shot at a low angle with a branch in the foreground, which helped create dimension and depth. When we see something in a photo that we see all the time, or see the same way our eye sees it, sometimes our brains lose interest. With a variation on the usual angle, you see the world through a photograph in a way that you don’t see it every day. Photos like this make us look, even though we might not know why, just because they’re different from what we’re used to. Even though the Angel Oak is magnificent no matter how you shoot it, trying different angles will help us see it in a much more interesting way than the thousands of other eye-level, straight-on photos of the same subject. So get out there and try something different.

 

If you have photography questions or other topics you’d like us to explore, let us know!