Creating Depth in Your Photos

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I am Neyssa Lee a Seattle area photographer, mom of 6, planning obsessed, and who help you see the beauty, love and joy, in your own family’s chaos. I also use my super power of time management to help fellow photographers take control of their businesses. Learn more by heading to my ABOUT ME page.

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Hi, I'm Neyssa

Today’s photo lesson is all about creating depth in your photos. In case you missed Tuesday’s post on how Legos invade my house, I hinted that I would give the photo recipe for one of the photos I showed.
I love using this trick to highlight defining details of my kid’s life or even the details for the activity of the day.  Have you seen my article published on one of the nation’s top photography websites on defining details? Make sure you head on over to read it for more ideas on how to capture defining details!

Set Up: The great thing about this type of shot is that it doesn’t take much set up. Find the room in your home with the best window light and set your kids up with the details you want to capture. In this case it is a lego car, but it could be a doll, lovie, or anything!

Camera Settings: Depending on how bright your room is, you’ll want to set your ISO. I had a decent amount of natural light, however it was a gray day, so I used ISO 1000.  Here’s the important part for this type of shot. Because you want to really create that depth, you need to set your aperture as wide open as you can go. My aperture is 1.6 (almost wide open). Last I set my shutter speed. If you’re subject is quick (like my toddlers) you’ll want a fast shutter speed. I used 1/200.

Compose: How you compose the image is most important here. You want to be as close to the toy as you can, with the your child in the background. The easiest way to achieve this is have them hold their toy out in front of them. I typically shoot these type of detail shots horizontally so that only the toy and the child are in the frame. Though, play around with vertical and horizontal compositions to see what is right for you and the object your photographing!

Creating depth in photos, Capturing the Everyday Photos, Snoqualmie Photographer

Now it’s your turn! Spend some time this weekend capturing your child’s favorite toy or even project.

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