For a monument. We take the time to go around it to discover the right point of view. The one that makes the 2,000 tourists who are there at the same time as us disappear. The thing ? Climb to gain height or, on the contrary, approach to isolate an interesting detail. We choose the light at the beginning or end of the day, which is much more flattering. And if possible, sun in the back to avoid fatal backlighting. At night, the range of a flash not exceeding 2 or 3m, it is totally useless for photographing the Taj Mahal or Notre-Dame de Paris!
For a landscape. The trick to giving depth and relief to the scene is to integrate a foreground element into the frame. The branches of a palm tree at the beach, for example. In town, we frame a lamppost or a panel in the foreground to give a "reportage" cachet. The day is falling? You can capture ambient light by setting your camera to:night mode without flash (or high ISO sensitivity). We stabilize it on a support to avoid blurring if we move. With a little patience, guaranteed atmosphere.
A portrait or a group. If we pose a subject, we avoid placing it in the center of the photo, to let the frame breathe. Watch out for the "killer" background, like a beach toilet sign... For a group, the ultimate goal is to have everyone's smiling attention, at the same time! It's up to us to deploy our comic talents to achieve it. Rather than taking people frontally, we deploy them along a railing (road, beach) and we play on the perspective. Pro tip:devilishly effective flash... in broad daylight! It reduces unsightly contrasts and restores radiance to faces. All fashion photographers use this technique.
Thanks to Julien BOLLE, photographer and section editor at the magazine " Réponses Photo ".
