A few years back a friend told me that he had more pictures of himself from me in the few years we’ve been friends than his parents took of him during his whole childhood.

I’ve been a camera nut for more years than I care to admit sometimes, but my friends and family have provided me with tens of thousands of images. I do have some hard and fast rules that I follow when photographing people, these rules are only slightly negotiable for different situations. These guidelines have taken me a long time to realize, and sticking to them has served me well.

Always carry a camera with you and use it, but there’s more than just that.

These are not in order of importance. I may also be missing some.

1. The right camera for the job. Always have a camera with you, but have an appropriate camera for the situation. It’s probably not a good idea to bring a big scary dslr to a pub when a small non-threatening camera will do the job perfectly. With that logic, you probably should not use a point-and-shoot to photograph your friends’ wedding.
2. Trust is the key to great friendships. The trust you build with your friends is the best way to get the image you have been looking for. Showing the world embarrassing pictures of somebody is a surefire way to shatter that trust and in some cases destroy a friendship. Don’t post a picture of a friend doing something they shouldn’t be doing for all the world to see. FaceBook and MySpace are filled with images of people violating local laws and ordinances. Don’t be that guy/girl. Non-flattering images of friends is another way to be an unwelcome guest at any gathering. Do you want bad pictures of you floating around? Neither do your friends. If it’s not a good picture, don’t show anybody. I don’t delete anything personally, when I go back over my collection I use those as a reference and nobody else ever sees them.
3. Edit down to a reasonable number of pictures. Editing your images is a very important skill. The advantage of having hundreds of pictures from one event, is that you can choose the best images. Don’t worry about not getting a picture in there. If a friend asks why they didn’t see a picture of themselves, you can just tell them that you didn’t get a good one. (see #2) there are some great tools to make this easy. I prefer Lightroom to organize my images, but there is are some free programs like Picassa that make this task easier.
4. Displaying your pictures is a matter of preference. You can email the pictures and frustrate everybody. Your best bet might to join one of the many online photo-sharing sites. If you are a YahooMail user then there is Flickr, if you are a Gmail user there is Picassa. Another good way to do it is perhaps build your own website, there are so many great tools online to help you get that done if you can’t do the coding yourself. Create a gallery and send everybody a link, instead of a file. Make a print, frame it and give to your friend as a gift.

I know this seems to be an over simplification, but it can be more difficult than you realize. Photography is not just about picking up a camera and taking a picture. There is so much that goes into taking a picture, that everything about it needs be second nature. Photography is equal parts of mathematics and artistic expression.

Happy shooting.

pictures of friends on the funnest day of the week!

If you’re going to a Roller Derby, then a party bus is the only way to do it.