For the best photos of children and animals – get on their level

By Woody Perkins - CFO 1.4.10

I began my career at Nehlsen Communications as the company photographer and videographer; that experience gave me insight into the importance of composition.

Digital cameras allow us the ability to just ‘point and shoot’ which is both a blessing and a curse. Since we don’t have to think about the settings on the camera we tend to do just that – point and shoot. That results in well exposed photographs with very average composition.

The best photographs, especially of children and animals, are taken not by just pointing the camera; they are made by moving the camera down from your eye-level to the level of your subject. I offer two examples to illustrate my point. In both cases a fine photo is shown snapped from eye-level resulting in a downward look at our subject. The better photo results from getting down to or even below the eye-level of the subject.

Next time you feel the urge to point and shoot – get down!