How to Take a Great Documentary Photograph

A documentary photo may capture a person at work.

Documentary photographs usually capture people, objects or surroundings in a natural, truthful and objective way. It is closely associated with photojournalism that chronicles everyday life and special events in typical locations, such as streets, at home or in the workplace. Because the aim is to document a subject without manipulating the image in the darkroom or digitally, this can be accomplished by knowing the methods and techniques to capture an image right.

Things You'll Need

• Film or digital SLR camera
• Tripod

Instructions

1. Determine your subject. A good documentary subject is not just a person, place or thing but is one that also expresses an emotional theme such as joy, fun, gloom, love, hardship, peace or nature of an environment. You subject should stand out and can be clearly pinpointed by anyone who will look at your final picture. Do this by making your subject, if it's people, fill almost the entire frame of your photo. You can also use visual elements in the surroundings such as lines, colors and contrasts that lead to your subject.

2. Walk around your subject and look for the right place to compose it. Your aim is to come up with an interesting angle of view. Do not be tied up with the regular eye level view, but look at low-level and high-angle views.

3. Study the existing light that will illuminate your subject and set the right exposure on your camera. Most cameras have automatic exposure settings to do this. You can also manually set the lens aperture and shutter speed depending on your personal preference. To capture natural lighting, the flash is usually turned off in taking documentary photos.

4. Steady your camera and take the shot. Mounting your camera on a tripod is needed to ensure sharpness of the image. This is especially necessary when your flash is turned off and the camera needs a slow shutter speed to let in more light to expose the image. Without a tripod in low-light situations, the image will be totally blurry.

5. If you are using a digital camera, you have an instant preview of your shot on your LCD viewer. You can easily check the results and make adjustments, such as recomposing and changing the camera settings, if reshooting is necessary. If using film, you can "bracket your shots" or use the exposure compensation button on your camera to allow more or less light on your succeeding shots.

References

• "Developing Your Eye", New York Institute of Photography, 2008

Resources

• Mark Harmel Photo: Documentary Photograph & Photoshop