Project Photo Tips
TIPS FOR Southern SARE PROJECT PHOTOS
Format
Digital photography has made it easier for project leaders to submit photos, almost too easy! There is an increasing tendency to submit a cd with dozens, even hundreds of carelessly taken photos. Please limit your report photo submission to no more than 10 high res (300 dpi) jpg files. The files can now be posted right into the reporting template. You must include a USDA photo release form with every image of a recognizable person.
Move in Close
We have enough wide shots of anonymous crops (with and without tractors) to last forever. Don’t take any more unless you have the opportunity to photograph a startling before-and-after series showing the results of a treatment. If you do that, take photos from the same spot each time and include a landmark such as a tree, barn, or other non-moving object to indicate all shots are taken from the same location.
Other than when special cases warrant such wide shots, concentrate on medium shots and close ups so individual plants, animals and people are identifiable. Anytime you can photograph a happy-looking person with healthy crops and livestock, take advantage of the opportunity. Remember those faces are not usable without the USDA photo release.
Capture the ho-hum moment
Take your camera on the slowest, most boring days of the project activities, not the field days or special events when you and everyone else are too busy to have photography on your mind. What you are looking for are people doing something, anything connected with your project. Working on a tractor, looking through a microscope, calculating fertilizer rates on a computer program, scouting for insects, dipping water samples, applying mulch, measuring plants--whatever tasks would be performed on an average, ho-hum day in the research plots, labs or on the farm. It may sound boring to you, but when we take such images from several different projects and put them in a photo display or publication, the variety, the diversity of people and the landscapes really show off what this program is all about.
Time it Right
Avoid the hours of 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. when the sun is bright; the harsh light makes lackluster color and menacing shadows that give people a wanted-poster look. Morning and evening produce richer color, and your subjects won’t squint so much. Set on “fill flash” or “automatic flash” whenever the subject is in the foreground with a sunlit background.
Freeze
Admittedly this is subtle, but rather than posing your subjects, instruct them to continue with their work (pruning, digging, punching numbers into a calculator, whatever) until you say “freeze” at which time they stop the movement, refrain from blinking and glance at the camera. This approach avoids the static look of posed photos as well as the unflattering facial expressions that can result from totally candid shots.
Think Vertically
Most people shoot horizontal photos because that’s how cameras are built. But verticals most often fit the photo spaces in publications. They also fit the human body better than horizontals. So turn your camera to shoot verticals at least half the time.
