Who Took Your Picture?

[Robert Watcher]

When people see picture of Anne and I or of us with our family … … a common question is “Who took your picture?” The answer is always I took it. LOL

For most of our married life, Anne and I are seldom in a picture together. Especially for all of my professional career, I was taking portraits all the time of other people. I can probably count a half a dozen times that I have a picture of myself, none with Anne and I together, and few of our children other than snapshots when they were younger. Then when our children got married, they insisted that they wanted who they considered “the best photographer” to photograph their Love Story Sessions and Weddings —— and I enjoyed that special privilege. On those occasions I would set my camera on a tripod and ask the best man to fire the shutter so that we could have our family portrait with the newlyweds.

Once Anne and I started travelling a few years after the last wedding, and my experience in photography changed drastically to a street and documentary photographer, I began to recognize that pictures of Anne and I with other people, surprisingly turned out with better expressions and composition when I set my camera on a tripod, got everyone positioned the way I wanted - leaving a hole for myself to step into, and set the self time for 3 or 4 shots. Anne and I started getting more pics of ourselves together using the same method.

The 12 second self timer method did require a lot of walking back and forth, checking and resetting for additional insurance shots. Until I came up with the idea of using the Interval / Timelapse setting instead. You see after returning home to Ontario during Covid, Anne and I started regularly heading out to experience stars, planets, comets as well as doing a lot of late evening slow shutter and time lapse photography —- something I hadn’t played with much before.

So starting with setting up a quick family portrait at our son’s home for our 45’th wedding anniversary in May of 2021. The kids knew I would probably have a camera with me, and were expecting to head out to the porch and record the moment. That is the first time that I used the time lapse feature for a 3 or 4 shot sequence instead of the self timer. I had no tripod, so set the camera on the barbecue, clicked the shutter and stepped into the scene. Of course I was talking all the time while looking at the camera, to make sure there were expressions

It’s not a pro level portrait - no extra fill lighting ——- but we’ve got it and everyone has a wall print in their homes. ( WHO ARE THEY SMILING AT? LOL Nobody - just keeping focused on the camera lens as directed, and reacting to how they want to be seen)

 

[Robert Watcher]

On our awesome 3 week trip to Europe last year, I ended up purchasing a very sturdy little steel tripod that would be in my pocket while walking around. Along with my little Olympus street camera with wrist strap. I was ready to set it up anywhere and take my time moving into the scene with Anne and I or when we hung out with our friends in England —— by setting the camera to time lapse. It worked wonderfully.

I don’t believe that a lot of photographers think about using this type of method for pics with themselves in it. So thought I’d share it in a post here:

 

[Robert Watcher]

I was sitting at the end of the table where the picture is taken from in Colchester, England. Set up the tripod on the picnic table and walked around to the other end.

At the Grand Place in Brussels, I wanted a shot with Anne and I with the amazing architectural backdrop. All I could find that was raised enough to set my camera and little tripod, were flower beds. Hoping that I wouldn’t get in trouble, I went ahead and reached into the flowers for a solid base for my camera.

Anne and I were staying in this cute little bnb along a canal in Delft, Netherlands. I set the camera on a metal box on the other side of narrow street in front of us, late in the afternoon.

For this pic halfway across the Markerwaarddijk in the Netherlands, I used a lightweight tripod that I kept in the car to set the camera on at an appropriate height. It was a good thing to have it being we were in the middle of a bare parking lot. Set the camera on interval timer and walked into the scene with the car door open ready for me to stand behind.