1
Find an interesting
story to shoot
Good documentary
images have a narrative
about the subject you
are photographing.
You won’t necessarily
capture this all in one
shot so build up your
story with images that
are varied and reveal
something interesting
viewed as a collection.2
Use your own family
Possibly the toughest
project would be to
capture the daily lives
of those around you
without influencing the
way they behave orwant to be presented.
Some of the most
powerful documentary
imagery possible can
be found within family
life, but you and your
subjects have to be
prepared for a warts-
and-all portrayal.3
Keep it honest
The whole point
of documentary
photography is that
you shoot what you
see. You don’t try to
influence a scene –
or worse, create
something that isn’t
truthful to the theme.
Don’t try to change
what you see to fit
a photographic ideal.4
Process in mono
for a classic feel
You don’t have to shoot
or process the images
in black and white –
many great projects
have been shot
in colour – but
sometimes the
simple, uncomplicated
presentation of black-
and-white can carry
more emotion.5
Be an observer, but
not totally remote
Taking photos in a
documentary style
doesn’t mean you need
to be an invisible and
silent observer. Actuallyspending some time
to get to know your
subjects well means
that they may become
more relaxed in your
presence, allowing you
to work more freely.6
Take your time
There is no hurry with
documentary-style
photography. You can
choose to shoot yoursubject for one day, for
a week, or over years.
The passage of time
itself can actually be
very revealing, and
become part of the
story you want to tell.Six ways to shoot...
Documentary images
http://www.digitalcameraworld.com OCTOBER 2019 DIGITAL CAMERA^99
Losing colour
Q
I want to turn an
image to black and
white but keep onecolour – but I don’t use
Photoshop, only Lightroom.
Can I still do it?
Lucy Heaps
A
Yes you can, Lucy, simply by
desaturating each of the colour
channels except the one that
relates to the colour you want
to keep. Obviously this way, anything else
within the frame that is the same colour
will be retained too, so it’s not absolutely
selective. But if you were to photograph
red, yellow and green peppers against a
blue background then go to the HSL Panel
in Lightroom, select Saturation, and take
all the colour sliders except the red channel
to -100, you would get the result you want.
It’s worth noting that some colours can
naturally overlap. For example, your red
tomato might contain some orange, so
when the orange Saturation slider is set
to -100 the red hue can change. However,
you can turn the red channel saturation up
to give it a colour boost. I’ve done exactly
this process for the image above, with only
the bright red car and the pair of red pants
in the top left-hand corner retaining colour.
The commonly used term for this
technique is ‘colour popping’. You willfind it used occasionally in advertising to
make something stand out, and at one time
it was a favourite post-production technique
among wedding photographers. I don’t
think it’s used as often these days, but if
you are able to find the right image where
you can isolate the colour as you wish, then
it can be something fun to have a play with.