My son is now in college and since he was a kid, I never saw him have any interest in photography.  My daughter is a different story though.  She’s got a good technical grasp of the camera and taking pictures.

But lately, it’s been my son who’s doing some catch up with the camera.  And I guess he’s got a better eye than me.   I have refrained from teaching him photography, specifically how to take pictures and composition because I’d much rather he develop his own style before I mess it with whatever concepts I have.

Now that he’s a freshman in Fine Arts, he’s takent he camera and he’s been experimenting with it.  I am still holding back on teaching him the technicals (topics such as aperture, light, film speed, flash, etc.).  He’s learning on his own.

One thing he’s been experimenting on is the use of the macro lens, as well as worm’s eye view composition.  The macro lens allows a shorter focal point, and you can get very close to the subject and still have it focused properly.  Macro photography requires a different eye for detail, seeing mundane and small things and composing the shot as if it was a regular-sized object. Using a zoom and a macro shows a lot of detail for the shot, very up close and personal.  We are talking of subjects as small as ants.  Personally, I feel limited by the available subjects.  But then again, I’m not a nature photography kind of guy who would like to go on a photo safari in the backyard.

He’s also taken to shooting from the ground.  On a recent trip to a rural community, his class visited a church and they took some pictures.  He lay prone on the church’s aisle to take a shot of the altar framed by the pews.  Too bad the shots had people walking on the aisle.  It would have been better if the church was empty when they visited.  He’s taken his style to more common subjects like his sister.  The resulting picture of her sitting on the floor and reading a book looked like a very tight shot with the subject – his sister – the focus on the picture’s vanishing point.

Me?  I’m still studying new things, like panoramic shots and stitching.