Outshot by an Amatuer

My sister Lisa gave birth to a baby girl a few weeks ago and since only a few people are allowed into the birthing room at one time, I passed my camera to my sister Janice whenever she went inside the delivery room.  I wasn’t expecting very many good shots because you need a pro like me to really capture the moment, right?

Janice took this shot of  David and his firstborn Izabella.

I got into the room a few minutes later and came upon a similar scene.  But noticing that David was sitting with his back to the window I figured he would have too many shadows on his face so I changed his position.   This is the result.

As you can see, my image is cluttered and the lighting is flat.  My shot sucks.

So what do we learn from all this?  Is it better to leave a scene unchanged when you come upon it?  No, there are plenty of times when my moving a subject has produced a stronger image.  Photography is an art and there are no rules that can be followed in every situation.  Sometimes it is wise to move the subject -sometimes it isn’t.  Often you don’t know which is the right choice, until the shoot is over and you are looking over the images.  And for every time I come home with images that are below the quality of what I should be producing, there is another time that I produce images above my level.

The fact that you can’t always predict the result of a shoot, is one of the things I most love about being a photographer.