Face to Face: Rick Sammon's Complete Guide to Photographing People

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When you photograph a person, one of the many

things you should think about is the camera’s rela-

tionship to the subject’s eyes, specifically the level

at which you are shooting: at, above, or below the

subject’s eye level.

In most cases, shooting “eye to eye” is a good idea,

because it puts viewers of the photograph on the

same “level” as the subject, helping them to iden-

tify with the subject.

As you can see in the opening portrait for this les-

son, which I took in Marrow Bone Springs, Texas,

my camera was positioned at the subject’s eye

level.

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Of course, there are exceptions to all of my sug-

gestions (and to all rules in photography). Seeing

eye to eye is no exception. Following are three ex-

amples.

Look at what happened when I photographed

my subject from a higher and a lower angle. The

higher-angle photograph looks like a snapshot

to me. I’ve seen that kind of “above the subject”

photograph many times, most often when parents

photograph their kids. The lower-angle photo-

graph is OK, I guess, but it lacks the camera-to-

subject communication that we see in the opening

picture.

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When you photograph a subject from a lower

angle and have the subject look directly at the

camera, you give the person in the photograph a

sense of superiority. Fashion and glamour pho-

tographers often photograph models from a lower

angle for that very reason, and that’s why I took

this photograph of a model in a studio on Miami’s

South Beach from a lower angle.

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you’ll be able to include, as well as exclude, differ-

ent elements in the scene. Plus, photographing a

person from a lower angle gives him or her an im-

plied sense of power over the view of the picture,

which is why you see this in fashion ads.

There are other reasons why you may want to

photograph a subject from a lower angle. First, a

picture can look more creative, which was the goal

I was trying to achieve when I photographed this

man in Dalanzadgad, the main town in the Gobi

Desert, Mongolia. Second, from a lower angle,