Arizona Sun

A low camera angle in this picture shows the action clearly and provide a neutral background which helps tell the story.

We know some cynical souls who maintain that there is an "angle" to everything-but that's not the kind we're talking about. It's camera angles we're interested in today.

We want to remind you that there are more ways to picture your children at play, for example, than to shoot them head on.

In many situations there's much to be gained by taking a worm's eye view of the situation, or pretending you're snapping the scene from a helicopter

The picture we've chosen to illustrate this column shows clearly what happens when you look up at your subjects through the viewfinder.

In this case it seems like an excellent idea, since the board pauses long enough at the peak of the upward swing for the camera-man to get a good view of their faces.

Here the camera angle gives a good clear picture of the activity and finds an ideally plain background that at the same time tells part of the story

By varying your camera angle you can many times find a good, non-distracting background in a situation which, if pictured in more straight forward fashion would present an unwanted mass of clutter to call attention away from the subject.

Some subjects, however. are at their best when pictured straight ahead Just don't let yourself get in a rut and use any one angle all the time. Take a minute or two to study your picture in the viewfinder from a number of angles and then shoot from the one which gives you the picture you like best.

-John Van Guilder