Photographing groups is an excellent way to make a living with your camera, but it does take some skill. This article will give you some tips to improve your skills in photographing a group.
Very large groups such as those you come across at weddings are probably the trickiest. If the group is too big you will have problems identifying individuals in the image, that is they will be too small. So first tip is to keep your groups to a manageable size.
You also need to remember to position the individuals in the group so that each of them can see the camera, and to allow you to fill the image as much as possible both from a vertical and a horizontal perspective.
Have you ever looked at a group photograph and thought, it's like a firing squad line up!
The biggest mistake you must avoid is having all subjects facing square on to the camera. Take a line through your eye down the centre of the group and have those on the left of that line facing inward and those on the right of that line also facing inward at an angle of approximately 40 degrees.
Sometimes I'm asked about smaller groups of say 4 to 5. I prefer to shoot these as uprights or in portraiture format. This allows you to get the whole group in and to be able to see the whole figure of each individual in the group photograph. This is particularly important with small wedding groups. The subjects will not want you to cut off their carefully chosen footwear!
When photographing a group larger than above I will usually shoot in landscape format.
As the group starts to grow you will need to think about staggering the heights in the group to suit. By this I mean you could have young children kneeling on the ground some adults sitting behind them with another row standing behind them. Just make sure as I said above that you can see everyone's face.
Stairs are an excellent prop for posing groups. Make sure your most important individuals whoever they are, are posed at the front of any larger group. You can use the stairs to tier the group upwards from there. Pay attention also to the height of people, you wouldn't place very tall people at the front of any group if you can avoid it.
Another tip if you are shooting a very large group, for example both families at a wedding, would be for you to go to a nearby upstairs window and shoot downwards toward the group.
Be careful when lighting your group, make sure that your camera lens can cope with the angle that is dictated by the space you have behind you. More important than that you must ensure that your flash will also cover this angle, otherwise you will get dark areas down each side of the shot.
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