How to photograph statues

Gear:

• Compact or DSLR
• Tripod – Use a tripod to stop shake spoiling your shots and it will help you slow down, making you think more about the angles you're working with. Manfrotto's 290 and 390 series are small and lightweight which means they're good for taking to locations such as parks where you'll be walking around, searching for statues. If you don't want to take a tripod consider packing a monopod instead. They're portable and models such as those in Manfrotto's 290 series which are light won't weight you down but will give you that extra bit of support you need.

Where to go

Finding statues is easy. Most church yards, within walking distance from your home, will have one or two amongst the grave stones. Parks often house statues that iconise mythical figures or historical figures while larger tourist cities will have them scattered all over the place to celebrate famous people who have lived there and politicians. Sculpture parks provide an opportunity to find several interesting objects all in one location and often make a great day out too.

Angles

The first thing to do is look at the angle. In most cases you're going to be shooting from a low viewpoint as the statues often raised on a plinth and way above eye level. To fill the frame you'll often end up shooting from a low angle and the statue will look distorted, big at the bottom and smaller at the top. A better approach is to stand a bit further back and use the longer setting of your zoom lens to crop tighter. This will produce a photo with a more natural angle. Ideally if you can find a position where you can gain height so you are on a level will improve the shot even further. Steps of a nearby building is often a good option or, if you're agile, a nearby wall can improve your height.

This statue of Johan Strauss in Vienna has loads of detail from the gold of the Strauss to the figures in the carved marble surround. Both elements were combined here by choosing a tight crop of the arch balancing with Strauss. Shooting the whole arch would have taken away impact of the gold and a tighter crop of just the gold would miss all the lovely detail to the left.

Shooting direction

You should also consider the shooting direction. Walk around the statue where possible and check the background and the features on the statue. Not only will you start to discover the best viewpoint to allow arms to be seen along with the face or symbolic features, you'll also find that a background can influence the exposure and overall feel of the image. A cloudy sky may help to create mood in the photo but the bright areas can affect the meter reading.

In the above example, the right shot the camera has recorded most of the scene correctly, in this case the clouds, but it's resulted in the statue appearing as a silhouette. Yet the same shot, left, a result of pointing down at the ground and locking the exposure, has made the sky washed out. To fix this, if you use a tripod, such as one from Manfrotto's 057 series, to ensure the camera doesn't move, you could combine both shots during post production to produce the perfect exposure. Of course you could also just change your viewpoint to get a better background to work with and sometimes a you'll find it gives you a more suitable composition of the statue. If you're not sure, take several photos from different angles and choose the best one later.

This is the same statue as the one above. Shot from slightly further back with a longer lens to gain better perspective.

Turn your flash off

If you try to photograph a statue in low light with an automatic camera that has a built-in flash, it will automatically fire. As a result you'll lose shadows which give the object its shape and your image won't have any depth. To avoid this switch the flash off and use your tripod to stop shake spoiling your shot. 

Turn your flash off so you don't end up with shots like the one to the right.

Blur the background

The background can be thrown out of focus if you select a suitable aperture. In the picture on the left a small aperture has resulted in maximum depth-of-field which makes the statue and the building sharp. This takes emphasis away from the statue as there's less of a focal point. The middle shot was taken with a wide aperture and has thrown the building subtly out of focus allowing the eye to rest more on the statue. Gaussian Blur was added to the final shot in Photoshop to further blur the background but a similar result can be achieved by using a longer focal length. Just remember to use a tripod as blur caused by shake is exaggerated when you use longer lenses.

Find the tripod to suit your needs at www.manfrotto.co.uk.

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