Selfie-sticks and other secrets of overhead photography

In How-to, Inspiration, Mobile
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Overhead shots of tables, mostly of family meals, are some of my favourite pictures. I just love capturing the excitement of a family get-together, the quiet relaxation of coffee on a Saturday morning, the joy of decorating a cake, or the studious zeal of my husband doing a crossword or my son doing his homework. All of these things happen on the same table, the piece of furniture at the heart of our domestic life. But I also like doing overhead shots in pubs and restaurants too! Here are some of my tips.

1. Use a selfie-stick
Here’s how it happened. We were in one of our favourite gastro-pubs a couple of years ago, when a waitress told me off for standing on my chair to take an overhead shot. I was mortified. I love taking overhead shots, and have even been known to use a step-ladder to take them at home. Fortunately, my husband had the answer: why not use a telescopic selfie-stick, and take the picture while staying seated at the table? And I’ve been doing it that way ever since. It lets you hoist the camera up above the table without incurring the wrath of waitresses, or spoiling the dinner-party vibe with a collapsible ladder, and pretty much any selfie-stick will do. And, this way I can remain seated at the table while one of my hands still appears in the picture! Hurrah!

2. Hands-on photography
Speaking of hands, here’s a tip I got from my friend Luisa Brimble (who is also a huge fan of overhead shots). Get everyone to decide what they are going to do with their hands in the picture (serving food, pouring wine, reaching for the salt). Then have them all put their hands in their lap, before putting their hands back in position just as you take the picture. This way they look much more natural, rather than having them frozen in position like statues!

3. Cortex Camera and other camera apps
Although you can use your smartphone’s standard camera, you may want to give some specialist apps a try for this kind of shooting. I often use Cortex Camera (available for iOS and Android) in low-light situations as it lets you get a sharper image with much less grain than otherwise by taking several pictures and then combining them into a single picture. Everyone does have to stay very still, but it can be a lifesaver in winter, especially in the evenings. The hardest part about overhead shooting with a selfie-stick is getting the image straight, so I’ve also been experimenting with LVL CAM, a camera app with a built-in spirit level. You can set it to shoot only when it’s perfectly horizontal. But it’s a fiddle (you can’t tell when it’s straight, and have to wave it around), so this is still a work in progress. My husband is threatening to make me a camera app with audio feedback that plays two notes, whose pitch varies depending on the angle of the camera, which goes to show just how obsessed we are with perfecting overhead photography in this family.

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4. Correct the perspective and colour
Most of the time your overhead shot will not be perfectly straight, so you’ll need to adjust the perspective and rotation afterwards. You can use a dedicated app for this, such as SKRWT, or you can use the perspective-correction features in VSCO Cam. Figuring out how to combine horizontal and vertical perspective shifts with slight rotations in order to get everything straight takes a bit of practice, but you’ll soon figure it out, and there’s nothing wrong with doing it in multiple steps. Another tweak you’ll often need to apply is to the colour: we have a white table, which is great, but its colour changes depending on the light source. If there is enough natural light coming through the windows, I’ll turn off any artificial lights to avoid having mixed lighting with different colour temperatures, as it can make the shadows look odd. If there’s not enough natural light, I’ll make sure the blinds are closed and we’re only using one light source (often, candles). Either way, you may need to adjust the temperature of the image to make the whites look right. But watch out for skin tones when doing this, because they will be affected too, and can easily start to look unnatural. I also add just a little clarity to my images. But never any fade.

Processed with VSCO with n1 preset

5. Anticrop
Sometimes you want to give the impression of a much larger space, as I did in this shot. One option would be to buy a bigger table and a bigger house. A much cheaper alternative is to use Anticrop, a brilliant app which, as its name suggests, makes pictures bigger rather than smaller by intelligently extending them. This lets you add more sky to a landscape photo, for example, or more table to a table. It works best for flat colours, and used judiciously, it can add a sense of greater space to an overhead shot.

Whether or not you decide to use a selfie-stick, I hope you’ll find these tips a useful overview (ha) of my approach to overhead photography. Next time you have a special meal, whether at home or in a restaurant, give it a try!

kirstin

22 Comments

  1. These are great tips! I’ll be checking out some of those apps for sure. Thank you for sharing your process!

  2. Sounds like great tips but also a lot of work, so I think I’ll just keep on admiring your gorgeous overhead shots.

  3. completely fascinated by your dedication and tips, and delighted for the chance to see again these gorgeous images! xx

  4. Thank you, as always, for your generous sharing of tips. Have you ever tried shooting your phone’s camera remotely with another camera using an app like http://www.popphoto.com/news/2014/03/camera-plus-airsnap-lets-you-control-one-iphones-camera-another? I’ve been enjoying shooting my dslr in awkward positions with my iphone (I can see what my dslr it sees on my phone’s screen and trigger it), and it seems like it should be easy enough to do from from phone to phone, but I’ve never tried that app.

  5. this is such a cool post ! I freakin love being a voyuer into fellow photographers bag of tricks !!! Thank you Thank you

  6. I love that you have such a love of food, family and friends and you share discussions based around food and I always know it’s you because you have such a distinct signature style to your art. I’m totally excited that you have shared some of your secrets here!

  7. I love what you have shared here, and that yours is a family affair/obsession to get great overhead photography! Awesome apps, too. Thank you!

  8. Hi! What is the telescopic selfie stick that you use? Thanks so much!

    • I don’t think the manufacturer of my selfie sticks still makes them. But I’m pretty sure that all selfie sticks are telescopic. x

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