Learning to use a camera is only the very first part of this craft. Once you can do that, the rest is learning how photographs work. Last week I began this conversation by showing you one of my photographs, both before and after, and invited you to reverse engineer it. I encouraged you to speculate on the decisions that made …
What Makes Your Images Work?
I’ve got a question for you. Do you know how your photographs work? Not your cameras, you know how to focus and expose and use enough of the other buttons that you can mostly make it do what you want, but do you know how your images work? A still image is a lot of moving parts (metaphorically speaking). Sure …
The Problem with Mood
A couple years ago I was doing a little moonlighting for a small computer and imaging company that rhymes with Snapple. They were under the mistaken impression that my nearly 40 years behind the camera meant I know what I’m talking about. But what a fun gig! One of my first tasks as their Creative Storytelling Specialist (yeah, I still …
Check Your Composition
I gotta tell you, I have no idea how any of us ever managed to learn this craft well enough to make the photographs we do. There’s just so much to learn! Exposure alone can be tricky at first, but these days, there are so many different modes and buttons and dials. With time, it becomes intuitive-feeling, but it’s a …
Find the Contrast, Find the Interest
It takes a while to learn to use your camera like a photographer for whom the camera feels natural in the hands, to move your fingers across the buttons almost unthinkingly, with intent and purpose. It takes even longer to think like a photographer for whom thoughts about composition and the look and feel of the image come in a way …
Part 2: What Makes The Image Work?
On Sunday, I showed you one of my photographs and sent you to my blog to discuss it, asking questions about the decisions I made and the effect of those decisions. Thanks to everyone who chimed in! The point was to get you thinking about the all the many choices we make in order to create one photograph. I promised …
What Makes the Image Work?
My cousin James had a reputation as a kid for taking things apart. One Christmas he dismantled down to the wiring every gift he was given. Remote-control cars? Give him 20 minutes, and there would be nothing left but a pile of tiny screws, little motors, and the tears of his mother who probably should have known better than to give him …
Show Me Less to Show Me More
As a photographer who learned his craft before autofocus became a truly reliable technology, my earliest challenge was focusing the lens. Those who picked up photography after the cameras could focus faster than we would ever be able to do ourselves won’t know the frustration of that particular learning curve. But focusing the lens was never so hard as learning …
What Makes An Image Work (Part 2)
Last Sunday I posted a photograph on the blog, and in The Contact Sheet email, inviting you to consider how I made one of my photographs. The exercise was a simple one, and I know some of you have seen it before but you can still learn from it. Look at the image and ask yourself what decisions I made …
One Photograph, Many Choices
Being able to dissect an image is a helpful skill. Looking at a photograph and identifying the various choices that led to the look and feel of that image, even when it’s your own (maybe especially when it’s your own) makes us stronger photographers that are more fluent in the visual language. I’ve been talking a lot lately about the …