Thinking Uniquely as a Photographer
In the world of photography, the camera’s frame can be either our canvas or our cage. To truly transcend into the extraordinary, one must “think outside of the frame”! With creative thinking and using unique visualization, we can venture beyond those boundaries, break free from the mundane, and explore uncharted territories of creativity. In this episode I will teach concepts to enable you to escape the confines of the familiar and discover the captivating world that exists just beyond the edge of the frame.
Photography Quote of the Day
"In photography, there is a reality so subtle that it becomes more real than reality."
Photography, Art, & Perspective
Let me begin by telling you what should be an obvious fact that you may have never realized. Any photograph you’ve seen is rectangular, but camera lenses are circular! Even I missed that observation originally! When taking a picture, some of the light coming through the circular lens spills outside of the rectangular sensor & is never used. That is intentional & explains the shape!
I mention this to demonstrate that there are many things in the world that are in plain sight, that go unnoticed by us. Photography can be considered a form of art, and art is made appealing by helping the viewer visualize the world in unique ways.
I took a college class for Art Design some years ago. One project that I remember well was the Four Black Squares assignment. As students, we were challenged to come up with 4 creative ways of drawing 4 black squares on a large piece of poster board. The point of this was to help us conceive how to take something as ordinary as a square and make it extraordinary. Each student created various original works of art comprised simply of squares!
We don’t see the world as it is, we see it as our minds interpret it. While entering the human eye, the image is upside down with a blind spot in it (corresponding to the location of the optic disk)! Our brains compensate for this, producing our normal vision. So, considering that each person’s biology and mind is different, we all perceive everything uniquely. Which means we all have unique visions we can share with the world!
So, how can we take pictures that stand apart from the crowd? The first step is to have a good understanding of the basic rules of photography, (which I assume any competent photographer reading this has). If you can achieve a balanced exposure with good composition, intentionally placed focus, and the desired color temperature, you are already on your way to creating eye opening photographs!
Once you know the rules, you can use them, stretch them, or break them if you wish. Here are some useful strategies for producing original work as a photographer.
1. Discover Alternative Photographic Perspectives
Be intentional about what you are framing in your viewfinder! Rather than just automatically pointing your lens at a scene and pressing the shutter release button, take a second to consider various angles and perspectives that are unconventional to the way someone would typically view that scene. This could include looking up or down at your subject, viewing your subject from the side (profile view), repositioning yourself in relationship to your subject (anywhere in a 360-degree circle around them), or rotating the camera to get slanted view.
2. Good Composition While Taking Pictures
I mentioned composition previously, and for photography purposes is defined as how to arrange the elements in your images to make it visually interesting and compelling to look at. Here are 5 excellent methods to consider as a photographer:
Dominance & emphasis
Choosing what dominates your pictures and what your main focus is helps add meaning to your images. For example, you may be taking a portrait of someone with beautiful countryside in the background. Your intent could be for the countryside to be the dominance & the person to be the emphasis. Once you’re aware of it, dominance and emphasis can be found in a large variety of art pieces and photographs, even if the artist didn’t include it intentionally.
Negative space
Negative space is the empty space around your subject in a photograph. Generally, experienced photographers either expand this space around a subject to include other elements of the picture or reduce that space to focus on the subject more closely.
The Rule of Thirds
The rule of thirds (related to the golden ratio) divides the frame into thirds (horizontally & vertically, resembling a tic tac toe board) as a guide for positioning the elements of the picture in a more aesthetically pleasing way. By placing important focal points where the lines converge, you are improving the compositional balance of your image and are making it more dynamic!
Leading lines
Leading lines can be horizontal, vertical, diagonal, or curved. Simply put, they can effectively draw the viewer’s attention towards a specific point of interest. Used effectively, they can add depth and dimension in a 2-dimensional picture, as well as creating a sense of balance.
Framing
This type of framing is different than what you would buy at a store to frame and mount photographs on your wall. I’m referring to elements in your pictures you can use to frame your subjects. There are lots of options here! Door frames, curved tree branches, a person’s properly positioned arms, and architectural arches can all serve as frames that can add interest to the photos you take.
3. Creative Photography Lighting Choices
Lighting is the most important element in photography! In fact, the word photography means “To draw with light”! Flat lighting (where everything is lit evenly) does not create dynamic pictures.
There are lots of ways to make your photos more dynamic!
Ambient & Flash Lighting
(I will only touch on this extensive subject here). Primarily, you will always be working with either natural (ambient) or flash (artificial) lighting. These can be used separately or together. Natural lighting often works great because it’s already present in the scene and looks, well, natural! Sunlight, candlelight, and indoor lighting are examples of ambient lighting.
Then there’s flash lighting. Using strobe and flash lighting presents its own challenges for photographers utilizing it. But used skillfully, it can greatly enhance photos taken in ambient light, or in a studio.
Apart from knowing the technology, a basic understanding of the principles of light is necessary to consistently produce pictures beyond the ordinary.
Here are 3 simple tips for creating more dynamic lighting:
• Dimension
Have you ever seen fruit bowls in drawings? Paying attention to the direction and intensity of the light helps you use it to produce desirable shadows and highlights on your subjects. In this way, you can figuratively “sculpt” the appearance of your subjects and add dimension.
• Drama
Effectively using shadow & light can add drama to your subjects, as opposed to flat lighting (where everything is lit the same). Flat lighting is boring. Strategic use of lighting is unique, and we’re aiming for unique.
• Separation
With careful consideration of where your lighting is coming from, you can define a clear separation between your subject and the background. For example, your subject may be brighter than a dark background, or darker than a bright background. By creating this contrast in your scenes, you add drama and focus to your subject.
4. Post-Production: The Photographer’s Digital “Darkroom”
Most images can benefit from editing after they have been taken. Sophisticated software like Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop make this job exceedingly easier than it used to be years ago! Once you are familiar with these software’s user interfaces, there is generally a great deal of flexibility for adjusting things like exposure, contrast, color, and cropping. You can enhance the appearance of your pictures in a natural way or decide to do an abstract art project out of it by exaggerating the settings.
5. Practice Makes Better Photographers
I recommend that you fail! Yup, go out there and fail a whole bunch! The 1st professional camera I bought was the Nikon D3200 DSLR. The 1st picture I took with it was overexposed and awful! Since then, I’d had hundreds of practice photoshoots, and opportunities to learn from paid photoshoots when something didn’t quite work. Failure can be one of the greatest teachers, if you evaluate what went wrong and learn from it.
Truthfully though, it doesn’t have to be scary. By setting aside some time to practice on your own, where the stakes aren’t high, you can teach yourself whatever part of the puzzle you need to work on. Give some thought to where your weak points are and focus on those.
Bonus Tips for Learning Photographers!
While doing work as a photographer, be aware of 2 things to always keep in the back of your mind while snapping shots:
1. Be conscious of shadows!
Check to see that your own shadow & other undesirable shadows are in your frame when you press your shutter release button.
2. Be conscious of reflections!
As a beginner, it’s easy not to notice that your reflection is staring back at you in a mirror in your frame.
No More Ordinary Pictures!
You can think outside a closed box (or frame) by keeping an open mind! Don’t be intimidated by unconventional or exotic ideas. Remember that it’s natural for us humans to fear what is not comfortable. I read a great quote that says, “Your comfort zone is a nice place, but nothing grows there”.
Many times, we are only confined by our own expectations, beliefs, or experience in life. Art is one thing that has fewer risks of us pushing beyond the boundaries of. And what we create can be beautiful, powerful, enlightening, and inspiring! Let your imagination run wild! The world needs and wants the photography you create. Don’t underestimate that power, as it has inspired many great deeds in the world!
