JPG Magazine: Stories: Feature Story: The Eye

Feature Story

The Eye

By Brian Mullins

8 October 2007

A great photograph is one that fully expresses what one feels, in the deepest sense, about what is being photographed. -Ansel Adams

Many times we travel hundreds or thousands of miles on planned trips for that perfect opportunity or to get that shot. Often times though when we go outside to check the mail, or we travel to the grocery store, we leave the camera in our case or sitting beside our make shift studio and do not even consider the opportunities that may await us in the world surrounding us. The perfect shot doesn't have to be in Paris, Madrid, London, Sydney, Houston, Hawaii, or Egypt. Think how foreign and exotic your local may seem to those people when they see how different and extreme your uncle's hubcap collection is on his piecemeal garage, put together from old planks pulled down from the forms used to pour the bridge.

Sometimes I suffer from lens lust like the next person, and I say to myself if I only had a bigger camera or a faster lens I could get that next big shot. I could have gotten that shot at the game last night, if I had an F2 300mm lens, or a Nikon D2x instead of my trusty D40. I probably could have. You know though, there are a lot of things a camera can do for you, but seeing is not one of them.

The first major rule has to be looking at your subject and making sure that your subject is well defined. It should be clear what your subject is. I know that sounds simple, but so often you see photos where it isn't clear what the picture is supposed to be of. Fifty people are in the photo, and any one of them could be the subject; so isolate them. One of the most popular methods of isolating a subject is to fill the frame with nothing but the subject itself. Creative use of lighting, focus, zoom or highlighting are all viable methods of isolating the subject. Whatever method you choose to use, make sure that the subject of your photograph is clear to the viewer.

Next, simplify your picture. Before pressing your shutter release, is there anything present in the viewfinder that can be cropped with the camera? Would the photograph benefit from zooming in; panning to the left or right; tilting up or down; zooming out for a broader view; changing lenses for more or less depth of field; or even just taking a few steps left or right so that light pole doesn't grow out of her head? What will make the subject of this image more prominent? What will make the background of this image less distracting? What will make this the best shot that it can be?

Next, one needs to get rid of the extraneous information present in the image. What can be removed from the area around the subject that doesn't fit the overall theme of the image? You don't want pop cans on your computer desk when someone takes a picture of you, unless the theme of your picture is that you are a mess. Take a moment to clean up those pop cans so that the cans do not distract from the subject, you. If you're taking a picture of your daughter playing with a box in the yard, and there are three pieces of ripped up paper; grab them quickly before she loses interest.

Sometimes it isn't feasible to simplify or remove extraneous objects from an image before you take the picture. You have to rely on getting the moment on film before the circumstances change and the moment is gone forever. However, when you can follow these simple rules, do so. You want the picture to be as simple as you can, whenever you can. This won't make your pictures perfect, but it will go a long way to helping you take better pictures.

Last but not least, open your eyes. Look at your subject. Walk around your subject. Really look at the picture that you are taking. Look through your viewfinder, especially if you have an SLR or DSLR. See what your camera is seeing, from different angles, and different heights. You do not need 100 shots to express what you want to show, you only need one image. However, don't feel the need to snap the first shot and walk away. Really look at your subject, and find the way to tell your story. Remember the saying, a picture is worth a 1000 words, make those 1000 words count.

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