You may want to take a step back and think about your photo experiences. When you look what do you see? Andreas Feininger, one of the fathers of photography and a former staff photographer of Life magazine, has a philosophy of photography that goes like this. Most photographers go through three stages of development.
- Stage 1 – A collector of photo equipment and gadgets, but rarely gets around to taking many photos.
- Stage 2 – Photographs purely for the purpose of taking pictures – photography for photographer’s sake. The subject is incidental.
- Stage 3 – This photographer is like a painter or writer who is motivated by an inner compulsion to share an experience with others. His camera equipment is of secondary importance.
If you aim to go to this third stage, then you may want to learn and apply some artistic design principles to your photography – some call it developing “visual literacy.” Here are a few exercises that might help refresh your vision and move you into 3rd stage photography. Of course, creative photographers will also tell you, try not to get in a rut by producing cliché images because there is also nothing wrong with going out in the world with your camera and just “breaking all the rules” and enjoying the excitement of your own personal photo experience.
Single Subject
Concentrate on photographing just one subject for a certain time frame such as a week. For example: photograph only gates, or only windows in your neighborhood.
Textures
For another exercise, photograph with an eye to capture textures around you i.e.: rough, grainy, straw, brick, pebbled or smooth and silky.
Horizontals
Work on a series of photos to capture significant horizontal lines in subjects such as in landscapes, fields, and skyline. This design element usually communicates a sense of stability and peace.
Verticals
Create pictures with strong vertical elements such as trees and buildings that signal strength and vigor.
People Shots
Try some unusual people shots. Not just the head shot. How about focusing on one feature of the human body? For example: photographing people’s feet – bare feet, dirty feet, high heeled, sandaled, work boots, young and old – could be a fun exercise.
Color
To sharpen your sense of color, consider doing an exercise using only one color, for example: yellow -pears, taxis, sunflowers, a bus, line down a road, and on and on.
Communicating with Color
When taking photos, you may want to use color as your friend and a tool to create a WOW effect. Color has an emotional impact. What emotions and mood do you want to convey in your pictures and to your viewers? Here are some tips on how artists and pro photographers often use color to communicate dramatic meaning.
Warm Colors: Red and Yellow
- Red – the color of fire and heat will express vitality, excitement, passion and sometimes danger.
- Yellow – the color of the sun, giving off a feeling of warmth and health.
Cool Colors: Blue, Green, Purple
- Blue – the shades of the sky and water normally signals peace and stillness, although some tints express distance and depression.
- Green – leaves, plants, grass – color conveying growth and an uplifting feeling.
- Purple – the colors of dawn and dusk associated with mystery and romance.
Neutral Colors: Black and White
- Black – night time sense of foreboding, even evil or death.
- White – a sense of purity and clarity.
These ideas and suggestions are meant to help develop one’s artistic and design side of the brain – “visual literacy”– the deeper meaning behind visual images. For more ideas, see articles on Photography with Power and how to get inspiration from master photographers.
References
- Andreas Feininger, Successful Photography
- Hans S. Dommasch, University of Saskatchewan, Art Department, Photography
 |
