essential skills: digital photography in available light
Introduction
Capturing or creating strong images relies primarily on the photographer’s ability to study the
subject carefully, enthusiastically, imaginatively and sympathetically. The equipment can only help
to craft the photographer’s personal vision. Most people are too preoccupied to look at a subject for
any great amount of time. Skilled observation by the photographer can release the extraordinary
from the ordinary. The famous British photographer Bill Brandt in 1948 is quoted as saying:
‘It is the photographer’s job to see more intensely than most people do. He
must keep in him something of the child who looks at the world for the fi rst time
or of the traveller who enters a strange country.’Framing techniques
The following techniques should be considered when the photographer wants to control the
communication, impact and design of any image.
~ Communication and context
~ Format
~ Content
~ Balance
~ Subject placement
~ The decisive moment
~ Vantage point
~ Line
~ Depth