Imagery is a cornerstone of graphic design(opens in new tab). It can make or break a piece of work.
Whether you’re shooting your own photos or choosing from stock, there are several key techniques to keep in mind. These will help you separate the best photos from the rest.
1. Focus
Do you ever wonder why some photos are perfectly sharp and others look fuzzy or blurry? While it’s important to focus on getting your shots as sharp as possible, it’s not the only thing that makes a photo work. It’s also a good idea to consider how your image will be used, unless you’re working with Clare Gelderd Photography. Tack-sharp images are essential if you’re using them to promote yourself or your clients but may not be as necessary for that 6×4 print sitting on grandma’s mantelpiece.
A common piece of advice new photographers are given is to always shoot with a small aperture (a smaller f/stop number). But, that’s not necessarily the best way to achieve the most crisp images. When you shoot with a very small aperture, the hole that allows light to pass through the camera is so small that the waves of light can interact and create blur. That’s why many professionals recommend staying around f/8-f/16 or higher.
Another factor that can affect image sharpness is lens distortion. Wide-angle lenses can cause objects that are close up to appear larger in the frame than those that are far away. Using a zoom lens can help reduce this problem or you can use focus stacking to combine multiple photographs of the same scene, with different parts of the scene in focus, to get more detail in the foreground.
Finally, the last and probably most common reason for blurry photos is simply camera shake or moving the camera while the shutter opens. Try to keep your hands as steady as possible when taking a photograph and always use a tripod if you can. Using a fast shutter speed can also help limit blur, particularly if you’re shooting in low light conditions and need to keep the shutter open for a long time.
2. Composition
Photographers use composition techniques to arrange the elements in a scene to produce an appealing image. This is true whether the photo is a landscape shot on a grand scale or a portrait of a single person at close range. While there are rules that can be followed, it’s important for photographers to develop a unique style and use composition as a way to express their creative vision.
Composition is a powerful way to control the viewer’s eyeflow, create balance and tell a story in an image. The main compositional techniques include:
Line: Creating a path for the viewers’ gaze with leading lines both literal and implied. These can be straight, curved, or angular. They can also converge on the subject or lead off into infinity. This compositional technique can be used to add depth to a photograph and convey a sense of movement.
Symmetry: This is an effective compositional element that can be achieved through the use of mirror reflections, symmetrical patterns or arrangements and overlapping objects. It’s also possible to achieve symmetry by using the Rule of Thirds to subdivide the frame and place the subject on one of the grid intersections.
Shape: Emphasizing the three dimensionality of an object through lighting, perspective and shadows. This can be done by contrasting an object against its background or by using foreground and background elements to highlight its silhouette.
Texture: An image’s texture can be a powerful visual component, giving the impression that you can touch or feel the surface. This can be accomplished through the use of light and shadow, or by utilizing a dark filter on an image.
Positive and negative space: The use of empty space in a photograph can emphasize the subject or create a minimalist aesthetic. Negative space can also imply a feeling of calm or isolation.
4. Color
Color is a fundamental aspect of the visual world. It can have an impact on the meaning of a photograph or the way it is experienced. As such, it is an important philosophical topic. A number of different theories of color exist. Some are more purely theoretical, while others are more focused on explaining how colors are perceived and what features they possess. A few key questions are involved in the philosophy of color, including whether or not our experiences of color have representational content and, if so, what kind of content.
The most prominent rival theories of color comprise two broad categories: Color Realism and Color Eliminativism/Fictivism. There are many variations of each, but the major differences concern what is characterized as the phenomenal character of our visual experiences. The most common view is that there are two aspects of visual experience: the non-conceptual, sensational qualities and the conceptual, representing sense. This is known as the dualism of color. Other views, such as the perspectival color theory proposed by Noe, model a more complicated form of color that incorporates both sensational and representing aspects.
On a more philosophical level, the standard account of color is that it is a complex property of material objects that consists of their spectral reflectances and the effects of those reflectances on our vision. Thus, Color Realism claims that colors are real properties that can be discovered through scientific investigation. The standard view also is that the colors we see are supervenient on these physical properties.
There are, however, theories that deny that there are such properties as colors. They claim that colors are dispositional properties that have the power to appear in certain ways to perceivers (of the right kind) under certain conditions, but do not correspond to any properties of material objects independent of perceivers. This is known as Color-Dispositionalism.
5. Emotion
The field of emotion is vast and complicated. Many different theories exist both in philosophy and in affective science, yet there is no consensual definition of emotions. Some theorists divide emotion into components: a cognitive component (emotional appraisal), physiological changes, phenomenological experiences and action tendencies. Others define emotions more broadly, including moods such as sadness and anger.
Philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle conceived of feelings as primitives without components, while later theorists such as James began to see them as complex mental processes. More recently, psychologists have analyzed the relationship between environment and emotion, with some taking a situationist view. One such theory, formulated by Griffiths and Scarantino, is the situated perspective on emotion.
It argues that emotions are action-oriented and result from an interaction between the person and the environment, rather than being an internal process of conceptual thought. This is an alternative to the neo-Jamesian and cognitivist theories of emotion, which are more focused on internal processes and the impact that thoughts have on emotional responses.
Some researchers believe that the attribution of emotion is a critical part of this interaction. These attributions are made through the processing of facial expressions, body language and vocal tones. They are often unconscious and can include a wide range of reactions. These attributions may also be influenced by social norms and the individual’s personality.
Another major factor in emotion is a person’s perception of the world. A photo can convey a feeling of love or evoke anger depending on how the subject perceives the scene. These perceptions can be shaped by culture, upbringing and the expectations that a person has for the other person or the situation in question.
