How Photographs are "Read"

One of the most basic premises of a good photograph is that it communicate, to the majority of people who view it, the message intended by the photographer. This is a complex desire, and many variables can contribute to the success of a photograph in achieving this. If those variables are not controlled by the photographer, they can just as easily fail for this lack of control.

The foremost of these variables that a photographer attempts to control is the path a viewer’s eye takes “through the picture”.

The ultimate goal of anything you define as a compositional element in a photograph is to control the way someone “reads” the photograph. This comparison to reading text is not accidental. If there are no compositional elements, like leading_lines to control how someone moves over the picture, their natural tendency will be to start in the upper left corner of the picture and move from left-to-right, then top-to-bottom, just as you are doing with this page of text.

Working from the basic premise that Art = Craft + Intention, there are three things that anyone should think about when deciding on composition and what to include or exclude from the frame.

• How do I want the viewer’s eye to travel through the photograph?
• What have I got at my disposal, in the frame, that makes them read it that way?
• Is there anything in the composition that, unless controlled, will compete for the path I want the viewer to take through the shot?

• Look at the whole image, in the viewfinder, and pay attention to how your eye is moving through the scene. It is a definite skill worth developing that you are able to accurately predict how the average viewer’s eye will move through a given scene.

• Recognize compositional elements by name (”This is a leading line”, “That bright spot will be the first place the viewer’s eye will go.”) and practice with different compositions to see how your choices affect their power.

• Examine the work of others and map out where your eye moves in their shots, and why it did so.

• Put your pictures up in the Listener Pictures Section of the Forum at http://www.tipsfromthetopfloor.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=13 , with specific instructions that the other reviewers tell you where their eye is moving through the shot, to see if it matches up to your intention.

• This is a matter of craft. Forget the Art and focus on perfecting this part of your craft. It is about as interesting as watching paint dry, but no good free verse poet got good without trying to write a sonnet.

• Remember the ironic wisdom of Robert Capa, who said, “If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.”

• Any element of the scene that you are not intentionally seeking to control through lens choice, framing, or other means can become a distraction.

• An element that is competing with your path, but which you cannot eliminate from the composition, can be softened, during post-processing, so that its effect is lessened. Don’t go to the opposite extreme and miss the composition you really want just because of one thing you can’t move out of it.

• Pick one compositional element and exercise only on that unique thing until you feel confident in recognizing it and your own decision-making skills on how you use it.

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