Perspective: The Key To Great Photography
Perspective. I have covered this a little bit before but truly what sets your photos apart from the next photog is perspective. The way you see an image through your lens. Perspective is what makes a great photographer great and a good photographer good. It also separates the amateurs from the professional hobbyists. When people tell me that they want to learn to take photographs like a pro what they are really saying is they want to learn how to take that “Wow” photograph. Here is how you do that.
A photographer doesn’t just see an object of focus for what it is. A photographer sees the object of focus for what makes it unique and then tries to capture that emotion in the image. And this could apply to anything from taking a photo of a great craft project that your child did to capturing the most intimate of moments during a wedding. Perspective is applied to everything. For instance, how many times have you gone somewhere and seen something that you really like, such as a beautiful bouquet of roses, and then take a photo of it? How did it come out? Did the photo give you the same feeling that you felt when you were there? Probably not. What you want to do is try and capture that same emotion in the image.
Doing that is the tricky part. A photographer’s eye isn’t always learned and it’s very hard to teach. You either have it in you or you spend a lot of time searching for it. Exploring other photographers work and reviewing magazines is a great way to learn perspective. When you come across an image that you really enjoy stop and ask yourself a couple of questions.
- Why do you like it? Is it the positioning, the color, the light? Once you figure that out, see if you could duplicate it in your own work.
- If you had taken the same photo would you have used the same angle? This was the best way for me to learn. I used to tag along with a good friend of mine, Raul Salazar of Raul Salazar Photography (shameless plug), and we would shoot weddings together when I was starting out. I would spend hours editing my photos and making them come out the way I thought was just perfect. Then I would go and share my masterpieces with Raul hoping he would shed his Professional Photographers grace of admiration of my work upon me. He would look though my album and say “That’s nice. Take a look at mine for a second.” And then I would look at his album which was images of the exact same event that I was at and he would blow me away. It wasn’t that his equipment was better or he had a more expensive camera, it was his perspective of the event. The way he saw it was different than the way I did and what I was really trying to do was express what I saw in the same manner that he expressed what he saw. That is how I honed my perspective skills.
- What if? What if is a great question that photographers ask themselves many many times. What if is what makes your photos great. You take a photo, you like it, and then you say to yourself, what if I did this with the photo and then BAM! You’ve got magic! Start to ask yourself what if with your photos and I guarantee they will start to come alive.
Perspective is easily practiced and you don’t have to go that far when you do it. It’s as simple as playing around with your kids or like I did, taking photos of items on my kitchen counter. Perspective is simply the way you look at the world as a photographer and the more you start to look at the world like that the better your photos will be.
Look for inspiration in the world around you. I find inspiration in other photographers work. I visit other photographer’s sites and see what they are doing. For instance, I have been shooting engagements in downtown San Antonio for years. I recently came across a photographer, Jordan Palmer of Jordan Palmer Photography, and her photos of the same areas that I have shot blew me away. Simple things that she did in her photos really set them apart and the way that she views her subject is really captured in her images. When you see things like this that stir an emotion in you, you can try and incorporate those techniques in your own work to help improve it and help you express yourself better.
So give it a try and see what you can do. Until next time, happy shooting!
-Robert Hillis
