Seeing in Pictures

I was recently asked, “what do you see when you are taking pictures?” The question caught me off guard as I tried to think of some words to articulate the kind of things I look for when I am out with my camera. Sure, there are some “textbook” answers to the question like: patterns of three, complimentary colors, leading and guiding lines… etc. But, if I’m being honest, when I’m too focused on those things while taking pictures, I find it takes a lot of the joy out of it. Rather than try to explain it in some long drawn-out and technical post, I’d rather let my pictures speak for me. In this week’s article, I’ll walk you through the settings behind some of my favorite pictures I have taken over the years and what the process was like capturing them, as well as editing them.

23Feb21 at the North Carolina Zoo (Canon Rebel T3 f/4, 1/160, ISO-640)

Picture #1: Colors and Patterns

This picture is one that I stumbled upon, and I couldn’t believe how perfectly it had been set up. It was taken in the aviary cage at the North Carolina Zoo which my family and I took a trip to as I was preparing to transition from the Marine Corps into the Navy. It was our second trip to that zoo, which was a few hour trip from our house, and we were all excited to have a family trip with the COVID situation calming down. One of my favorite aspects of this zoo is a giant tropical section that allows the birds to wander around freely. The children loved it for some of the larger birds that would get alarmingly close to us. I loved it for the fact that it offered me the opportunity to try and get some pictures of colorful birds that Costal Carolina didn’t have to offer. There are a few things in this picture that I’d like to point out as it helps to show some things I like to consider when taking pictures.

1) Patterns: notice how the tropical leaves in the foreground seem to be almost pointing toward the bird. As I was composing this picture, I wanted to make sure I did not crop out those leaves as they add a frontal dynamic to the picture. Another thing I really like about the leaves is they seem to almost point toward the Scarlet Ibis in the center of the picture.

2) Colors: The greens in this picture set a nice frame around it and serve to draw the eyes inward toward the pink of the Ibis. Color theory would suggest that the human eye is first drawn to the color red as our survival instinct recognizes it to be a color of danger, this allows the eye to immediately be drawn to both the subject of the picture as well as the center. There are some yellowish leaves in the background that allow some relief from the green tones, throughout.

Editing: When I took this picture, I used my histogram to make sure I was not losing details in the shadows or highlights, but on my camera the overall picture was dark to ensure the highlights in the back left of the picture didn’t degrade the image. In post processing, my primary goal was to normalize the colors and brighten the image without losing pixels in highlights or shadows.

01Jun22 Pensacola, Fl (Canon 90D, f/8, 1/1500, ISO-300)

Picture #2: Even Exposure

I chose to use this one because it actually has a pretty telling sign that it is photoshopped. This picture was taken at the last Blue Angels practice my family attended as we were preparing to move to St. Louis. I had been working on NASC Pensacole and we regularly went to the beach on base while the Blues were practicing. I thought I was being crafty as I layered two of my pictures on top of each other: one of a close-up of the Blues, and the other of an even exposure of the beach, but I missed one key detail in the process. When I selected the Blues to bring them over into this picture, I managed to cut off the wingtip tanks, rounding the ends of the wings. Now you may be thinking “I never would have noticed that if you hadn’t pointed it out.” It ends up being the only thing I see when I am looking at this picture. Still, the thing I waited for while taking this photo was finding the right time to snap a picture that would provide the most even exposure. This was achieved by waiting until there was not a cloud causing there to be shade over any portion of the picture. Taking a picture on the ocean, specifically, can be a difficult task. Similar to snow, light reflects off the water and can lead to extremely overexposed pictures.

Editing: The main thing that took time while editing this picture was drawing out the proper shades of the blue. It can be extremely tempting, while editing, to crank up the vibrance, but this is pretty easy to identify and often makes a picture look oversaturated and unrealistic. Granted, there are some styles that call for that exact effect, but I personally avoid it. I much prefer my pictures look as true to life as possible (you know, aside from clipping some Blue Angels into the picture every now and then).

17Oct20 in Jacksonville, NC (Canon T3 f5.2, 1/200, ISO-800)

Picture #3: Eyes and Bokeh

I took this picture while I was sitting in the woods on a hunting trip in early fall, 2020, while we were living in Jacksonville, NC. I can still picture the exact spot I was sitting, at the time. On that specific trip, I was more interested in just hanging out in the woods a bit than I was in trying to get a deer, so I brought my camera and decided I would keep an eye out for interesting sights. As I sat on a fallen tree about 300 meters from where I parked, I quickly realized there was absolutely nothing going on in the woods. I am not exaggerating when I say: I didn’t even see a squirrel. Still, it was a nice day, so I decided to hang out for a little while and enjoy the breeze when all of the sudden I realized I was being watched… The way the light was shifting silhouetted this little green anole. He was hanging out catching some rays in the late afternoon and was not too concerned as I got close to him with my camera. I took a couple of shots trying out a few different exposure settings, but I eventually settled with this one as I was really happy with how the picture turned out. There are two main things I wanted to point out about this picture: the bokeh (blurred background) and the clarity of the anole’s eye. If you want to have a blurred background you will either need a camera that “fakes it” (like using the “portrait” mode of your iPhone), a lot of editing, or a lens with a very low aperture. You also want to have the minimum distance between your camera and the subject as possible, but the maximum distance between your subject and the background as possible. For portraits, bokeh is an extremely important aspect of the shot.

Another extremely important aspect of portrait photography and nature photography is capturing the eyes. The scope of the psychology is beyond my understanding, but even if there is something slightly off about the eyes in a picture, it automatically degrades the way you see it. My family and I were recently commenting on this exact phenomenon as we drove past a billboard that was extremely off-putting simply because the eye was obscured in an unintended way. In this picture, the eye draws the viewer in to see the detail of the lizard. It becomes the “starting point” as you examine the picture and then expand outward to see the texture on the skin of the lizard. The slightly blue hue around the eye also helps to provide a contrast that adds intrigue to composition.

Editing: Choosing this picture had its downside, the overexposure on the stick the anole was on was not able to be corrected (at least not without a lot of editing). Still, I didn’t mind having a bit of it as I felt it was not overwhelming the picture. One important rule to understand is that rules are meant to be broken, but being aware of general ways the brain processes images is important to understanding how to compose an appealing picture.

Conclusion

If this type of thing interests you and you are looking to expand your knowledge of how to compose a picture, I highly recommend Photography Composition: 12 Composition Rules for Your Photos to Shine by James Carren. It is a very short read but offers some keen insights as to what to look for when taking pictures. Another recommendation I have is to take some time and look at pictures you really like and ask yourself “what do I like about this picture?” Try to define exactly what about the picture captures your eye. The more you train yourself to identify elements of a good picture, the more you will see them in your daily life. This was one way that greatly expanded my ability to see in pictures when conducting photo sessions. Of course, none of this will ever replace the need for you to practice, practice, practice. There are a ton of pictures I look back on from earlier in my photography career and think “oh man, that’s rough, if I had only known…” but most of the details that go into composing my pictures, now, are things I’ve picked up through experience.

If you found this article to be helpful or interesting and would like to see more like it, please let me know by contacting me here. I am always looking for ways I can write articles that are applicable and that I would have liked to have as I progressed in my photography journey.