Photography

Question:  When you first glance at a photograph, what is the first thing you notice?

 

"Knowing what the people viewing the photograph will look at first is pretty important in planning it out" (Kelby 207). It’s important to highlight the subject in your image. Are you trying to show off the person standing in front of your image or the landscape in the back? You want to make sure you don’t have a really “busy” image. The viewers’ eye might not know where to land and it just doesn’t end up looking as nice. “The human eye is drawn to the brightest thing in the picture, so if your subject is in the foreground but behind him is a window with bright sunlight, the eye is going to go there first, which is usually not what you want” (Kelby 207). In other words, avoid adding in things that are brighter than your subject. Make sure the eyes are drawn to the subject rather than the glaring light behind them.

A way to avoid this is to simply not shoot in direct sunlight. I’m sure I mentioned something about how shooting in “natural light” is not always the best in previous posts. Natural lighting from the sun tends to be a lot harsher then like a light from a lamp. Having just enough lighting to make everything clear will make sure there is nothing drawing focus away from your subject matter. Also, putting the background slightly out of focus could help bring all attention to the subject. If nothing else is in focus but the subject, it’s the only thing to look at so they eye will naturally be drawn to it. I think I did a pretty okay job at not letting anything in the back be brighter than my subject in the following picture.