make your photos speak

A good photograph is knowing where to stand. Ansel Adams

The most common angle shot in photography is that of a photographer holding the camera and looking at his subject straight on. This is nice for a realistic approach. However, it doesn’t say anything new about the subject.

I must confess that I dabble in writing poetry. One of the rules for poets is to take something common and ‘make it strange.’ I apply that rule to photography too. A new perspective can change everything.

1. Get down low or move up higher.
2. Try laying on your stomach or on your back.
3. Climb up on a ladder for a different perspective.

Don’t be afraid to embarrass the people around you. My father wasn’t. When I was a sophomore in high school, we went to Royal Gorge in Colorado. My Dad thought it would be neat to show what it looked like when walking on the bridge and looking between the rather substantial gaps between the bridge planks.

I was sixteen and completely embarrassed. My father likes to recall how after he got done taking his photo he stands up and looks around to find all his family had wandered off and was looking in the opposite direction. They were completely unwilling to claim him.

The perspective of the gull from below allows us to focus on his rather ludicrous feet. Notice that this photo also makes use of three points and thus creates a triangle – sing with me “three is a magic number.”

From above, this lounge in a hotel in Mexico begins to look like an piece of geometric abstract art. Oh, did you notice the balding man? Look! Play connect the dot with the lamps. What shape does it make? Bingo! A triangle!

I never saw an ugly thing in my life: for let the form of an object be what it may - light, shade, and perspective will always make it beautiful John Constable

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