There are few things that reveal experience and understanding more than a photographer’s timing. Whether you believe in the decisive moment or you think it’s bunk, timing is an essential skill. Good timing lets pictures speak. Borrowing from the director Frank Capra, he said “I thought drama was when actors cried. But drama is when the audience cries.” It’s all about getting your message into the hearts and minds of your audience.
Before getting into the tips, here are some things good timing is not. Good timing is not simply showing what happens. It’s not just a weird face, some oddity of occurrence, or a moment of significance. Good timing is timing that lets you create that feeling of weirdness, oddness, or significance in the viewer. More times than not, that means it’s not just the emotional content of the action, but the way it works with your framing, angle, space, light, and content. Snapping a picture of something in no way guarantees people will get it, but a good combination of all the elements does.
Here’s also what good timing is not. It’s not a bunch of things happening at once. When a photographer takes a picture, it’s almost always tempting to justify distraction as complexity. They are not the same things. Complexity still has clarity. The elements need to work together to reinforce one another. If they’re just tossed in there haphazardly, that mush, not complexity. Look at the framing, what’s included, what’s not, what’s in focus, and every other part of the image. If they’re not generally working together, then the picture probably isn’t clear enough. It only takes one bad element to shoot a picture down.
Good timing is timing that resonates. The more vividly you decipher the story in front of you, the richer the picture becomes and the better your timing gets.
10 Tips to Improve Your Timing
1. Be ready ahead of time
Some shots are going to be twitch responses to things. But most of them should not be. Be ready for the shot before it happens. If you’re just pulling the camera up to your eye when you see someone doing something, it’s too late. Scout out the environment. Get a feel for how people are acting and moving. Find that nice patch of light here or the cool sign there, and just know about it, so you’re ready when things happen. Also, explore angles and framing. It will help you get in tune with what’s around you and figure out the best position to use to capture what you want. Then, you can let things happen. Good photography is just a matter of position, but great photography is a matter of inches. Explore everything.
2. Look for the small things
The small things can be anything. Most decisive moments aren’t going to be based on the mere fact that something happened. It’s going to be a tiny little thing that really hits home. An arch of the back or tilt of the head. Maybe an darting glance to the side or someone letting their guard down for a second. Get attuned to the small stuff.
3. Look for the really small things
Really, I mean it. Get microscopic. The smaller the things you notice, the more refined the moment becomes. Get down to the nitty-gritty. Not just the curve of the body, but how it fits in with the design of the room or the color of the light. Having a wisp of hair fly into the picture or out of it. Tiny, tiny little things can matter. The more you can observe and stuff into the picture, the fuller bodied it becomes.
4. Shoot it twice…or thrice…
And I don’t mean hold the shutter button down. But use each shot to lead to the next. Look, observe, shoot, refine, look, observe, shoot, refine. Each cycle will cause you to notice little things and help enforce your vision. Wash, rinse, repeat, and keep doing so until you’ve taken one shot more than you need to or able to.
5. Be open to oddities
Be ready for the unexpected. This is the best part of photography. Not just seeing the world, but witnessing the random beauty by which it all comes together. Great pictures are unexpected, so opening yourself up to it can make all the difference. Keep your mind focused but open. Don’t assume a dog walking into the frame is a distraction. It might just make the moment.
6. Look for what’s going on around the subject
What happens in the background and foreground is as important as what your subject is doing. In fact, the background is very frequently what clues the viewer in and tells the story. Timing is about the entire picture, so don’t fixate only on what’s in focus.
7. Be aware of how you use focus
Got two subjects where one is moving and one is static? Try focusing on the static one, even if the moving target is your main interest. Very often, your subject doesn’t have to be in focus to make the picture work, and it’s a lot easier to hold focus on something that’s not running around.
8. The rule of 3
This isn’t really a rule, and it’s not even commonly accepted. But I find it useful anyway. When you’re getting a shot that relies not so much on something that happens, but the fact that several things happen at once (e.g. several people kissing at once or several people giving a weird look at once), you usually need it to happen three times in the same frame. For example, a shot of one person standing stiff and looking bored on a street – not so interesting. Two, better, but not quite compelling. Three, though, and you have a funny shot. My thought is that once something shows up in a frame three times, the message becomes clear and people receive it as intentional. Two can feel like a coincidence, so it’s harder to pull off. But whatever the case, it works. Try it. Look for the third thing.
9. Composition changes things
Timing relates to what’s in the picture. What you choose to include can dramatically alter the tone and subject matter, so pay attention not just to the technical issues of good framing, but how it affects the mood and the message. Some emotions work better framed tightly. Some work better framed loosely. Some things make sense in some environments and make no sense in others. Timing should interplay with composition and lensing.
10. Enjoy it
Find what intrigues you. Not just whether it seems like something should make for a good picture. But something that really grabs and fascinates you. If you really feel it, it comes through.
Absorbing. beautifully put.
Thank you for saying so! Much appreciated.