You have a fraction of a second to make a picture count. That’s it. If someone looks at an image and doesn’t get it just about right away, you’re out of luck. Maybe it’s more than .2 seconds. I’m just making up numbers here. But here’s what doesn’t happen. No one is going to think through the essay you have in your head when they see your picture. And we all have those essays. The ones about the light or the story or the emotion. The ones about the style and what it means and how it works. That type of stuff.
The problem with all of the explanation isn’t that it’s useless. In fact, explanation is part and parcel to understanding observation, which is the cornerstone of all photography as far as I’m concerned. The problem is that most of the time, we get it wrong. Especially when we’re looking at our own work. Even more so, if our experience is limited. And that’s most of us. I don’t care if you’re the hot thing. I don’t care if you’ve been around the block and this is your hundredth time out of the gate. In the scope of Gladwell’s 10,000 hours (and he means time trying – really pushing – not just time on the job, mind you), most of us are barely there.
We always think we’re right. We’re often wrong. It’s true of life. It’s true of art. If you don’t believe me, go look at one of the pictures you took when you started out that you used to love and you don’t any longer. At the time, you probably saw all sorts of things in it. Now, you see all sorts of things that weren’t in it. And in five more years, there are going to be images that seem great right now that you’ll see in the exact same way. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
The point here is that though you’ve gotta keep trying to connect the dots and figure it out, that it’s all about the reaction you create, and not the explanations you attach to it. Where your target audience is concerned, if they don’t get it, there are only two possibilities. Extreme brilliance. Foresight so far advanced that people aren’t ready to get it yet. Or, failure. You just didn’t hit the mark. Sometimes, it might be the former. Not usually.
Don’t be fooled by your left brain. It has an unlimited capacity to explain and justify. And, more importantly, don’t look at other images and just replicate their surface. Surface tells you little. Replicate their psychology. Look at the reaction they create. Figure out what composition, what light, what expressions, and what things added up. What made you feel a certain way? What made you think a certain thing? What created the aha moment and the sense of surprise and wonder? Photography is packed to the hilt with connotation. Backlighting for airiness and levity. Shadow and darkness for form and gravitas. Wide images full of people for storytelling and immediacy, blur for artiness and abstraction. And these are just the tip of the iceberg. Every expression, color, composition, and technique can translate to something.
Break it down, then break it down more. Because these are the observations you want and the explanations you need. Great photography is all about creating a picture full of cues. Things that invisibly push people into your world without giving them a choice. Never forget about creating a reaction. A picture may be worth a thousand words. But not if you can’t get people on the ride.
Leave a Reply