The Scene

The Scene is the first step to great photography and it occurs before you even pick up the camera. It entails the photographer walking through the scene and visualizing the photograph with the story and emotions that it will evoke. Four major components make up the assessment of the scene:

Picking the subjects – Understanding the key subjects in the photograph and the interest that will be generated. The photographer understands the hierarchy of interest of subjects from eyes/faces/hands to children/people/animals to things/places and uses this hierarchy to generate an original photo.

Identifying the dominant elements of a photo – The photographer can look at the scene and determine the dominant elements in the resulting photo. By walking through the scene, one can discover different shapes, toned and forms as well as understanding the unique textures, patterns and colors. Other distinctive attributes in the scene include 3D depth, perspective, depth of field and scale.

Understanding the lighting of the scene – The photographer needs to look at the lighting in the scene. What is its direction? Is the lighting coming from the front, back or side? Of from multiple sources? Is the environment a high or low-key environment and should artificial lighting be used to change it? How can low-lighting, silhouettes and shadows be used for dramatic effect?

Organizing the photo properly --- The photographer then needs to think about properly organizing the photograph. What needs to be included in the photo to make it in most simple impactful statement that fills the frame? How can the photo be framed in order to have the eye move through the photo? What are the key background, foreground and main subjects in the photo and how should they be situated vis a vis the rule of thirds? Finally, when should the conventional rules be broken in order to achieve that decisive moment?