Photography as Communication

Communicate with Photography

I believe that a photo can say what words might struggle to, and vice versa.

Landscape Poetry

Communicating a scene or an object in photography is similar to communicating in writing. It makes more sense if there is an order. Sentence take if we a word up jumble… Sorry, if we take a sentence and jumble the words up, it has the same contents, but the meaning is lost. At the other extreme a poet can arrange the words to provoke feelings and thoughts outside of the sentence.

In a visual way a photographer has to arrange the subjects/ objects in a scene so that they make sense, and artists will arrange object/ subjects in a scene to provoke emotions. Because a photograph captures a moment in time, the timing of your photography is an important part of how a photograph communicates what the photographer want to say.

This article shows how the timing of a photo can be important for Communication LINK.
This article shows how composition communicates “Depth” in a photograph LINK.

Compositions Talk

Landscape photographers aim to communicate a spatial perspective (where things are in relation to the viewer). They will communicate depth through composition, focus, focal length and light. They usually want everything to be in focus, so that it feels like you are there in the scene, but to invite you into the scene, the skilled landscape photographer will use objects carefully to invite you in.

Imagine two parts of a wide river, one is just water from bank to bank, the other has stepping stones. You will be more likely to pay more attention to the part with stepping stones because even if you don’t want to cross, the invite is there and this provokes thought.

Neuro scientists have discovered ‘Mirror Cells’ which trigger in the brain when an object that could be ‘Played with’ are presented. The landscape photographer will find objects in the foreground which invite you to wander into the picture. The Product Photographer will want you to handle the teapot and pour out the tea.

When I set up my camera for a landscape photo, I like to be close enough to actually touch the foreground. If I can touch it when I am looking through my lens, then the viewer will have their Mirror Cells tickled.

South Iceland Tours

Composition and exposure: use of magic cloth to darken the sky area retains the detail, but also helps the sense of distance. Including the foreground textures gives the viewer a lot of information about the depth of those first few meters.

Communicate with Focus

A skilled photographer can use sharpness to communicate. “Sharpness’ is achieved with focus, aperture and post-processing. A large aperture such as f/2.8 will allow the portrait photographer to focus on a very narrow plain, i.e. the face or eyes, and everything else will fall out of focus. This works as communication because it is holding your attention on a very specific part of the image. A shallow DOF is unavoidable in macro or close-up photography and the images have a 3D feel. Focus is one way of isolating the subject from the background.