A DEEPER FRAME

CREATING DEEPER PHOTOGRAPHS & MORE ENGAGING EXPERIENCES

DAVID DUCHEMIN
INTRODUCTION
In my first eBook, TEN, I made ten sug-
gestions for improving your photographs.
The first of those ten was to add greater
depth to your photographs, but I didn’t
elaborate much. Now halfway through
writing a new book, Photographically
Speaking, sidelined by what could have
been a fatal fall while shooting in Pisa,
Italy, I have had a great deal of time to
think about depth in, well, deeper ways.
While many of my teachings talk specifi-
cally about vision-driven photography, this
is the first of my eBooks to discuss the
ways in which we express that vision.
You’ll find this book refreshingly free of
that word, vision, in fact. Here the topic is
simple, though for something so simple it
amazes me that it’s so seldom focused on
in the popular teachings of photography.
Certainly, depth is talked about, but often
it’s a sidebar and unless there is first a discus-
sion about why we want to re-introduce
depth into our photographs, or even why
that depth doesn’t simply appear in our
photographs naturally, then a discussion
of how to make it happen is premature.
By depth I do not mean artsy photographs
that are rich in symbolism or illicit the
“Whoa, man, that’s deep,” responses from the
black-turtleneck, art-nic crowd. It’s not con-
ceptual depth I’m referring to but to spatial
depth, and while the 7th means I suggest to
create deeper photographs is, in fact, related
to emotional and responsive depth, it is pho-
tographs with an increased feeling of third-
dimensionality I’m primarily talking about.
Remember too, that even once this stuff
gets sorted out, absorbed, and experimented
with, depth itself is not generally the goal.
The goal is expression. The goal is the
experience of the reader of the image
(see the note on page 02). Sometimes greater
feeling of depth is the right device to get you
there, sometimes it is not. It’s easy to make
a golden calf of photographic techniques
and devices, to start on the right path and
wind up focusing on the wrong thing.
This is not the longest of the eBooks I’ve
written; I’m hoping value for you has more
to do with these lessons themselves and less
with how many words it takes to express the
ideas. It also took me longer to write this
shorter book than most of my others, in part
because I’ve been hospitalized after break-
ing both my feet into into tiny pieces and
fracturing my pelvis in Italy (the pain meds
made my brain foggy), and in part because
for concepts so relatively simple they are
neither easy to communicate, nor has this
topic been covered elsewhere from this angle
or at much depth. If you finish this book with
(A.) a greater understanding that your deci-
sions with the camera affect the experience
of the eventual reader of your photograph,
(B.) greater appreciation for the need of pho-
tographers themselves to create the illusion
of depth in an otherwise flat photograph,
1
and (C.) an expanded toolkit for intention-
ally creating that illusion in your own work,
then I’ll consider this discussion a success.
One of the disadvantages of learning through
a book, or teaching through the same, for
that matter, is the lack of dialogue. The main
vehicle for me to interact with my readers,
students, and friends is on Twitter. You can
find me there @pixelatedimage and as long
as I’m not inundated, I’m happy to answer
questions there. I’m also privileged to have
what I consider to be the finest community
of photographers anywhere hanging out on
my blog, Pixelatedimage.com/blog and
you are more than welcome there, though
the interaction is usually more guided by
the blog posts I write. You’re most welcome
to interact with me on either platforms, but
Twitter is where I am most actively conver-
sational. If you’ve got a question, just ask.
DAVID DUCHEMIN
Ottawa, 2011.
VIEWERS & READERS
I’m choosing here to refer to those who will one day
look at and experience, our photographs, as readers,
not viewers. While viewers is accurate and I’m indif-
ferent to which word you yourself use, I think the
distinction here forces a focus on the intentional and
active interaction with a photograph, which is what
I’m hoping you’ll see depth as a means of achieving.
To view something is a passive activity, really the
opposite of participation or interaction. My hope in
my own photography is that the photographs
2
engage people, draw them in, make them more than
viewers but readers. In a good story the Storyteller
provides the words and the grammar which in turn
builds whole characters, settings, and plots. But it
is the reader who provides the imagination, the
interpretation. It is the interaction between the words
and the reader that brings the story to life, and I
hope my photographs will have the same chance
at life in the eyes - and imaginations - of others.
WHY DEEPER? 3
The entire discussion of depth is necessary because the medium
of photography turns a world of three dimensions into two.
With that conversion comes what I’ve elsewhere called the flat-
tening. The flattening forces all elements in a three dimensional
scene to flatten against each other. In the case of longer lenses
this effect is exaggerated even more. It’s neither good nor bad,
but recognizing it is important. Why this matters is that we do
not experience the world in two dimensions to begin with, so
if we aim to create photographs that create within the reader
a deeper, fuller, longer experience , it falls to us to recreate
that depth. Your scene may feel deep, and your experience at
the time might seem impossibly immersive, but you can not
escape the effects of the flattening. It is only through your own
decisions that you can retain, or reintroduce that depth.

Depth is all about the reader’s experience of the photo-

graph itself, and your ability to express yourself more
fully. While it seems obvious that it is impossible, without
actual 3-Dimensional technology which is rapidly com-
ing, to add a third dimension to a flat image; it is in fact
possible to create the perception or illusion of depth.

Big Lagoon, Pensacola, Florida, 2011

I photographed this from two angles (next page), both
of them creating images I like, but the feeling from these
images is different because the perceived depth is different.
DEEPER? 4
Deeper images pull us in visually,
they give us not only square foot-
age but cubic space - room to move
about and explore with our eyes,
into the photograph. That room
to explore invites the photogra-
pher to create photographs with
more complexity to them, and the
reader to linger longer. It is about
experience. The more a photograph
recreates the illusion of reality as
we experience it, the deeper the
potential experience, the longer the
memory of the image, the greater
the possible impact on their hearts
and minds. Deeper photographs
give us a means to create more
engaging one-frame visual stories.

That’s the Why, and it’s not com-

plicated. Better photographs create
better experiences, and depth can
get you there. Now let’s look at
seven ways to get to deeper frames.
DEPTH & PERSPECTIVE
The recreation of an appearance of depth in
a photograph begins at it’s most basic with
an understanding of the rules of perspective.
These rules describe, in terms that are primar-
ily geometric, how the three dimensional
world is represented when flattened into
two. More accurately they describe how we
interpret the results of that flattening. For
example, we understand that a man in the
foreground of an image may very well be the
same real-life size as a man in the far back-
ground, even though the flattening effect that
placed these elements into the photograph
has rendered the figure of the background
man so much smaller. Our understanding be-
gins outside the frame; we know that distant
objects appear smaller the further they get.
While the rules of perspective can
be described in complex terms, they
can be simplified. They include:
1. There is only one perspective in any photo-
graph: that of the photographer. The geometry
within the frame will derive from that angle
and position. Your position matters.
2. Straight parallel lines will either re-
main parallel or will converge into a
single vanishing point on the horizon.
3. Elements in the frame will reduce in
apparent size as they recede and follow
that vanishing point to the horizon
4. Shapes too are subject to the effects of perspec-
tive. A circle, for example, will appear to form
an ellipse, a square will look like a trapezoid.
Those are the simple ones that seem to have
the most bearing in my own mind on my
photography. In more basic terms it means
this: as a photographer, my position (more
accurately the position of the camera) can
dramatically change the geometry within
the frame of the photograph. Simply by
moving around I change the angle of lines in
the frame. If looking straight on I see strong
parallel horizontal lines, then moving to one
side of those lines and looking along their
length will result in lines heading towards
the vanishing point, and more in relation
to the frame itself will turn horizontal
5
parallel lines into diagonal and converging the clues provided by perspective, the more
lines. That change results in a completely unavoidable it will be that the reader of our
different photograph because the geometry photographs read depth into those images.
completely changes. The eye is lead differ-
ently, the energy changes, and the balance The reason we understand these rules of
and tension of the photograph are totally perspective, and I’ve simplified them al-
different. Horizontal parrallel lines are as flat most to the point of absurdity, is because
a pair of lines as you can create. But change painters themselves once wrestled with the
your position and you change the perspective same problem we face now - the creation,
and re-introduce depth to the photograph. or re-creation of depth. It’s the building of
an illusion. They’ve studied and codified
While this seems obvious, it’s surprising how this stuff. Smart people those painters.
few photographers seem to really grasp the
creative potential in a simple movement
of the camera. It’s equally surprising, too,
that we discuss geometry so seldom. Paint-
ers have an unlimited freedom, can paint
points, lines, and shapes as they imagine
them. The photographer, less so. But we have
the ability to manipulate what is there, to
change a square into something without a
single ninety-degree angle, or a pair of lines
that never meet into a dynamic chevron
converging on the horizon. And with every
shift of the camera we add, or remove, a sense
of depth to/from the scene. The stronger
PERSPECTIVE 6
Liguria, Italy, 2011
The lines in this image not only move
towards a clear vanishing point but in
this case I’ve placed the main point
of interest as close to that vanishing
point as I could, allowing the lines
of perspective to not only draw the
reader into the image but specifically
to the shadow of the woman. Shifting
my body further left would have
changed the lines, but she still would
have been at that vanishing point,
at least for that brief moment.
PERSPECTIVE 7

Vernazza, Italy, 2011

PERSPECTIVE 8
VERNAZZA AT DUSK
In most photographs the sense of depth comes from
a number of elements that play together. In this
photograph of the harbour of Vernazza, the lines
are less clear but no less powerful than the lines in
the tunnel (pg 06) that draw the eye into the image.
The colour-depth and the 14mm lens work to do the
same thing. It’s important to remember that when
we talk about drawing the eye into the photograph,
the point is to draw it through the image and give it
something to look at along the way. Here the point is
not simply to get the eye to the bright lit buildings in
the heart of the harbour, I could have done that with
a 200mm lens. I want here to create a journey for the
eye, along the wall and the serene water to the church
and then to the village itself. The reader’s eye then
loops around and back to the foreground and into the
photograph once again. Creating that experience is
why exaggerated depth can be so powerful a tool for
the photographer. Like the author, what we want is
to create a story the reader will want to read again.

Nikon D3s, 14mm. 25 seconds at f/22

THE FRAME CUBED
As I’ve broken down, in my own mind, the ways
in which I can re-create the illusion of depth,
I’ve also been waist-deep in writing my next
book, Photographically Speaking (Peachpit/
New Riders 2011). Depth is one of the devices
at the hands of the capable photographer for
adding impact to a photograph, and it seems
the best way to begin discussing it is to change
the way we look at the photograph itself.
The photograph is of course a two-dimensional
thing. But if we shift our language from what
the photograph actually is, to a language that is
more descriptive about how a photograph is per-
ceived, the issue of dimensionality changes and
makes this easier to describe. Ask most people
to describe a photograph spatially and one word
most commonly comes to mind. Rectangle. True,
it is a rectangle. However, it is also true that the
photograph is cabable of being described as a
cube because of how we perceive things. We’ve
already discussed perspective and this is directly
related to that discussion and builds on it.
Because of our familiarity with the laws of
perspective it is easy to imagine our frames as
9
three-dimensional. The moment we wrap our
minds around that, I think everything changes.
Why? Because geometry and balance are so
incredibly important and composing for a cube
is different than composing for a rectangle.
With a flat rectangular scene, we have limited
ways in which we might place our elements.
We have height and depth. This is nowhere
more clear than the Rule of Thirds grid we’ve
abused so much in basic composition classes.
The frame is divided into 3 vertical columns
and 3 horizontal columns, and while this ar-
rangement can (sometimes) be helpful as a guide
to suggest where we should place elements in
the photograph, it does not do so with any
consideration of the depth of the image. I’m not
saying we ought to disregard the thirds, or re-
place the notion of thirds with something more
complicated. I am suggesting we also consider
applying the thirds to the depth of the image.
This isn’t an easy concept to communicate, and
it’s not a theory, per se. But placing elements
to fall within the frame at points I would call
foreground, midground, and background gives
us, roughly, a frame divided depth-wise into
CUBED 10
three. That part isn’t relevant. What’s relevant is
CREATIVE EXERCISE
that if you think about placing elements in the
For some of us this is just a matter of
frame at something approximating these thirds,
tricking our brain. Try thinking of your
you will be giving the reader visual clues about
frame as a cube instead of merely a
the depth of the photograph. Like the lines of
rectangle. Ask yourself, as you shoot,
streets or buildings that lead into the image and
if the elements balance and create
towards the vanishing point, elements placed
interest in not only the traditional way
into the photograph pull the reader in. Instead
along the horizontal and vertical planes,
of looking at the photograph (two dimensional
but are they arranged in such a way
viewing experience) we are able to look into the
that they imply distance and depth?
photograph (the illusion of a three-dimensional
More actively, sit down at your kitchen
viewing experience). Not every image will have
table with three objects - three apples
elements forming the lines I just mentionned,
or oranges would do - and, with your
leading towards a vanishing point, but most pho-
camera on a tripod, photograph them
tographs, where depth is desired, can be framed
in two ways. The first is as flat as pos-
in such a way that key elements fall into place in
sible. Without changing your lenses or
foreground, midground and background zones.
any other considerations, arrange the
elements to create as little depth in the
image as possible. Now move those
elements around to create a strong
fore, mid, and background. If think-
ing of the scene, as you look through
the viewfinder, as a cube or even an
aquarium (that’s the mental picture
I use) helps, then make use of that.
DEPTH THROUGH OPTICS
Our choice of lenses has much to do with
creating the perceived depth of a photograph.
The accepted wisdom is that short lenses
(<50mm) exaggerate the sense of depth and
the longer lenses (>50mm) compress the
foreground and background. What’s important
to remember is that it is not the lenses alone
that do this; it’s what those lenses do with
the elements present in the scene that can
give, or diminish, the appearance of depth.
In teaching about optics the most helpful
single thing I can remind students is that
lenses all behave differently. While we refer to
lenses in terms of their focal length (24mm,
50mm, 200mm, etc.) Sadly, for most of us
this is only meaningful because we’re used
to it. Ask most of us what those numbers
mean and we’ll hum and haw and change
11
the subject. I could look it up on Wikipedia
right now and pretend to know more than
my own limited knowledge, but it just doesn’t
matter to me. What does matter to me is the
angle of view of a lens. It’s proportionate to
the focal length but while I like to know one
lens has greater or lesser magnification, it’s the
angle I’m more often interested in. And that’s
a good chance to take a quick rabbit trail.
If angle of view matters, and it does, (and
I’ll tell you why in a moment,) then it’s time
someone was really clear about the way a
lens behaves on both a full-frame sensor or a
so-called crop sensor. So often I hear people
say they put a 50mm lens on an APS-C sensor,
“making it an 80mm lens.” They use the word
“equivalent” a lot. They’d be more accurate to
call it “sorta-kinda-but-not-really equivalent.”

Havana, Cuba. The top was photographed at 17mm, and while the compari-
son isn’t quite apples to apples because in addition to the change in angle of
view that the wider lens creates, that lens is also much closer to the cars. The
second photograph was made at 29mm, still a wide lens, but combined - the
angle of view and the change in position, creates an image of greater depth.
OPTICS
A 50mm lens behaves a certain way. Putting
it on a camera with a smaller sensor does not
change that behavior. It gives you a smaller
image area, essentially a tighter crop, but
that’s all. Imagine taking a photograph with
a 50mm lens, then printing it, then cutting
30% of that photograph away by trimming
the outer edges. You’d never then say you
shot it with the equivalent of an 80mm lens.
Well you might, but that’s what I’m trying
to change here. Why this matters is because
angles are angles and the way a lens bends
light will not change based on the size of
the sensor. Depth of field will change. So
will the image area. But the angle will not.
Angles. What a lens does to the appearance
of angles is important in the creation of a
sense of depth. Stand in the middle of a street
and shoot down its empty length with an
85mm lens and the lines of the road as they
head towards the vanishing point on the
horizon will be much tighter than if you used
a 24mm lens, stood in the same place and
photographed the same scene. How much
tighter? The illustration of the protractor
12
shows the difference in angle between an
85mm and 24mm lens, and I’ve chosen
those two because they nicely invert their
values and make it easy to remember. A
24mm lens creates an almost 85mm angle,
and the 85mm lens has a 24mm angle of
view. Wider angle lenses are, by virtue of
their angle of view, much more inclusive
lenses, and that is very much the point of
depth to begin with; the creation of a feel-
ing of inclusion on the part of the reader.
I would happily make a case for abandon-
ing the focal length in reference to lenses
and adopting something more meaningful.
Leaving mathematics behind and using
more descriptive language would be even
more helpful for those of us more inclined lens that exaggerates and expands the angles
to art than math. So I look at wider lenses as of the lines and the apparent space between
inclusive lenses and longer/tighter lenses as elements. This is why the 8-15mm fisheye
isolation lenses. It’s a simplification, I know, is often called a POV (Point of View) lens.
but it’s a step in the right direction for those It’s so wide it nearly invades your personal
that are more concerned about what their space. It pushes lines out to the extremes of
photographs look like than they are about our peripheral vision and pulls us in. More
the math involved to get there. Simply, if you depth, and a greater feeling of being there,
want more depth in the image try using a within the scene instead of looking at it.
DEEPER FOCUS 13
When it comes down to it, this entire thing is an issue of
CREATIVE EXERCISE
contrast, and I’ll talk more about that in the next section
While you are experimenting with
about colour depth. But it applies equally here as we begin
depth and working through this book,
to discuss focus. The principle is this: foreground and
take three frames every time you make
background elements, to have depth, must be separated
a photograph. Setting your camera to
by something in a flat image. What is that something?
Aperture Priority will make this easier.
It could be hints provided by scale or perspective or a
For each photograph take one with
change in light. It could also be a change in focus.
a shallow depth of field (<f/4) with
your point of interest focused. Then
Where the quality of focus changes from foreground to
set a tighter aperature (>f/8) and
background, the implication is that there is a change in
duplicate the first frame. For the third
depth, because that’s how focus works. This is about creating
photograph, mix it up and if possible
visual clues for the reader and when we give the reader a
(it won’t always be) find something
photograph of infinite focus, unless there are other clues to
to put into the very near foreground,
suggest dimensionality, we don’t give them enough to infer
and, still using a shallow depth of field,
depth. But the moment you place the foreground out of fo-
allow this to go soft. I call this “Put-
cus you replicate the way we work in real life. Anything that
ting Crap in the Way” and it’s a great
close to us that it is out of focus is very close indeed, and if
way to introduce, when used well, a
the background is sharply focused then we are suggesting by
very natural and seemingly accidental
the inclusion of that out of focus element that the dimen-
feeling of depth. Now compare.
sion of the image is greater. The same works in reverse, as
in the photograph of the lemons (next page). While the
sharper background gives us information on the sign that
places the lemons in Italy, the image on the left has greater Almost a full half of this image is wildly out of focus, implying
implied depth because it has greater separation between proximity. Other elements add to the feeling of depth, including
foreground and background. As we’ll see, focus isn’t the only the size of the figure of the man on his horse, which is small
way to do this, but it’s a very natural way to create depth. relative to the frame. That scale implies distance, and the
contrast between the very close (out of focus) foreground
to background, which is, by definition, what depth is.
 FOCUS 14

Like the image of the Jamaican horse and rider in the sea, the focus on this image implies depth; only in this case it’s the foreground that is sharp and the background that is soft.
The depth is created by the same implication: that elements separated by a shift in focus are distant from each other.
DEPTH THROUGH COLOUR 15
It’s commonly accepted that the eye is drawn to warmer
colours before cooler colours, and that when the warmer
colour appears in a largely cool context, like the image of
the moving rock on the Racetrack Playa of Death Valley, it
appears to move forward within the photograph, giving the
image depth. The common term for this effect is “colour
depth.” But I think it has more to do with the extremes
of colour contrast - for example, a cooler element in a
largely warm scene would also have this effect of depth.

Like everything else discussed so far, it plays together. For exam-

ple, it helps in the photograph of the moving rock that the rock
is clearly already in the foreground. It would be hard to argue
that the small flashlight I shone in one frame, and not in the
other, was solely responsible for the effect, but if you compare
one image next to the other, it’s certainly has the appearance
of depth. Yellow and Blue are at the opposite ends of the col-
our wheel from each other, so it stands to reason that other
extremes - Green and Magenta, and Red and Cyan, would have
a similar deepening effect. Would it work in black and white as
well? Absolutely. So while this is about colour depth, the entire
issue can be traced to one about contrast and were you to con-
vert them both to a monochrome image, you’d still find, entire-
ly without the benefit of colour, that the depth of the image in
one still remains. The question of course is, Which one? Doing
a black and white conversion gives you the choice and allows
you to make decisions about the tonal vaues of the photograph.
COLOUR 16
In the case of this photograph, there are a couple options.
Figure A is the original image, Figure B is a slightly dif-
ferent conversion that gives greater contrast and makes
the foreground rock even more prominent. Figure B is
converted with the same values as Figure A, but is the
alternate image without being lit by the flashlight. If the
differences don’t overwhelm you, that’s OK. What I’m
trying to illustrate is that in these these 3 photographs
the tonal contrasts (or tonal depths) are different and
each one will feel slightly different in terms of depth.

To me the photographs with the greater depth are, in

order, B, C, and A. because the contrast between the rock
and the mud decreases slightly in that order. It is the con-
trast - whether in color or tone, that draws our eye and the C
greater the contrasts between foreground and background
elements, the deeper the appearance of the image.

B A
DEPTH THROUGH LIGHT
When I discussed the rules of perspective I men-
tioned that we owed a debt to painters for figuring
out some of the issues related to the reintroduction
of depth to flat images. One of the most significant
understandings for which we ought to be grateful is
the way light gives us visual clues about dimensional-
ity and depth. Given the Italian name “chiaroscuro”
during the Renaissance, the word means, conceptu-
ally, from light to dark, and while this technique
didn’t originate during the Renaissance, it was then
that it was intensely developed and chiaroscuro
remains a key aspect of Renaissance painting. Unless
you’re an Art History major, which I am not, that
part is less relevant. What does matter is that paint-
ers wrestled with how to use light - and remember,
they had to then duplicate that - not merely expose
correctly for it - to add drama and dimensionality to
their work, and in many cases chiaroscuro became a
notable compositional tool. That’s the background.
17
Where chiaroscuro touches us in knowing what
it is, recognizing it, and taking advantage of it to
make deeper photographs. Practically, what does
this mean? If I were photographing a ball and front-
lighting it (ie light that is coming from directly
behind the camera and hitting the ball head-on)
there would be shadows created, but those shadows
would be invisible to the camera, hidden behind
the ball. If I were to change the light, and move it
from behind me and swing it to the left, the same
shadow would be created but that shadow would
be visible to the camera. The shape and character of
the shadow itself depends in part upon the shape
of the object and gives us clues about that object.
In the first example, the front-lit ball is likely un-
derstood to be a ball, but only because we know
it’s a ball. In the world of the photograph it is only
a circle with no depth. For depth to be perceived
we need the visual clues that shadows provide.

Masai Mara, Kenya, 2011 The way the light plays on this warrior’s face and fades
to deep shadow is chiaroscuro. It picks up on textures, and provides the modeling
that gives his face, and his beadwork so much dimension. The oblique angle
of his face and the way his spear creates a foreground anchor also add to this
depth. Issues related to depth can be applied to any discipline in photography,
from weddings to pet photography, portraits, or fine art landscapes.
DEPTH THROUGH LIGHT 18
Renaissance painters understood this and their work is character-
ized by the strong depth created by the interplay of light and
shadow. We can do the same thing through our choice of light.
We learn early that sidelight exaggerates texture but we seldom
learn why, or apply it on a much larger scale. It’s the creation of
shadow, which is so important to us not only in photography
but the real world. Shadow creates visual clues, helps us inter-
pret what we see. In the photograph it’s even more important,
and well-used light and the resulting shadows will add a level
of depth that flat directional light cannot. It’s why the first les-
son in off-camera flash or studio lighting is not about the lights
themselves but the placement of them. But placement is not the
only issue. Begin to watch shadows and the way that light falls
off as it gets further from it’s source. Look carefully again at the
shape of the shadows created on that sidelit ball, or the apple
on your table. See the way the shadow implies how the light
wraps around, and falls off. It falls off in a gradient, sometimes
harder, sometimes more subtle, depending on the light, and
each change in lighting changes the drama and depth – and
the experience of the reader as they look at the photograph.
DEEPER EMOTIONS 19

“Great photography is about DEPTH OF FEELING, not depth of field.”

– Peter Adams
DEEPER EMOTIONS
This is both the easiest and hardest way
to create deeper photographs. While
we’ve been primarily concerned with
the way that spatial depth affects the
experience of the reader, it is gener-
ally not considered a desirable thing
to create images of immense spatial
depth that invites the reader to visually
explore only to find, and feel, nothing.
Why this is so difficult is because we
are not often moved by the ordinary or
the mundane but by the exceptional.
We are not moved by just any moment,
but certain ones can change us forever.
Not all light is memorable, but the right
light can touch us deeply. Creating
photographs that touch us in some way,
that raise questions, invoke nostalgia
and cause us to remember a forgotten
childhood memory. What it takes to
touch these deeper emotions is impos-
sible to pin down; it’s not a technique
but an instinct and the preference by
far is to master a technique and move
on. The effort to create photographs
that move us deeper offers no such
hope. Sometimes we hit on it when the
moment, the light, and the geometry
of the frame all coincide by some
sheer fluke. But it’s rare. So rare it’s a
phenomenon when it happens. The rest
of the time we wait for those incred-
ible moments, or the light to break.
None of this implies we must wait for
profundity. Wait too long and hard to
capture the meaning of life and you’ll
miss your children growing up, losing
first teeth. You’ll miss falling in love
and the falling of leaves. It’s in these
things that we find the meaning any-
ways. Don’t look for depth, look for the
things that move us. Don’t settle for the
moment in between moments when
there’s a more captivating one around
the corner. Don’t settle for mediocre
light when the storms are rolling in and
waiting 30 more minutes will give you
drama that makes the scene more much
engaging. Is it hard? Of course it is. We
can make all kinds of excuses for why
we couldn’t wait longer, couldn’t get ex-
actly the right camera angle, or missed
the moment. But no one is moved by
our excuses. No one sees the ones we
missed. The world doesn’t need more
photographs. It needs photographs
that reveal something, that invoke a
feeling, that touch us on some level.
Maybe that’s all this is; a willingness to
be more selective – to choose moments
and scenes that are more fundamentally
human, contain better contrasts and
juxtapositions, stronger scales, more
subtle lines – whatever. It is the selec-
tivity that matters. It is the choice to
exclude the moments and scenes that
only catch a passing glance, in order
that we are receptive to see the ones
that are much more universal, more hu-
man. Better that we only ever create one
hundred truly beautiful photographs
than a mountain of forgettable dross.
20
CREATIVE EXERCISE
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. A student
stands before Jay Maisel and says “What can I
do to make more interesting photographs.” Jay,
without missing a beat says, “Become a more
interesting person.” The same applies here. But
depth is not found by pursuing it. Instead, just
become aware of the things that already move you
most deeply. What are the things you feel most
strongly about? I’ve said, Shoot what you love, so
many times it probably loses meaning for some.
But if what you love most on this earth is your
daughter, then begin there. And watch. And keep
watching. Some moments will reveal the character
of that child better than others. Photographing
those moments will bring you deeper photographs
of that child. But other moments still will reveal
something more universally human - the moment
envy rears its head and she steals a toy from a
playmate and that other child bursts into tears
- that’s a moment we resonate with on all levels.
If what you love, like the Canadian impressionist
painters known as the Group of Seven, is a place,
like Algonquin Park, then spend as much time in
the park, with the park, and find the transcendent
moments. Learning to see deeper moments and
recognize deeper reactions to things has to hap-
pen before you can hope to photograph them.
CONCLUSION 21
Most of us make photographs for the same diversity
of reasons that people write. Some do so simply
to express themselves, others to communicate to
others. For those of us to whom our audience is
important, what we’re trying to accomplish stongly
involves the experience of the reader. There are
many ways to engage the reader - devices like
comedy or tragedy, for example. Depth is one of the
most inclusive of the visual tools at our disposal.
Depth pulls the reader into the frame. If you take
anything away from this book, aside from some
good old-fashionned learnin’, it’s the importance of
considering the experience of the reader. Certainly
we make photographs first for ourselves, but if art
is meant to be a gift, then how we consider the
way our readers will interact with our photographs
determines what kind of gift our art is. Photographs
created with greater spatial depth pull others in,
invite them to not only look at the photograph
but look into it, and to see the thing, and feel the
emotion, we are pointing at with our camera.
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