One of the most difficult aspects of photography is knowing how to actually find a good picture so you can take it. How do you know when one is in front of you? This insightful video tutorial discusses how to see good photos before you take them.
Coming to you from Craig Roberts with e6 Vlogs, this excellent video essay discusses the topic of pre-visualizing good photos. A lot of us (myself included) are guilty of searching for photos through the viewfinder instead of pre-visualizing them. And while this is not a totally bad way to work, being able to scan a scene and see its potential will make you more efficient and help you find creative opportunities you might have missed otherwise. One thing that helped me get better at this was restricting myself to a single prime lens for a week or so at a time. After you work with the same focal length for an extended time, you will start to gain an instinct for how a scene will look at that focal length, and as you do this with multiple focal lengths, you will build a general sense of the potential a scene has at different focal lengths. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Roberts.
One thing I found after I got serious about photography; I see things differently when I walk out the door. Further, I see things differently when I watch TV or a movie. I didn't know what the Rule of Thirds was until I started looking into photography more seriously. Now, when I watch TV or a movie, I note how often main characters are in the left of right third of the frame. Love it or hate it, Downton Abby was quite good at framing their subjects.
With this 'epiphany', I look at ways something can be photographed for best results. I'm sure this happens to most of us when we make up our minds that there are ways to make what is a ho hum scene into a wall hanger.