Related to my previous post about Create Strong Visual Impact, this blog post is about how to create a strong look photograph in a simple step: Focus on detail!
Means, when we about to photograph someone/something, start to hunt for attractive detail of that person/object. Do not let your mind to wandering around and try to capture the whole scene, but instead, focus on (attractive) small things.
Detail of gesture
We simply can find it everywhere. It doesn’t matter whether we hunt photo in most interesting or most boring places in the world, people’s gesture will be always there ready to be captured.
Try to focus on neck, hand, finger or leg gesture. Pay more attention to their moving gesture (Read here). Always remember that we do not need to photograph the whole person. Only photograph part of their bodies that showing dynamic movement.
Get close to person that we want to photograph, fill our frame with subject’s gesture. This way, we will create a stronger look photo because we dominate our frame with “dynamic looks object”.
Detail of a person
Once again, we do not need to photograph the whole body of a person, but instead we only need photograph the attractive detail of him/her. Face contour, or any interesting accessories such hat, umbrella, stick, cigarettes, anything that able to define the unique characteristic of our subject.
Remember that what we want to focus on capture the artistic object itself, not the person. It does not matter if we only photograph part of their body, or if we do not capture their face. We do not need to provide “literal” information about our subject in street photography.
In the photo above I want my audience to focus on his triangle leg gesture, diagonal hand gesture, the triangle shape of umbrella, and the fact that the umbrella is almost touching the ground (create a sense of tense). Read more about diagonal composition in street photography here.
Some people in Instagram asked me why I did not include his head in my frame. My answer is because his head is not the main POI (point of interest), but his gesture is.
Also, shoot people without face actually can lead to give stronger impact to our photograph. Shoot “mysterious subject” become our benefit because we let audience infuse their imagination into our photo (Read here).
Detail of a place
When someone told us about a new interesting place, do not think that we need to photograph the entire area to get interesting photograph. Instead, focus on little things around us. Be it object that we can use as framing, reflection, a certain wall that has beautiful light falloff, a little area under shade that create unique shadow, etc.
For example like in photo above, It was taken in skate park area. Instead of focus on people who were skating (like what other people did), I let my self focused on things that exactly around the place where I stood. And, at that moment I realised this colourful wall that worked perfectly as artistic element.
Same things happened inside photo above. I was at sports complex (Gelora Bung Karno), I let my mind focus to search any artistic object around me instead of try to creatively photograph the main stadium as main object.
At that time I realised there was a puddle, and apparently this puddle able to create three visual art elements at the same time: Shadow, reflection, and silhouette!
Yes, it is true that no one knows I took this photo inside sports complex. For me street photography is about art, not informative type of photography. I do not need to give information to people where/when I took my photo. What I want to show is only the artistic element inside my photograph.
Photo above taken inside National Monument area. Instead of try to creatively capture the whole Monument, I start by photographed every corner area first. This way, I can photograph a spot that most people may never give any attention to it before.
National Monument is such a famous place here in Jakarta city, and I can not imagine any single person that do not know this place. Yet, many people questioned me where I took this shot. I think because most of them “see” National Monument only as the whole part, they do not realise what it looks like when we get closer and photograph the detail of it.
Detail of colour match
Simple tips: Find a spot that has interesting and bright colour. Then try to match that colour to people that walk pass it.
Like in photo above, at that time I was inside traditional market area in Singapore and had no idea what to shoot. Then I saw this yellow road marking that really catch my attention and I start to think about colour match.
What matter the most is to find a person who wear/bring anything in yellow colour, and photograph them along with yellow road markings as background. Try to combine detail of colour match with other artistic object like moving gesture to help our photo have stronger visual impact.
A little tips: To train our eyes, try to photograph only one particular colour for a week. For example, only photograph red colour as the main object. Does not mean we strictly can not put other colours into our photo, but we need to make sure red colour dominate our frame and will be the first thing audience notice when see our photo.
This way will help us isolate our mind from many distraction and “force” us to see things in detail (focus on red object).
To summarise it, here are several things that I keep my focus on when I hunt for the detail of artistic objects:
- Moving gesture
- Face contour
- Accessories like cigarette, stick, shoes (and heels!), or clothes with unique picture/colour
- Shoot umbrella! (Read here)
- Work the scene when see a puddle. Experiment with angles to find a great composition.
- Particular colour (Any bright colours like red, yellow, light green, etc)
- The shape of building’s shadow. Focus on edgy shape like triangle or diagonal line.
- Road markings (Read here)
- Any strong light source (Like Sun, LCD screen of advertising board or lamp with strong power). They are the main sources to photograph shadow and silhouette.
That is all my thought about photograph the detail from subject/object. Always remember what important the most is to fulfill our frame with the attractive elements. Other objects are only distraction, do not let them dominate our frame.
Keep shooting everyday!
Nico Harold