Photographic Techniques - Shoot For Meaning

Learn the language your photography speaks.

Visual techniques are the vocabulary and syntax you use to say what you mean. The clearer your command of them, the more precisely you can express what your photography is trying to say.

Choose a technique below to learn how it works, train your eye to recognize it, and see how it serves your voice.

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Choose a technique below to learn it, train your eye, and discover how it shapes what your photos say.

High Contrast

Use large differences in brightness to direct attention. Separate elements to show clearer relationships. Hide details to create mystery. Create stories of search and discovery.

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Frame Within a Frame

Using elements within the scene to frame and organize other elements within the scene to establish visual priorities. Create stories of relationships between the framing and the framed.

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Layering

Arranging scene elements along the depth/z-axis to increase a photo's 3-dimensionality and draw the eye from layer to layer to create spatial and narrative relationships.

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Motion

Using blur and elements frozen in time to convey movement and change.

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Perspective

Positioning the camera and tilting or angling the lens to create a specific—often unusual—point of view that uses orientation of the viewer to emphasize elements and relationships within a scene.

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Use reflections from glass, water, metal, and reflecting surfaces to layer elements on top of each other, create 3-dimensional depth, show parallels, symmetry, and division, and draw relationships between the sides of elements that can't all be seen from a single point of view. Create layered, complex stories of connection and separation.

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Scale

Using differences in apparent and actual size to create hierarchies of priority and comparisons that suggest differences of importance.

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Silhouette

Eliminating detail in complete shadow to emphasize character form and narrative role by removing specific identity.

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