As a photographer, what is the most important skill you can learn? Is it learning camera techniques? Editing? Or client management? All of them are important, but I would argue that the most important skill you can learn is to read other people’s photography. Because you can only learn your crafts from others. Photography is such a visual skill that if you do not learn by seeing, then you will not grow. You need to actively look for information hidden behind a photography. No number of YouTube videos or articles taught me as much as I have learned from photographers who are ahead of me. One photo speaks louder than any other content on the internet if you know how to listen. In this article, I am going to break down my process of reading others’ photographs.
Where Was the Camera?
When I look at a photo, I try to figure out the camera angle. Where did the photographer place his/her camera while taking this photo? This is something almost no one talks about, but i find it very useful to elevate my photography to understand different camera angles. Low? close to the ground? high? behind a tree? I try to figure out the camera location first.
What Is the Color Tone Used?
This is where I try to figure out the color choices behind a photo. The answer almost always lies in the highlight part. A photographer’s preferred style can be found here. Moody, orangy, green, blue, find out the preferred color, and the rest of the photo will come alive automatically before your eyes.
What Was Masked Out?
In this step, I look for parts of a photo that were deliberately made less prominent. To bring out the main parts of a photo, a simple vignette doesn’t help much. That is why it is important to understand how and why a photographer tries to guide our eyes toward certain parts of the photo.
Selective Masks:
They can be hard to find, but if you look closely enough, you will start to see the subtle selective masks used in a photo. Maybe the face of the subject, the tree trunk, or the grasses in the corner, train your eyes to see these subtle masks. You know what they say, the devil is in the detail.
Color Manipulation:
Next, I try to understand the color ranges—the hue of the blue, the saturation of the green or the luminance of the red. I try to figure out exactly where in the color slider all the colors fall. To figure it out, you can open a photo side by side in your editing panel and tinker around until you find the exact point in your slider.
Read the Caption:
While you are scrolling through social media and liking away a lot of photos, try to read the caption as well. Not all photos have technical information in the caption but some do. Photographers sometimes post their gear descriptions and the timing and location scouting process behind a photo in the caption. I find it very useful when a better photographer shares titbits like this. Sometimes, they share it in the comment section as well. So, if you have time, go through them.
