Working a Subject

Through my many on-line photography classes, I have been repeatedly instructed to "work the subject."   Applying this advice when I find a subject that interests me forces me to look at the subject from many different perspectives.  A few simple concepts for working a subject:

• Choosing perspective:
  • low or high
  • askew or balanced
  • dominating the frame or part of a larger composition
• Choosing composition
  • centered or off-center
  • "rule-of-thirds" or breaking the rules
  • minimalism or regular scale
  • horizontal or vertical orientation
• Choosing lighting
  • back-light, sidelight, front light (amazing differences when dealing with foliage)
  • is there a better time to revisit the subject than right now?
  • strong light or diffused light
• Other Considerations
  • shallow depth-of-field or maximum depth-of-field
  • frame within a frame possibilities
    
    

The list goes on and on, but this sets the mind in the right direction.  In practice, I will usually shoot about 30-50 images of a subject I really like, modifying my camera position for each shot.  Trying to compose multiple ideas of the same subject often yields interesting results.  Sometimes I am frustrated by how I only have one image out of 50 that is actually good, while other times, I come away with more than one image from the bunch that I like. 

An example using my own photographs:

The following four images were taken on a trip to South Africa last November.  The first one I shot before going into the winery and tasting the local grape juice. While sipping the wine and viewing my images in-camera, I realized that I had a subject that deserved to be "worked."  The last three images are the result of that extra work. 

Comments

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I love the last image - why did that never get shared anywhere before!

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Really loving those first two. I feel like I could walk right in.

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Sometimes I am frustrated by how I only have one image out of 50 that is actually good, while other times, I come away with more than one image from the bunch that I like.

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Sometimes I am frustrated by how I only have one image out of 50 that is actually good, while other times, I come away with more than one image from the bunch that I like.

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Back in my film days, 90% of my photographs were shot in b&w. Over time, I came to think in b&w. Only now do I realize what a powerful mindset that was. When you remove the color information, your mind changes. Think about how your previsualization works when you know that the color you are seeing will not be part of the final image. You immediately begin to focus on things like texture, contrast, tonal range, shape, and form. All of the subtle things can turn a good image into a great image. Heck, I used to actually use the "zone system" to place the shadows or highlights right where I wanted them. Just thinking about the zone system before pressing the shutter is an exercise in good photography. It causes you to consider the elements in the photographs as elements and how they should work as part of the whole.

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I decided I wanted to make this image a simple, colorful landscape. But when I was finished, I had the image in the middle and was pretty unsatisfied with the result. I mean, who needs another colorful landscape shot. How predictable and uninteresting. It doesn't have a mood, it doesn't feel like art. It feels like a nice vacation snapshot.

My thought process then turned to what I disliked most about the image...the predictable color. It's just too pretty. I liked the tonal range of the image and the composition, but the color was just too much. Plus it was just to crisp and clean. I decided it would be more interesting if it had the appearance of being an old photograph. More importantly,

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