It’s all about “the look.”

The movie Man on Fire, directed by Tony Scott has a fantastic “look” about it. Raw, contrasty, saturated, smokey, and stark. The “look” of the film provides one more textural layer to the movie that communicates the storyline on many emotional levels. Colors and color shifts add meaning to the film that the plot and dialogue can’t show. As a creative director, one of the first things we think about is the “look.” All movies and commercials do, photographers should think about their images this way?

“You don’t take a photograph, you make it.” – ANSEL ADAMS

Storytelling regardless of whether it’s moving or a static image is a visual communication. Sadly, a lot of amateurs think they are photographers nowadays. Even worse, they are uneducated about all the richness and nuances you can use to create an image, tell a story, and connect deeply.

Understanding and mastering composition, light, shadow, point of view, color, subject matter, studying fine art and film, are necessary to create emotionally enduring images. There is no getting around it. How many photographers do you know that have studied and learned their craft from a real professional?

The picture I worked on here takes an ordinary street scene and makes it an interesting story. How did I do it? Thirty plus years of being an art director/creative director and being an artist my entire life. The digital age now offers creative professionals new tools to do amazing things. Photoshop and Exposure X4 are my go to’s. However, technique without an idea is ninety-three minutes of car crashes and not anything about who is in the car, where are they going, and why are they in the car in the first place?

In photography, an image can have all the “flash” bells and whistles, but if it is boring compositionally, has no visual priority, poorly executed, or just not interesting the image will still be a “yawner.” If you want to improve your photography learn about storytelling and learn to see as an artist sees I can help you develop your own creative voice. I mentor and teach photographers from beginners to professionals contact me about my Summer Class Specials:

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