Learning to see the photographic potential of everyday scenes around you is a key part of becoming a better photographer. Robert Keeley explains some ways to develop a 'photographer’s eye'.
It’s been said that the camera is a tool which teaches
people to see without a camera. Photographers must learn to see differently.
They should be constantly scanning wherever environment they find themselves in,
searching for interesting subject matter, and then looking for creative
compositions and different angles from which to shoot them. That applies
equally to their physical environment, as well as the optical options available
to them. Different lens focal lengths can create an entirely difference
emphasis in a given image, and photographers need to be thinking about this
every time they approach a new subject.
Here are a few ideas which will teach
you to look at the world from a photographic perspective.
01 SEE THE LIGHT
The
most fundamental element in creating effective photography is the use of light,
but many enthusiasts, especially when they are starting out, don’t fully grasp
how important it is. You really need to train yourself to see the impact of
light, both in its colour, but also in its range of contrast. The light you see
at sunrise or sunset will have a warmer hue to it than light in the middle of
the day. Light on bright sunny days will create harsh shadows, which won’t
appear on a wintery, foggy day.
The light created by certain types of street
lamps will be very different to the fluorescent lights seen in an office
building. Every nuance of light can have an important creative input in your
image. But how do you learn to appreciate its importance? Try this exercise.
Find a familiar location, easily accessed, and one you can reach or pass every
day. It might be a scene outside a window in your house or even at your office.
Every day for a week, at three set times a day – early morning, midday, and
late afternoon, simply observe the scene. Take note of how the light will vary
at different times of the day, and how it will vary with the intensity of the
sunlight. Don’t take any pictures – simply use your eyes to note the
differences. When the light is intense, study where the shadows fall at
different times of the day, and the impact that has on the subjects you are
viewing. They don’t have to be great photographic subjects - in fact it may be
better if they’re not, because you aren’t looking at that, you’re studying the
impact of light.
You can even extend this exercise to summer, autumn, winter,
and spring. Just carefully observe the same scene and note the changes.
One of the most important elements in improving your photographic eye is to understand how light impacts on your scene. In the top image here, the harsh light has created deep shadows which have been used as part of the composition, whilst in the lower image early pre-dawn light has created a colourful scene which disappeared shortly after the sun rose.
02 CONSIDER A SPHERE
Every photographic subject requires composition, and many enthusiasts
fall down because they make fundamental errors in composition. There are lots
of elements involved in creating better compositions, but here’s a useful
exercise. Every time you want to shoot a subject, surround it with an imaginary
sphere.
This represents the total of every position you might have available to
shoot from. Some may be easily eliminated as they’re impossible to access, but
go through the exercise nevertheless. This is a way to train yourself to
consider every possibility. Then try some of these different positions – as
many as you can. If you do this often enough, it will become an automatic
approach, and you’ll surprise yourself how quickly you can come up with new
angles and approaches to composing a scene.
It's important to move around your scene. Place an imaginary sphere around your subject and use it to consider all your composition options. The first image here is just a standard 'record' shot. In the second, I moved forward to add the concrete jetty as a leading line, and in the final shot I included a string of colourful flags to add extreme foreground interest. You should work a scene from all possible angles.
03 SWAP LENSES
If you’re shooting
with an SLR camera, you will likely have more than one lens, and you will
probably have a ‘default’ lens you tend to use. Use that one, but then swap
over. If you shoot with a wide-angle lens, change to the telephoto in your kit.
This will force you to think differently, and that’s what a creative
photographer must do.
If your camera has a built-in lens, make sure you still zoom
to different focal lengths with a given subject. Your efforts might not be
successful at first, but this will still force you to think differently. And
when you’ve done this for a while, consider buying a ‘prime’ (fixed focal
length) lens, like a 50mm. These units are often cheaper than a zoom, they can
offer you a very different view of any scene, and very importantly, they will actually
force you to move around if you want to create a different composition. 
Changing lenses is a very simple and quick way to get an entirely different perspective on a scene. At this conference I first shot in very close using a wide-angle lens (top image), then I moved towards the back of this hall and fitted a telephoto lens to get a flatter perspective.
04 GET OFF AUTO
This is arguably the most significant change new photographers (and
even some seasoned ones) should try. Many new shooters become daunted by the
range of options SLRs (and even compacts) can offer. They get comfortable
leaving their camera on Auto, or some other mode. That’s OK, because you’ll get
a result most of the time, but unfortunately stagnating on that setting will
stop your learning curve. So get off Auto, and try other modes.
While Manual
can be very difficult (and thus discourage you), modes like Aperture Priority
and Shutter Priority, which place priority on certain settings, but leave open
some creativity, can accelerate your creative thinking. If you’re shooting
digitally, give these modes a go. You won’t ‘waste film’ like in the old days,
and even if you make mistakes you will learn something. To save yourself
getting lost in a sea of settings, just note what is wrong in any given scene,
and make careful, systematic changes – either one stop up or down in aperture
settings, one step of shutter speed, or even one jump up or down in ISO.
Find a convenient location which you can pass at least three times a day, and simply observe what the light does to it. Here I shot a similar scene on different days to illustrate the point. Harsh light has a completely different impact on any given scene, compared to soft light.