'Visual Principles’ Define Good Photography – Not Technique

Human nature governs our response to pictures: where you look first in a picture, how your eye travels around the picture, and your emotional response to the picture. – We’re not aware of this happening because it’s an intuitive response at the subconscious level. – This is relevant for photographers because people respond to pictures, and to create a good photograph, our photograph must influence the viewer’s response. The problem is knowing how we can influence the viewer’s response when our human nature has evolved with a strange contradiction.

People are born with the ability to ‘read’ visually but not the ability to create visually. – Reading visually allows us to perceive and make sense of the world around us for survival, but creating visually has no survival benefit, so we’re not born with the ability. We’re born with the ability to understand pictures but not create pictures. Creating pictures is a learned skill; understanding pictures is intuitive. This creates a major problem. If we don’t understand how we intuitively perceive pictures and ‘read’ visually – How do we learn to create visually and make pictures?

Traditionally, this problem is solved by learning from others: a master teaches the apprentice, a form of ‘trial and error’ knowledge passed down and refined over hundreds of years. – People within a craft teach those who want to learn their craft. The enthusiast photographer learns from a photographer they feel is more advanced, but this approach has one critical flaw. – It may assume you will learn how to make good Photography just by learning the techniques; that technique defines your picture quality. – This is a very common misunderstanding –

“Visual Principles define the picture quality: NOT the technique.”

How we perceive and respond to what we see: what content is included, how it’s arranged compositionally, which details are emphasized, the sense of depth and three-dimensional quality, the feeling of light, mood, drama, and atmosphere, etc., have all been codified into a set of ‘Visual Principles’. These ‘Visual Principles’ define your picture quality, not your technique. – Technique is only the production process. – The higher ‘Visual Principles’ govern the whole production process, from your concept to taking the picture and then retouching your final picture.

My solution to – How we learn to create visually is innovative and science-based. – If we reverse engineer how we ‘read’ visually, logic dictates that we must produce the ideal workflow to create visually. – Science dictates the visual principles of how we perceive and respond to pictures; therefore, if used in reverse – Science must dictate the visual principles to create pictures we respond to. – All the ‘Visual Principles’ we intuitively used to ‘read’ and respond to pictures are now used as our ‘Creative Principles’ for making pictures. – This is essential knowledge for engaging photography, but it’s never learned if you isolate your knowledge only for photography.

Most photography tuition teaches you techniques with a few visual principles mixed in. Many don’t know the visual principles in detail, separate visual principles from technique, or give the visual principles top priority. The result is weak and generic-looking Photography. – However, if you produce a workflow based on visual principles and create pictures based on that workflow, you must create successful pictures every time. – It’s the photographer’s use of the higher ‘Visual Principles’ that defines the quality of their Photography, not their tools or technique.

“Science dictates the Visual Principles to create successful Photography.”

Photographers teach you a workflow based on their style, but their workflow recreates pictures only in their style. If you learn the workflow based on visual principles, the workflow works for all subjects and lets you create your own style. The workflow produces pictures people respond to at the intuitive human nature level because the workflow is based on intuitive human nature, not an artistic style. – From my workshop experience, students’ most common and universal weakness is being unaware of, and therefore not using, the ‘Visual Principles’. – The moment they’re explained and then applied, the quality of their Photography radically improves immediately. – It’s the single most important subject, but most overlooked subject. Often, we must step outside of Photography and look for broader knowledge that helps our Photography.

David Osborn Photography, London, UK.
David’s website is www.davidosbornphotography.com, which explains details of his workshop, tutorials, and much more.

David Osborn
Sepetember 2024

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