Seeing In Layers To Make Better Photos
It was a cool evening, and I was walking around downtown Oaxaca just after dinner with my photographer friends Hillary Johnson and Andriana Mereuta. We were all quietly taking in the colorful scenes around us. Then Andriana chuckled to herself. When I looked over at her, she said she noticed that she had been viewing the scenes in frames as if she were still looking through her camera.
I totally got it.
This happens to me too. And it’s a practice that I commonly purposefully do to see how many layers I can see in a scene. I do this by imagining the different ways I can see a scene by both moving around the scene and by repositioning my camera.
What I’ve noticed is that some of the most vibrant photos show the myriad of layers to a scene. I’d been seeing life in layers for a number of years before a I learned of a fine-tuned a process to this pattern. In this post I’ll explain how to see in layers so that it won’t take you years to learn this, like it took me.
Introducing Seeing In Layers
Consider that both your shutter speed and aperture can let in more light to your image. Your aperture…
