if there is one rule about photography…

summer sky 15: Bensalem, PA

Scott Bourne was the founder of the This Week in Photo (TWiP) podcast. He was generous with photography advises back when he was hosting it. As a beginner without any formal training, I took those advises in like a sponge. Amount them, one rule stayed with me:

 "Photography is about highlighting your subject and removing everything else."

You subject could be a scenery, a person, an animal, an interaction, a building, etc.

There are many ways to highlight the subject. You can change the aperture so that the subject is the only thing in focus. The subject can be lighted up (via natural or artificial light sources). The subject can be highlighted as a contrast to the rest of the photo (e.g. red in front of a green background).

Likewise, there are many ways to remove unnecessary elements from a photo. If you are using a zoom lens, you can zoom closer to the subject. Otherwise, you can walk closer to the subject so that it fills a bigger portion of the frame. You can also walk around to avoid unnecessary elements (e.g. a trash can in front of a scenery). You can also leave them in shadows so that they don't draw any attention. These days, you can even use artificial intelligence to remove elements on a photo.

Within this rule, there are countless possibilities. Many of my own photography advises are application of this one rule.