Beyond Auto Mode: A Guide to Taking Control of Your Photography

Appendix: THE MAKING OF AN IMAGE

Our journey to get beyond auto mode began with a simple statement at the beginning of this book: Photography is life, life recalled in our images.

A photograph is so much more than a math equation or a set of rules. It is a way to connect our histories and highlights, recalling moments otherwise forgotten and stories that would otherwise go untold.

I liken photography to the 5 W’s of journalism: who, what, where, when, why, and how (yes, I know that is 6). The how is the technical—the exposure triangle, mode selection, and factors like that. The other W’s, especially the why in that list, are the story you are trying to tell and the connection you want to forge with your viewer. Every image, no matter the subject or moment, tells a story. What story will you tell?

I’d like to back up and share a little of my philosophy of photography. I think of photography as a kind of interpretive art: Everyone who views an image brings his or her own interpretation of the story being told. If you have had an experience similar to what a photograph shows, you view that image through the veil of that experience. A cancer survivor, for example, may interpret an image of a person with a bald head differently than someone never exposed to cancer. We make up our own stories about the photographs we view.

The interpretation triangle. As the maker, you control ...