Picture Perfect Practice: A Self-Training Guide to Mastering the Challenges of Taking World-Class Photographs

1. Geometry

IT HAS TAKEN many years and thousands of photos for me to truly understand the hidden power of the geometric shapes present in our environment and the influence they have on a photo’s overall impact.

You probably recall playing games as a child where you had to match the little plastic geometric shapes to their corresponding gaps. The plastic balls and the little wooden cars that we played with are all made of geometric shapes. Our eyes have been trained to immediately recognize these shapes. As adults, we are exposed to so much visual stimuli competing for our attention that our brains cope with this by selecting to see only what’s important to us. Everything else becomes lost in the noise, including geometric shapes. It is our job ...