The Visual Toolbox: 60 Lessons for Stronger Photographs

Lesson 1. Consider Your Vision

We all make photographs for different reasons. Some make them purely as a technical pursuit, a good photograph being one that is in focus and well exposed. That’s sufficient for some, but not for me, and I suspect not for you, either, or you’d have read your camera manual or put the camera on one Auto mode or another and been done with it. I suspect you, like me, pick up a camera to see the world differently, to express something about what you see in this world, for yourself and for others. In that case, what makes a good photograph is much harder to pin down. A photograph can be a lot of things, and not always does it have to be perfectly focused or exposed. In the end—and at the beginning—it comes down to vision. ...