One Photograph, Many Choices

Being able to dissect an image is a helpful skill. Looking at a photograph and identifying the various choices that led to the look and feel of that image, even when it’s your own (maybe especially when it’s your own) makes us stronger photographers that are more fluent in the visual language.

I’ve been talking a lot lately about the choices we make, and how our photographs are a result of the combinations of all those choices and what they contribute to the image. I though perhaps walking you through some of my photographs, beginning with this one, might be helpful (even if you never photograph giraffes).

The video below is about 17 minutes long and walks through my in-camera and development decisions in the making of a photograph from Kenya back in January. I thought video might just be a better medium for this than writing it all out. I hope it’s helpful to you.

Questions? Leave them in the comments. There’s a wonderfully thoughtful community of photographers that gather here every couple of weeks and the comments are often as helpful as my own contributions, so even if you’ve got nothing to add, don’t miss the comments below.

Thanks, as always, for being here. Do me a favour? If you find my writing or my teaching valuable, would you take a moment to tell other photographers in your life? This is my life’s work and it means the world to me but it’s the people that make it possible (and so rewarding). Please feel free to share my articles and videos in any way that makes sense to you. Just point people to my blog here at davidduchemin.com or if you like the convenience of getting these articles by email and think your friends would too, just point them to MyContactSheet.com

I hope you enjoy the video.

For the Love of the Photograph,
David