Dear Coilers, after my article about ethics in street photography was chosen as one of the Coil Staff Picks of the week, and their comment was a hint of what I should write about, I had nothing but to continue with the photography series...

In the article I will use mobile phone photos, apart from one, without a try for them to look “good” or “artistic”. I want you to see the difference in “point and shoot” photos

I’ll talk about the way in which photo can highlight details in the world around us.

Most of the pics, of which millions are taken and published each day, are more or less the same. Frames with food ordered in a restaurant, happy family during youngest kids birthday or a person in the front with some world known scene behind which will hopefully bring likes on social media.

(Schoenbrun castle in Vienna, for those who don’t know, in an awful “for social media” photo with my stupid face in front)

You who read my articles want to be different. You want to learn how to take photos which are the same but different so your work would be noticed among zillions of the same pics with the same #hashtags.

(Cut grass looks much more interesting in the second pic, doesnt it?)

The answer is simple. COME CLOSER OR CROP (Which will bring subject closer)!

Details are what we all notice, knowingly or subconsciously but we do. Discovering interesting details makes you happy.

Have you ever wondered why the biggest marketing minds take care of details more than of the first impression? It stays in your mind. Subconscious is bigger deal than you think. (Btw have you known that my graduate thesis in my economics studies was “Internet Marketing”? I know you haven’t but still...)

The first term which crosses photographers mind, when details are topic, is MACRO photography. But as these articles aren’t made for pros but for people who simply love photography and want to be better in taking them, we will skip that macro thing here.

Macro photos are taken with macro lenses (or micro as Nikon calls them) and those are more than what everyday Jane and Joe own, and cost more than they are willing to pay to own, we will stick to photos taken with equipment Jane and Joe have. (In future I’ll cover macro photography without macro lenses but that’s another topic.)

So we have to frame the scene to highlight details and simply crop it.

You have to observe the world arround you and notice things which look appealing. Choose them to be the main subject in the photo and try to frame them the way that when you crop the pic the position of the subject respects the rules of photography.

Too complicated? OK, let us put it in more simple way... the shot we take will contain more than we want to have in final photo. So we have to position the subject the way that when we crop the pic we can position it at the 1/3 of the frame, in the very middle... yet not to overcrop and loose other stuff we want to keep

(Pilgrim from Ghana, one of my dearest portraits, serves fine as an example of cropping to transfer photo from the “atmosphere” portrait into a more personal one)

When cropping the pic we bring subject closer and it is filling the frame so we highlight it that way. Important thing here is to put focus on the subject to isolate it from the backgroud which should be blured (bokeh thing, you know..). Here we have to take the DEPTH OF FIELD in consideration and try to frame the photo the way we dont catch things which are in the same plane with the subject as if we do it, things surrounding the subject in cropped photo will be in focus and the and pic wont look the way we want.