Exploring the Subject

There may be more to a scene than the first thing you see. This applies as much to different views of a building or landscape as it does to an event involving people engaged in some activity. Human nature being what it is, however, once we think we’ve caught the essence of the subject and have a few good shots in the can, it is very tempting to call it a day and move on. This isn’t necessarily laziness, more like complacency. Paradoxically, the better the shot you feel you’ve just taken, the less it’s likely that you’ll want to hang around. But you may be missing out.

There are two ways of exploring further. One is to examine the situation, looking for other things going on or different view points. The other is to explore with your camera techniques, seeing how the same thing looks with a different treatment, such as a change of focal length or a variation in lighting. The underlying principle is that there is almost always something new to discover. You may have a good reason for moving on – there might be taken a short distance away – but if not, try and exhaust the possibilities of the subject that you started with.

Of course, at some point you do have to stop.

Every scene and every situation has different aspects, and one of the basic skills for any kind of reportage photography is to cover the subject as thoroughly as possible.