How To Look At Photographs

How To Look At Photographs

by William Lulow

Everybody is taking digital pictures these days but the prevalence of iPhone users and digital point-and-shoot cameras has made looking at photographs a lot harder. I have friends who want me to look at their pictures and then hand me a small camera with a small LCD and expect me to examine their efforts. Others want me to look at their vacation photos and then call them up on their iPads or cameras. There is almost nothing as frustrating as looking at someone’s collection of 548 vacation pictures on a small camera or an iPad. This also means, thumbing or swiping through all of the mistakes as well as some good pictures.

This is not what I call looking at photographs. This is merely scanning the take! I submit to you that the intent of the act of photographing is to produce something of lasting value that can be appreciated from afar, if necessary, as well as studied up close and personal. This means that a “hard copy” print must be produced! It is almost impossible to examine an image on any device closely. As a matter of fact, I often have to enlarge images on my camera’s LCD just to check for sharpness. This is tantamount to someone in the days of film, handing you a stack of contact sheets and asking you to evaluate their work! Don’t get me wrong. There is something to be said for examining contact sheets when you are looking for development of a photographic idea. But not when you are asked to comment on one particular image. 

Call me old fashioned, but photography’s intent from the very beginning was to make a lasting image that would withstand the test of time. One had to make an archival print that would not fade or yellow with age, and thus preserve a moment in time that could be enjoyed by countless generations.

When I do a portrait session, I always make at least one print to give to the customer. I think it is important for them to leave the studio with something tangible, not just a disc with so many computer files. So, I make an effort to give a good print and I have built the cost of this into my business model.

When I go on vacation, I edit my images to try to come up with a dozen or so really stunning landscapes and not just images of me or my wife standing in front of some famous landmark. I am also very careful to put only the best images from whatever job I am doing up on my website. I try to put some thought into the process from the time I take out my camera to the moment that I’ve edited, cropped, adjusted and printed the image. But, a print is my ultimate goal. And, I am always thinking about large, perhaps 16×20” prints as well.

There are other ways of showing off your photographs. There are quite a few companies these days (Shutterfly, Snapfish, to name two), that will print books, posters, prints, collages and the like for very reasonable costs. These can be shown around the house or just left on a coffee table for people to leaf through at odd moments. To me, this is the way photographs should be enjoyed.

Here are a couple from a recent trip:

Little Rock, Arkansas

Beale Street, Memphis, Tennessee

Clarksdale, Mississippi

These are panoramas and they take some thought to compose when you are shooting. There is a specific technique to doing them. I am always thinking about how I can make a scene a bit more interesting as well as show more of where I happen to set up my camera. 

So the object of any thoughtful photography session should really be a print. Prints should encompass the total tonal range, especially in black & white, from pure white to dead black. In color, they should be bold enough to attract attention. The images should be sharp where they are supposed to be, (the main subject), and well composed in a way that leads a viewer’s eye into the frame. They should be viewable from a distance as well as up close. 

The way to look at photographs takes time. They should be studied and examined for all the points mentioned and evaluated based on how they measure up to them.