Photographing with Intent

If there is one attribute that has the pow­er to trans­form your pho­tog­ra­phy, it is intent. Intent when mak­ing the pho­to­graph and intent when edit­ing it.

Many pho­tog­ra­phers spend years improv­ing their tech­ni­cal skills. They learn about expo­sure, depth of field, fil­ters, sharp­ness and post-pro­cess­ing. These skills mat­ter as they give us the tools to work with pre­ci­sion and con­fi­dence and realise the final image. But tech­ni­cal com­pe­tence alone does not nec­es­sar­i­ly lead to stronger photographs.

Tech­ni­cal knowl­edge tells us how to make an image. Intent tells us why we are mak­ing it. With­out intent, pho­tog­ra­phy can become a sequence of tech­ni­cal actions car­ried out with­out a clear objec­tive. With intent, those same actions become pur­pose­ful deci­sions, each one help­ing to shape the final image. Pho­tog­ra­phers improve because they want to make bet­ter pho­tographs. Bet­ter pho­tographs are those where the photographer’s intent is clear­ly artic­u­lat­ed, well-con­struct­ed and suc­cess­ful­ly realised.

From pre­vi­su­al­i­sa­tion to intent

The idea that pho­tog­ra­phers should have a sense of the final pho­to­graph before press­ing the shut­ter is not new. The con­cept of pre­vi­su­al­i­sa­tion has been part of pho­to­graph­ic think­ing for many decades and is often asso­ci­at­ed with Ansel Adams.

Pre­vi­su­al­i­sa­tion is com­mon­ly described as the abil­i­ty to imag­ine the fin­ished pho­to­graph before it is tak­en. Adams often spoke of see­ing the final print in his mind before expos­ing the neg­a­tive. In his well-known anal­o­gy, the neg­a­tive was the score and the print the performance.

It remains a pow­er­ful idea. For many pho­tog­ra­phers, how­ev­er, pre­vi­su­al­i­sa­tion is often inter­pret­ed as a sin­gle moment of imag­i­na­tion. You look at the scene, men­tal­ly pic­ture the pho­to­graph, and then take it.

In prac­tice, the process is usu­al­ly more flu­id than that. When work­ing in the land­scape, I often try to imag­ine the image I am mak­ing as a fin­ished print hang­ing on the wall. This sim­ple exer­cise slows me down. It encour­ages a moment of reflec­tion. Is the image strong enough? Does it have the pres­ence to hold atten­tion over time? Is it a visu­al trans­la­tion of how I feel about the landscape?

But over the years, I have come to pre­fer a slight­ly dif­fer­ent word: Intent.

Intent feels more con­sid­ered. It sug­gests pur­pose and direc­tion rather than sim­ply antic­i­pa­tion. It asks not only what the final image might look like, but what the pho­to­graph is about.

Intent often begins before the photograph

Intent does not nec­es­sar­i­ly begin when the cam­era reach­es your eye. Often it forms ear­li­er. Some­times it exists before you even arrive at a loca­tion. You might trav­el to a moun­tain­ous land­scape hop­ing to cap­ture a sense of scale and grandeur. You might vis­it a wood­land with the inten­tion of explor­ing colour, rhythm and struc­ture. At oth­er times, intent forms when you arrive and begin to expe­ri­ence the land­scape. It might be the majesty of moun­tains ris­ing above the val­ley floor. It might be intri­cate pat­terns in sand revealed by the retreat­ing tide or the qui­et resilience of an aged tree hold­ing on against the forces of wind and weath­er. Some­times the dri­ver is more sub­tle. It might sim­ply be the atmos­phere of the place or the qual­i­ty of the light. In its sim­plest form, it may be just the way the place makes you feel.

What­ev­er the source, some­thing cap­tures your atten­tion. Some­thing holds you there for longer than a pass­ing glance. That moment of com­mu­nion is often where intent begins.

You may not define it imme­di­ate­ly in words, but you recog­nise that some­thing about the scene mat­ters or is hold­ing your atten­tion. That recog­ni­tion should start to guide how you pho­to­graph it.

Intent brings clar­i­ty to composition

Once intent begins to form, it influ­ences every deci­sion you make. Com­po­si­tion becomes clear­er. Instead of try­ing to include every­thing in the frame, you begin to sim­pli­fy. The most impor­tant ele­ment in the scene becomes the cen­tre of the pho­to­graph and oth­er ele­ments either sup­port it or are removed. Expo­sure deci­sions become more pur­pose­ful. A dark­er expo­sure may rein­force mood and atmos­phere. A brighter expo­sure may empha­sise open­ness or calm. Choice of aper­ture, focal length and per­spec­tive all begin to serve the same objective.

With­out intent, it is very easy for pho­tographs to become visu­al­ly dis­cor­dant. The frame may con­tain inter­est­ing ele­ments, but with no clear hier­ar­chy. The view­er is unsure where to look or what the pho­to­graph is try­ing to convey.

Intent helps to resolve that uncer­tain­ty. It cre­ates har­mo­ny with­in the frame and estab­lish­es a clear visu­al pri­or­i­ty. Even when view­ers inter­pret the pho­to­graph dif­fer­ent­ly, they can sense that the image has direc­tion and coher­ence. Inter­pre­ta­tions are free for all, but the essence of the pho­to­graph will always be yours.

Intent guides the edit­ing process

The impor­tance of intent does not end when the shut­ter is pressed. In many ways it becomes even more impor­tant dur­ing editing.

One of the most com­mon dif­fi­cul­ties pho­tog­ra­phers encounter when edit­ing is sim­ply know­ing where to begin. Faced with a raw file, they are unsure what they want the pho­to­graph to become. As a result, they begin exper­i­ment­ing with adjust­ments, mov­ing slid­ers around to see what effect they have on the image. Expo­sure is increased and reduced. Shad­ows are lift­ed and then dark­ened again. High­lights might be sup­pressed or enhanced. The process becomes explorato­ry but not nec­es­sar­i­ly pur­pose­ful. Even worse, the results of unin­tend­ed explo­ration can become the foun­da­tions of a final image, where­by the pho­tog­ra­ph­er is not sure if they are pleased with it or not.

The use of pre­sets is anoth­er way to explore the image, and they are applied to see what hap­pens. They appear to give a short­cut to real­is­ing the final image. The prob­lem is that these pre­sets do not ​‘know’ what the intend­ed out­come of the pho­to­graph was as well as the pho­tog­ra­ph­er who took it!

Clear intent changes this com­plete­ly. If you already know what the pho­to­graph is about, the edit­ing path becomes far more obvi­ous. Adjust­ments are made to rein­force the struc­ture and mood that orig­i­nal­ly drew you to the scene. Edit­ing then becomes a process of clar­i­fi­ca­tion rather than experimentation.

Anoth­er chal­lenge pho­tog­ra­phers often face is know­ing when edit­ing is com­plete. With­out intent, this can be dif­fi­cult to judge and often con­clude when the image before you begins to look worse. In short, you have exhaust­ed the adjust­ments that looked appeal­ing. Small adjust­ments con­tin­ue to be made, some­times improv­ing the pho­to­graph and some­times sim­ply chang­ing it. Intent pro­vides a sim­ple answer. The pho­to­graph is fin­ished when it clear­ly com­mu­ni­cates what you set out to show.

Intent does not remove the cre­ative process, but it pro­vides a clear path through it.

A sim­ple habit that changes everything

Devel­op­ing intent begins with a sim­ple habit. Before press­ing the shut­ter, pause for a moment and ask your­self a ques­tion: What am I try­ing to show here? The answer may be straight­for­ward. It might be the dra­ma of a storm over the sea, the del­i­cate pat­tern of frost on grass, or the qui­et per­sis­tence of a tree stand­ing alone in the wind.

Allow that inten­tion to guide your com­po­si­tion and your edit­ing deci­sions lat­er. Over time, this habit becomes instinc­tive. Pho­to­graph­ic deci­sions become clear­er, and the images them­selves become more coherent.

The result is not sim­ply bet­ter pho­tographs. It is a more thought­ful and reward­ing pho­to­graph­ic process. Pho­tog­ra­phy is no longer just about record­ing what is in front of you. It becomes about express­ing what made you stop and pay atten­tion in the first place.