Photography 101: Content in Digital Photography

Even with good techniques and composition, without content digital photography loses its substance. It is important to think of the content when you photograph something.

by Kelly Paal

Even if you feel that you already know what kind of digital photography you like to do, it’s always a good idea to try your talent at different aspects of digital photography.

Pictorial
This is a general term but it applies to any digital photographer who’s goal is simply to create beautiful photos. This breaks down into smaller subsets but the most popular form is landscape and nature digital photography. This is what I do and it’s tempting to go on and on but I will just say that this form of digital photography, to me, is a real art. At least that is goal to create art in photographic form. It is the goal of the digital photographer to use their abilities to capture an image in it’s moment of beauty and simplicity.

Portrait
This can be people and even animals. It also includes wedding photography as well. This is an aspect of digital photography that can be a lot harder than it seems. Not only do you have to know your basic photo composition but you need to understand what makes each person look their best. You must know how to bring out their personality and character in the shot. If you love working with people this may be your field. It’s fun and challenging.

Photojournalism
Now this isn’t just press photography, though that is one aspect of it. It is also documentary photography as well, the latter doesn’t always need an event to occur right in front of you. Either way the purpose is to tell a story. Really good photojournalism shouldn’t need the text below it to tell you what is going on. It should be compelling and storytelling. Composition still plays a part in digital photography, you can’t tell a story if the story can’t be seen. And while these digital photos can be beautiful in their technical aspects they aren’t necessarily beautiful images. The story telling is as important.

Abstract
Probably not as common of a form of digital photography but I’m seeing it more and more. This is usually characterized by extreme close ups of detail of something, so much so that you can’t identify the original subject. But in this case that doesn’t matter since the abstract detail or pattern is the subject of the digital photo. (Color can also be the subject as well.) Basic composition still plays a part, maybe a bigger part in this form of digital photography.


About the Author: Kelly Paal is a freelance nature and landscape photographer, exhibiting nationally and internationally. Recently she started her own business Kelly Paal Photography. She has an educational background in photography, business, and commercial art. She enjoys applying graphic design and photography principles to her web design.