Daniel Kahneman in Thinking, Fast and Slow, characterises System 1 thinking as being fast, automatic, and effortless. It operates subconsciously and relies on mental shortcuts to make quick decisions. System 1 is adept at handling routine tasks and recognising patterns based on past experiences.
In this article, you'll learn:
System 1—in other words intuition—is acquired by experts through prolonged practice and experience in their domain. This extensive exposure allows them to recognize patterns and make quick, accurate decisions based on a deep understanding. As a designer, applying intuition is akin to having a personal assistant handling the routine tasks while you focus on the bigger picture.
By developing a photography habit you can help nurture and expand your intuition and instincts for basic design principles, freeing up space to grow a more expansive and analytical toolset. Intuition is a formidable feather in your cap and once developed can make tasks that used to demand careful consideration effortless.
How practicing composition can improve intuition
Photography requires a keen sense of composition—the arrangement of elements within a frame. This understanding can apply directly to graphic design, helping you create more visually engaging and balanced work. Principles like the rule of thirds, leading lines, and symmetry are common to both disciplines. Composition is about guiding the viewer’s eye to the most important parts of the image, creating balance, telling a story and evoking emotions.
Over time, as you repeatedly practice the rules and principles of composition, these elements become ingrained, allowing you to apply them effortlessly and instinctively. Practicing composition in photography is something you can do everyday by just walking out side. Every frame is another opportunity to improve and learn.
How to improve your composition
Study the masters
Begin by studying the works of renowned photographers and artists. Analyze their use of composition. Note how they balance elements, use light and shadow, and direct the viewer’s attention. Understanding why certain compositions work helps in internalising these principles.
Practice regularly
Consistent practice is key. Make photography a daily habit. Challenge yourself to take photos in different settings and situations. The more you practice, the more your brain gets used to recognising and applying compositional rules naturally.
Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst
—Henri Cartier-Bresson
Experiment & reflect
Don’t be afraid to experiment. Try breaking the rules and see how it affects your compositions. Reflect on what works and what doesn’t. Over time, you’ll develop a sense of what makes a composition successful or not.
Seek feedback
Share your work with others and seek constructive feedback. Join photography clubs or online communities where you can learn from others’ viewpoints. Feedback helps you see your work from different perspectives.
Be mindful
Mindfulness can significantly enhance your ability to see and compose. Before taking a shot, take a moment to observe the scene carefully. Notice the lines, shapes, and patterns. Think about how you want to frame the shot to tell the story you intend to convey.
The benefits of storytelling
Through the regular practice, photography can teach you to capture and convey emotions, and communicate narratives—skills directly transferable to design. This practice can sharpen your ability to observe and understand visual elements, leading to more compelling and cohesive work. By framing subjects, focusing on key elements, and experimenting with perspectives and compositions, designers can develop a nuanced understanding of how visual elements interact, enriching storytelling and making designs more compelling and emotionally resonant.
Know your subject
It's important to know your subject. To capture the essence and atmosphere of a place, you must first understand what you're photographing. Whether you're shooting street scenes, landscapes, or portraits, the more you know about your subject the more compelling a story you can tell. Prior to shooting, research the background of your subject, its history and culture. If you're photographing people, take the time to get to know them. Building a rapport can lead to more genuine and emotional portraits, allowing you to capture the essence of their story.
Use composition
Use composition to highlight certain aspects of the image or move the viewer's eye around the frame. Use leading lines like s-curves or diagonals to draw the user's eye towards your subject. Contrast, brightness, and faces also draw the viewer’s attention. Shooting in a portrait aspect ratio brings the viewer's attention to the foreground.
Use an appropriate focal length
Lenses with short focal lengths (e.g., 14mm to 35mm) have a wide angle of view, allowing you to capture more of the scene. You can use this to incorporate the background and communicate a sense of place for your subject. Lenses with long focal lengths (e.g., 70mm and beyond) have a narrow angle of view, making distant subjects appear closer and isolate the subject from the background.
Force the viewer to ask questions
What just happened to cause this moment? Why is this person doing what they are doing? What is this person's motive? Capturing a moment in time obfuscates the proceeding and following events so that the viewer is left with only a static image to decipher. Asking questions makes a shot more intriguing and helps a narrative to emerge. Always try and leave something to the viewer's imagination.
Self-imposed limitations
Sometimes, imposing limitations on yourself can spur creativity. You might want to shoot with a fixed focal lens, or in B&W only or you might set yourself a theme. These constraints challenge you to think more laterally about a problem. Working this muscle is directly transferrable to design where we constantly work within constraints imposed on us by clients, brand guidelines or technical limitations. Regular exposure to this kind of problem solving can help to expand your creative toolset.
Final thoughts
Photography trains you to see the world differently, noticing beauty in the mundane. This creative perspective can inspire innovative design and help you think outside the box when solving design challenges.
By combining photography with graphic design, you can develop a more rounded and versatile skill set, enhancing your ability to create impactful and visually engaging work and creating a feedback loop so that improvements in photography impact design skills and improvements in design improve you photography.
