This is how photography should work: we see something remarkable, we then shoot that remarkable thing/situation, we show someone else the picture we took, they see the remarkable thing/situation that we saw and they think it’s remarkable too. While this is what should happen, as you may possibly know yourself, things don’t always turn out this way. Sometimes what we thought was remarkable actually isn’t, so no one wants to look at it. On other occasions we have witnessed something remarkable but just haven’t done enough to either show how remarkable it is or to make it clear where in the picture the remarkable element is. Either way, our hopes and dreams get dashed and the people just scroll by our pictures without a second glance.
There are obviously more than a few ways to make a subject stand out, but here I’m going to concentrate on the methods I use most often in my street photography. These are principally about making the most of different types of contrast between the subject and its surroundings. We tend to think of contrast in terms of tones, such as a light thing against a dark background, for example. There are many different types of contrast we can employ that create a visual sensation sufficient to make our viewer look – and look in exactly the right place. When we work these contrasts hard we can back-pedal a little on some of the more obvious ways of making a subject stand out,
