There’s a joke on Reddit; it says that in order to have a good image, you need to shoot with Portra, have a beautiful woman, and shoot with a Leica. It’s true, those images gain a lot of attention. But it’s very fleeting and it leads to people creating the same photographs over and over again. We don’t all need to be the same photographer; and you’re not vying for the attention economy. Photography is instead about creating meaningful work — and there’s more meaning in your work when you reach for higher fruit. So how do you get people staring at your images?
Composition
First, it has to do with composition. If you’re shooting images for social media, square or vertical format images work best. But no matter what, and despite what so many tutorials say on the web, you need to break a rule. Truly, I recommend that everyone center their subject and have it take up the areas of the intersecting points in the rule of thirds.
This makes the subject of your photograph take up more real estate space in the image and therefore more of what the person looking at your image is seeing.
So to make that image, get in close. That doesn’t necessarily mean zooming with your feet, but instead, it means getting so close that you can effectively tell a story.
Effective Subject Matter and Appealing to Emotions
Of course, it also matters that what you’re photographing can rouse emotional responses from someone. It doesn’t always need to be shock value or appeal to someone’s carnal sides. Instead, it can really just be a genuine moment.
Here’s a list of emotions that can work:
- Happiness: photograph something that’s heartwarming and wholesome yet puts a smile on someone’s face
- Shock value: shocking things often make people stare
- Funny: humor is a great way to get people interacting with your images
- Beauty: beauty doesn’t have to involve taking photographs of women and objectifying them for the attention economy
- Love: Public displays of affection often make us feel like we’re yearning for something more in life
Moments like these are super effective for us to capture and it means that your work doesn’t look like everyone else’s. Making photographs that only appeal to social media and platform algorithms makes your work look dated.
What the Human Eye Can’t See
The best way to make images that people stare at, however, is to make photographs that the human eye can’t see easily. That means that you’re not necessarily capturing a moment, but creating it instead. This can involve using flash or other techniques.
Photographing moments that aren’t visible to human eyes and that have to be done through specific and creative techniques are a great way to get people to stare at your photographs. Of course, this means that you need to stop capturing and start creating. You have to think about the final image before you step into post-production. And ideally, you might not even need to do any post-production at all. If you can make these photographs happen fully in-camera, then you’re much more in tune with the creative process and how you’re working with your subject matter.