The Big Secret: The Fundamental Problem with Photography

We’ve looked at many composition techniques and a lot of common sense things that people miss when taking photos. And while just following these basic things will make your photos look 99% better, the remaining 1% will help you stand out from the crowd. What really makes a photo look good? To know that, we first have to understand what the fundamental problem is with photography.

The fundamental problem is that the world is 3D, but your photo is 2D. A photo is a two-dimensional representation of a three-dimensional world. The scene you see in front of you might have been breathtaking and may have made you go WOW…but when you took a photo of it—you lost a whole dimension. This is why photos rarely look as good as the scenes in real life. This is the big secret that the pros know (and won’t tell you).

The 3rd dimension is depth. Once you know how to introduce that sense of depth, the visual aesthetics of your photos take on a whole new meaning.

I’d like you to think about it. Tell me—how do you think we can introduce depth in our photos?