Adding a Human Touch To Your Photos

One way to help draw your viewer into an otherwise “plain” image, is to add a human touch. A plain garden shot will be empty of live and of little interest to anyone except the gardener. Add a prop and you suggest there is a story element. In this garden photo, the chairs in the foreground, anchor the image, but it is just a record of the scene.

An un-engaging photo

If a glass of cool drink were on the table, it could suggest that someone has just stepped away. Our viewer would be intrigued and wonder who was there or where did they go?  If you are like me and recognize this after you have visited a place, go back and do it again. The light may be different, you can add touches of life and you can get a completely different image. For the sake of this blog, I’ve added the bottle in post-production. When I have returned to the scene, I’ll take another image with glasses and a jug and perhaps other “props”.

A composite "test" image

Next time, when you are composing an image, look for objects that need to be removed (the lamp I removed in the lower left), also think about what could be added to strengthen a scene.