Finding The Mood in a Scene

We capture a lot of moments on our cameras: parties, weddings, family reunions, and many others. But how do you capture that feeling at the moment? Why do some photos have a sense of mood while others don’t?

Find that Mood

Photography is great art, but it is often hard to capture the mood in a scene. Yes, you can find some cool things to photograph, but you can find some things that are completely wrong most of the time because the lighting does not fit the story. Moods, emotions, and feelings are essential elements of a photograph. It is vital to capture these in your photographs by paying attention to the environment and the people and objects in it. And if this is all going to happen naturally, you really need to be in the right mood for it.

Finding the mood in a scene is something that is often overlooked amidst the action in a photograph. As humans, we tend to be very aware of the emotion in a scene, but we often forget to appreciate the setting behind it. Often, the actions in a shot are just a part of a bigger scene around them.

Moods in a scene can be a tricky thing. They are much more than just an atmosphere, and as a photographer, you have to find them and capture them in a photograph. They are integral to the success of a photograph and finding the perfect mood can be an art in itself. And as you know, often the most important part of a portrait is the person. Your subject is the focus of every shot, and how you communicate with them is one of the most important aspects to success.

Capturing the Mood

Finding the mood in a scene could not be easier. You pick up a camera and point it the way you want to shoot. And, yet this is the most difficult part of the job and the part that most people get wrong. You can’t simply snap a shot and call it a day. You must pay attention to the details.

Here are a few tips on how to find the mood in a scene:

• As you’re shooting your images, try to frame the subject in a way that suits the scene, rather than being overly concerned with composition.
• You can always move your subject closer or farther from the camera, but it’s harder to move the scene closer or farther from the subject.
• When focusing on a subject, try to keep your eyes locked on that subject and not on the camera.

When shooting a new photo, set up the composition. The best way to find the mood is to see what is happening in the scene. If you look at your shot, you may see something that is not quite right and bring it out with a little creative editing. Your shot may be colorful, but it doesn’t look as vibrant as it should. Or the composition may be good, but the colors don’t feel right. Either way, you can fix it in the editing and make the shot look even better.

Some Tidbits About Mood

There are many times when we take a photograph of something, and the resulting image doesn’t quite reflect our original perception of what we saw. One reason this happens has to do with how our brains process images and the way our brains process memories. We have a tendency to see things that way at first, based on the information at the time.

Then, as time passes, we either revisit the scene and remember the true feelings we had at the time or, if we never revisited the scene, the images stay in our subconscious where they influence our mood. The result is that we construct a memory, and then our perception changes.