 Have you heard of the squint method? This is a unique approach to taking photographs that will help you and other photographers of any skill level find secret images and create stunning compositions. Because you don't need to buy any equipment you are going to start to see the benefits of the squint method in your images this weekend. How's that? Welcome back to the photographic eye where I help photographers like you create great photos. I used to get so frustrated when trying to take photos because wherever I looked I was struggling to see what other photographers were seeing. Like you know the photo is there but where is it? Then one day one of my lecturers at photo school was talking to me about how to remove distracting elements from a print by squinting your eyes and I started to use this method. Not just in the dark room but also when out there actually taking photos. Almost immediately my images became far stronger, less ordinary, had far more impact and to help you on your journey to creating more remarkable photographs I'm going to show you how to use the squint method which will radically improve your images by using it to find those secret photos to create strong compositions and to give your images that impact and that arrestingness that stops people in their tracks so they're forced to look at your photos. You're going to create wonderful images and it all starts with literally just squinting your eyes. So all that you are doing is seeing the world out of focus. It is that simple. To begin with we're going to find those secret photos. Where are they hiding? Think about the last time you were with a group of photographers and you went somewhere and you were taking photos and you just couldn't find anything like you were just taking pictures in the hope of coming across a great image but next time what I'd like you to do is actually just step back take a moment when you first get there to squint your eyes to see the world as a mesh mesh of indistinct shapes because that within those shapes are going to be the clues of the places that you can mine for the amazing photographs and they're not obvious places either which makes your images start to become far more remarkable Once you have found those areas to consider to start mining then you're going to start using that method again squinting once again to distill down the scene into its very elements Think about when they take water and barley and all that sort of stuff and they make whiskey from it you're doing the same thing you're taking very average elements and distilling them through the squint method into an amazing photograph that people are just going to go wow like how did you find that? so that's when you are looking and you're squinting you're seeing what sort of options are available to you within this thing that you have seen you know what is it offering up that the casual viewer the bypass you know the standard buys sort of person is missing because you're now starting to see it with a photographic eye and of course isn't that the irony of the thing is to see with more focus we need to see with more indistinctness the paradox is not lost on me as you do this you are going to start seeing shapes and form and texture and this is what you're going to start using within creating a very strong composition to take your photograph to the next level you can use this technique in any situation in portraiture, in landscape, in street photography wherever it does not matter next time you're out there just squint you may feel a bit silly but don't we all hey you know I feel silly all the time right but give it a try see what happens with your images how it unlocks the door to seeing the potential that's all around you another way that you can employ using the squint method to improve your images is by you know honing in on composition with it as you've been squinting all these things right then there's going to be shapes coming out and I'm a big believer that we should photograph shapes and not things especially when it comes to composition so look at this photograph that I took in a studio a little while back when we blur it can you start to see compositional elements leading lines framing and what have you come out of the image because we're not thinking of the image anymore as a person but as an indistinct collection of shapes and in this case of light and dark shapes this is a such an overlooked thing within composition that you may be familiar with the basics you know leading lines rules of thirds symmetry that sort of arrangement when you start blurring your eyes you're going to see the world in not just indistinct shapes but indistinct light and shade and that will give you an idea about how these things can all be put together to further your image to make it more impactful Alex Webb is a master at doing this as you look at these photographs think about how different it would be if he was not aware of the interplay between the light and the shade in these photographs this is what makes these images this interplay and it's a lot easier to see when you are blurring your eyes and you are not having to worry about all the extraneous stuff that is interfering with what you're looking at you can go out there today next time you're wondering I'll just blur your eyes try not to fall over if you're walking about and see the light and the shade that is all around you that's what gives your photographs a voice it makes the musical light and shade and shadow is such an overlooked aspect of photography that is your secret weapon which you are now able to use now I mentioned about using shadow because we're going to talk about colour colour can be a very tricky thing I'm not a big fan of colour theory and it makes my head hurt and I'm sure it probably does a lot of you as well but it is an important thing we need to use it so when we are blurring our eyes we not only see the light and the shade but also we stop seeing what colours are dominant in the frame you know the reds, the blues, the greens and if we're in the UK right now all those interesting browns and when you've put them together with the shade an interesting thing happens first of all you can use colour as a compositional element by drawing the eye to various things you can make the colours brighter and more vivid look at these Pete Turner images the colours are vivid and strong because they are contrasted with dark things if you're interested about learning more how these sorts of aspects work together I'm going to link to a video at the end of this that talks in more depth about composition and specifically colour in the modern world we really we are blessed that we have on one hand the ability to reach millions of people with our photographs but on the other hand we're also competing against millions of other photos so we need ways to arrest somebody's eye to draw them into the image to get them to stop scrolling to get them to pause when they're walking through a gallery and the squint method will help you do this absolutely because you are going to learn a very important lesson about an image and that is when it's indistinct does it still hold together does it still make a bit of sense I'm not talking about the ideas of really depth like story and meaning here but I'm talking about if the casual observer just walked past and was just scrolling could their eye look at it and go oh that's something interesting because immediately on the surface they can grab hold of it they can put their visual hooks into it or you're putting your visual hooks into them and saying look spend a moment looking at my photograph so employ this technique now you can do this when you are about to take the photograph either you sort of squint and say does this still make a little bit of sense if I am now squinting at it or if you're like me and you have really bad eyesight just take a picture, look at the back of the screen and look at it here where it's completely blurry and see what happens does the picture still hold together at a very basic level if it does that's a clue that your composition is working great that's fantastic, it also means that you're going to stand for a better chance of standing out in this crowd of people who were just constantly bombarding us with photographs and saying look at me, look at me, look at me but you now know the secret to stopping their screening, they're screening they're infinite scrolling if you are struggling with using framing in your images this is where you have elements in the foreground that kind of frame within the frame you see it a lot in Alex Webb's work and there's some other examples I'm going to put up on the screen for you here now it's a wonderful technique there's a lot of depth to your images and certainly takes them to being more remarkable because they've gone a little bit beyond the obvious but it is a tricky thing because you're trying to get to grips with it what you can do is close one eye and do this thing you know when you see those film directors they hold up a loop to their eye they're framing the shot you're doing a similar thing you are walking around squinting like this looking to see if you can include other elements in the foreground that will be out of focus possibly that are going to enhance the scene and that's an important thing I want you to bear in mind is enhancing the scene everything within your photograph that you have put together so carefully needs to enhance the image not ruin it there's how many photos how many photos have we seen at critique sessions that have been otherwise great images but spoiled by the fact that there's a little errant thing just creeping in that shouldn't be there that if you've done the squint test if you've done all of these things if you've gone through the process of creating and crafting an image they wouldn't be there distracting from everything else that you've worked so hard to put together in such a wonderful way so ask yourself before you press the shutter say is there anything in this image that is ruining it think about distracting highlights all those sort of things a street at night with all the neon the neon's great but are there when you blur your eyes other elements that are distracting from the neon think about it that way because we so often overlook the things that are always obvious and always there thank you ever so much for watching this video I really hope that you enjoy it and if you have I've got a link to a video here about composition which I know you're going to be able to use to take your images to the next level thank you once again ever so much for watching and I'll see you again soon