If we're familiar with graphic design, we might think photography is nothing like graphic design.
However, although we may not use the same tools or methods, the result is the same: we're visual communicators who express themselves two-dimensionally.
Another thing we have in common with graphic designers is that we do layout.
Specifically, we lay out our photograph's design within its frame.
The recording of light that results in our photograph includes basic stuff like shape, color, form, line movement, and tonality in the layout.
There's also the light we work with, which is transient unless we work in a studio.
We have some
control over things and some things we don't, and we usually don't control most of the light we work with.
The materials, tools, and methods of photographers' work are unique to photography.
I hear many people in the creative industry mischaracterize photographers as nothing more than button pushers.
I can see why they might call photographers that if they work in automatic exposure mode, but when I hear that, I remind them there is the framing and content part that's gotta get done even in automatic exposure mode.
When it comes to framing and content, we're doing something complex in terms of the visual layout of the various and changing three-dimensional objects within our camera's frame while usually working with unpredictable light sources as our raw material as our content.
The part we're missing by working in automatic exposure mode instead of manual exposure mode is that we don't get to control aperture, shutter speed, ISO, focusing modes, focusing areas, white balance, I could go on, but we get to control everything except the natural light or light we have available to us.
But that still doesn't make those who work in automatic exposure mode button pushers.
But all that work ends in the result of visual intentional communication; this is why it's essential to take a moment to understand what we're trying to communicate.
The next part is
how do we best communicate what we wanna communicate using our camera.
Automatic exposure is a good start, but nothing beats manual exposure mode if we wanna to go deep in our communication.