Week One: Visual Cues
This week, I’m starting a new series…
A Composition Technique Series!
Here’s how this is going to work. Every Saturday I will post a composition technique on my Instagram and blog. After reading about it, you can have the chance to try it out yourself and send me one of your photos using the weekly technique. I will post your photo on my story and give you a shoutout.
So without further ado, this weeks composition post is all about visual cues!
What are visual cues?
The reason I chose visual cues to be the first composition technique is because it is a very broad topic that often goes hand in hand with the other techniques. Essentially, a visual cue is a sensory detail or cue that indicates something to the viewer. These elements can indicate a certain theme of a photo, explain the ingredients in the food, or help show which part of the photo is the main subject.
How to use visual cues?
I’m sure there are many, many ways that visual cues can be used in a photo, but these are the top three ways that I usually implement them:
Themes- Visual cues can be used to convey a specific theme and story telling element that the photographer wants to show the viewers. Themes can be anything from “Nature” to “Macro” to “Elegant”. Depending on the theme, you will choose visual cues such as props, backdrops, and ingredients to express this theme. For instance, if I chose an elegant theme for my photo, I would chose delicate plates, small desserts that you would have at a tea party, the colours would be light and I could incorporate a bit of pink into the scene. Each of these choices can help communicate to the viewer what the theme of the photo is.
Leading Lines- Leading lines are lines created by props in the scene that direct the viewer’s eye to certain places in the photograph. This can be forks, napkins, baking pans, the handles on mugs, flowers, and basically anything that your eye can follow. These lines can also be used in drip and drizzle shots. The drizzle acts as a line leading your eye directly to the main subject. Try this exercise, look at the photo below and pay attention to where your eyes travel first. Do they move straight to the main subject in the centre? Do they follow any props around the side of the photo? Of course, leading lines don’t need to be used in every single photo. If you have a fork facing in the opposite direction that doesn’t mean you have a bad photo, but this is just a technique to learn and use as a guide, not a rule. As photographers, our goal is to direct the eye to our main subject, and by using leading lines, this visual cue can help enforce the idea that the product in the centre is the most important element.
See how the maple syrup directs your eye to the waffles? And the fork is facing the front of the scene, making sure that your eyes don’t wander away from this stack of waffles.
Ingredients- Sometimes, it’s hard to tell what ingredients are inside of a specific food after it’s been baked or packaged. Using ingredients in photographs is such an important detail to include that I’m pretty sure I use this technique in every photo that I take. This can look like sprinkling a few crumbs from the crust of a pie on the table, or placing berries and chocolate on a plate on the side of the scene. When I take photos of the new ice cream flavours for Four All Ice Cream, I ALWAYS have ingredients on the side to represent what type of ice cream I am photographing. That way, someone can look at the photo and instantly know that “that’s honey lemon ice cream” or “that’s caramel chocolate chip ice cream”.
Why are visual cues important?
Visual cues trigger the viewer’s senses, helping them visualize the taste, smell, and look, as if it was sitting directly in front of them. These cues will then tell their brain, “We need to eat that!”
If you have any questions, let me know in the comments below. I can’t wait to see your photos! And if you enjoyed learning about visual cues, check back next Saturday to learn another composition technique!