What Makes Your Images Work?

I’ve got a question for you. Do you know how your photographs work? Not your cameras, you know how to focus and expose and use enough of the other buttons that you can mostly make it do what you want, but do you know how your images work? A still image is a lot of moving parts (metaphorically speaking). Sure you need to focus on your subject, but how much focus do you want? I mean, do you want just the subject or do you want the background as well, and how much? And how will either choice affect how the photograph feels? I have the same question about shutter speed. Any scene can be properly exposed more than a dozen ways but which combination gives you the shutter speed that feels right and does what you want it to do? A photograph isn’t taken. It’s made. Constructed, even. And the photographer that has done the work to think about this will be a stronger photographer. It’s all about layers and the combinations of those layers are almost infinite. Where do you put the camera? What…