2. Get close and pick a side. Especially with people.

Sometimes I’ll come across a book with genuinely interesting ideas which have been organized in such a baffling manner that I can’t make heads or tails of what the author is getting at. The content may be fine, but I’m left overwhelmed and feeling uneasy. This is normally the result of the author lacking either (a) a clear focus, or (b) a natural order for presenting their thoughts.

Photos are no different — they need focus and flow. Getting close and moving the subject to a side forces you to make deliberate decisions about your focus and framing. It forces you to decide what story you’re trying to tell with the photo.

By getting close, we make the subject of our photos stand out. Not only does the subject take up more of the image, but the background becomes out of focus. The background doesn’t disappear — its presence is still felt — but there is no longer a fight for attention.
By moving the subject of our photo to the side, we create a natural flow throughout the image. There is no uneasiness about where we should look. No feeling of our eyes jumping around the image. No sense of being overwhelmed, worrying that we’re missing something.
Below there are two examples of this. In a 2-dimensional photo, we lose our natural sense of distance and context. The “before” pictures create a sense of uneasiness. This is resolved by moving close and putting the subject of the photo on the side.

Note: When photographing people, this sometimes requires getting almost uncomfortably close. This is especially the case when using a phone camera, which generally have wide-angle lenses. As a rule-of-thumb, get close enough so that the background is out of focus.

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