To create a good photo means knowing who you are creating it for. This will vary greatly, depending on the type of photography.

You may consider demographic information, such as age, gender, culture, religion, sexuality etc..

When creating film posters, consider the genre of the movie and what audiences may expect from it (e.g. horror, action, romance etc..)

Audiences are also related to when a photo is created. To analyse a historic photograph in-depth, consider how the audience at the time would have responded to it and how audiences may respond now.

Audience can also include the final location of your image. Would you present it to people in an art gallery, café, street art, for a specific individual, online - if so, where? This information will inform what you create and how.

Example: Serena Williams had per portrait photographed to be published in Time Magazine alongside an article on her legacy as one of the greatest female athletes of all time.

Gregory, S. (2022) What Serena Williams Gave the World. URL.

Intention refers to the reason or motivation to capture the image. It can also relate to what you wish your audience to think about or feel in response to your image.  This intention maybe one of the following things:

• Record an event

• Comment on an issue

• Capture a moment in time

• Reflect an artistic idea

• Express a feeling, experience or point of view

• Tell a story

• Propaganda

• Get a reaction from the viewer

Inspiration can be a part of intention but it is included separate to the dot points above as it is an important point. Inspiration could be linked to your intention because you wish to:

• Recreate an inspiration

• Explore similar ideas or meaning

• Use similar techniques 

• Represent similar subjects or styles 

Example: This photo shows inhabitants of Kyiv leaving the city following pre-offensive missile strikes of the Russian armed forces and Belarus in Kyiv, Ukraine. The intention is to capture the quantity of civillians leaving the city and to show how their lives have been disrupted.

Crome, C. (2022) Inhabitants leave Kyiv. URL.

When you plan and make a photograph, there are many things that you use to communicate your intention to your audience. This section includes the elements that you include to produce particular thoughts, feelings or story: the things that are in front of the camera. Examples include:

• Subject, the main part of the image (where your subject is a person, include positions or facial expressions)

• Background (What is the background? Which type of background?) 

• Props & Objects

• Actions that are occurring

• Lighting (direction, time of day, artificial / natural, outside / inside, warm / cool tone)

Example: Metallica' master of puppets includes hands in the sky with strings attached to soldier's gravestones to represent the idea of soldiers not making their own choices but being controlled by the government.

Metallica (1986) Master of Puppets. URL.

Method means the process that you take to make something (for example, in a recipe, the method section tells you what to do with ingredients to cook something). In photography, this relates to the ways that you capture the things in the 'Make' section above: the choices you make behind the camera to convey your intention to your audience. These choices include:

• Camera settings (shutter speed, aperture, ISO)

• Compositional Tools & Colours used

• Angles

• Using a tripod / self timer / remote 

• Anything you thought about or did to set up or capture your photograph

Example: In Joker (2019), the shot of the Joker on the stairs uses leading lines to draw attention to the Joker, while the low angle and fill the frame make him seem important, powerful and scary.

Gleiberman, O. (2018) Why 'Joker' is All of Us. URL.

Editing refers to anything that you do after taking a photo. Digitally, this looks like changes you make in Photoshop or Pixlr. Historically, editing has included lighting adjustments in the dark room, painting on photographs and using methods like collage. When outlining your process for others, you should try to be specific about the actions you have taken to edit your image and which tools you have used. This could include:

• Cropping your image

• Making brightness / contrast / exposure adjustments 

• Using filters to change colours or make pictures black and white

• Using layer masks to cut different parts of images together

• Using text tools to add text to images

Example: This movie poster was developed for the Barbie movie (2023). Editing choices included applying a filter to make the image very pink, her signature colour. The fabrics would have been added by using layer masks as these created contrast and emphasised the subject (Margot Robbie / Barbie).

FontBolt (2023) Barbie 2023 Movie Font. URL.

Evaluating is where you consider how well a photograph or series of work does all of the elements listed above. When you are looking at another photographer's work, you evaluate it from the moment you first look at it. Your brain may be choosing if you like the subject or theme, if the elements seem well arranged or too crowded, if it is too light or too dark. By evaluating the photography of others, you can improve your own. 

In your school tasks, you maybe asked to evaluate your own work and / or process. To evaluate your own work, you should consider how well you used Make, Method and Edit to achieve your Intention and connect to your Audience. To evaluate your process, consider how well you used time management, how you worked with others, how you worked independently, what problems you came across and how you solved them. Identify strengths that you showed and areas you would improve in the future.

Example: This film poster for 'The Dark Knight' is a successful use of compositional tools and lighting to portray Batman as a powerful hero and attract audiences who enjoy superhero films. For example, Batman is placed in the centre and middle of the image with the building in the background creating leading lines that draw the viewer’s eyes to him. This emphasises him as the protagonist of the film. The audience is positioned at a lower angle looking up at him as a towering figure, which draws attention to his power and intimidating nature. Natural light from the ominous, cloudy sky highlights his armour and chest, drawing attention to his strength - a trait frequently associated with superheroes and superhero films.

IMDB(2008) The Dark Knight. URL