What creates the mood of an image?

Colour? Tonality? Shapes? Tension between elements? Contrasting of areas of texture and plainness? Narrative? Memory? Depth of field? Perspective? Detail – or lack thereof?.. and heaps more I can’t think of at present. 🙂

Choose a few photos of your own, and firstly write down the ‘mood’ of the image; then see if you can determine which elements contribute to that mood. Write notes on how these elements contribute to the mood of the image.

Doing this exercise then helps develop your repertoire of skills to use when you may find yourself up against a wall not being able to create the ‘mood’ in an image that you want. You will then have the skills and tools to be able to look at the contributing elements and play and alter them to create the mood you want to express in your image.