Nine Simple Controls That Change How Photos Feel

Better photos rarely come from a more interesting subject. They come from motion, perspective, camera height, and depth, the controls sitting in front of you that decide how an image feels before anyone thinks about what's in it.

Mark Bergreen walks through nine of these controls, framing them as tools for shaping what a viewer experiences rather than tricks for capturing something rare. Bergreen starts with shutter speed and the choice between freezing a moment and letting it move. A slow shutter turns waterfalls, stars, and crowds into something energetic and alive, and he makes the case that a little blur can read as more honest than a perfectly frozen frame, since your own eyes never freeze motion either. A fast shutter does the opposite, revealing split seconds you can't process in real time, like snowflakes bursting off a snowmobile. The point is to ask, before each shot, whether the scene wants stillness or movement.

Aperture gets the same treatment, reframed away from background blur and toward how much of the story you let people see. Wide apertures like f/1.4, f/1.8, and f/2 isolate a subject against a soft background. Narrow ones like f/8 or f/11 keep the scene sharp and hand the viewer context. Bergreen shoots a variety across the same subject, sometimes blurring everything behind, sometimes keeping it all in focus, and he ties the choice to pre-planning how you want a scene to read. He points to a companion video from Brenda comparing f/1.4 and f/2.8 for anyone who wants to see the difference play out.

Perspective is where the video gets most practical. Moving closer exaggerates depth and makes a photo feel personal, which is part of why wide-angle lenses feel so engaging, they push you to step in. Stepping back does the reverse, folding in the environment and turning a subject into part of a larger, calmer story, which suits travel, landscapes, and environmental portraits. Then there's camera height. Shooting from above simplifies a scene and reveals patterns, the same appeal that makes drone shots hold attention, though a bench or a small hill gets you partway there. Getting low creates power and scale and pulls foreground elements into the frame, since almost nobody walks around seeing the world from ground level.

The technique worth sitting with is his defense of eye level, which most guides treat as the boring default. Bergreen argues it earns its place because it matches how people actually move through the world, so it reads as natural and connects the viewer to the subject's experience. That's a useful principle beyond this one video. Every choice on his list has a "correct" version photographers reach for to look sophisticated, low angles for drama, wide apertures for that creamy background, but the interesting work happens when you match the choice to what the image is trying to say. A recent wave of gear marketing pushes fast primes and high-resolution sensors as the path to better pictures, and this list runs the other direction. It tells you the biggest gains are decisions, not purchases, and that eye level, close, far, high, and low are all valid answers depending on the feeling you're after. Learning when each one fits is the actual craft.

The final three tips cover depth as a stack of layers. Foreground elements like flowers, branches, or rocks pull a viewer into the frame, and getting low brings them out. The middle ground usually holds the main subject, but the strongest images balance all three layers so a photo feels intentional. Background is where Bergreen sees beginners fall down most, since experienced shooters watch it as closely as the subject, killing bright distractions, messy lines, and the classic mistake of an object sticking out of someone's head. Often the fix is a single step to the side.

Bergreen ends where the series began, with awareness over equipment, noting that light, timing, perspective, and depth all cost nothing and work with the camera already in your bag.

Watch the video above to see Bergreen demonstrate all nine controls in action.