Your brain is guessing what it sees. All the time. Understanding how vision actually works changed how I approach every portrait session.

After learning about change blindness, mirror neurons, and how our brains process visual information, I realized something. The technical choices I make as a photographer aren't just about aesthetics. They're about communication. About helping someone see themselves differently. This video breaks down the science behind how we see, the practical application behind the camera, and why philosophy matters just as much as f-stops.

Most photography education focuses on the what. Camera settings. Lighting ratios. Posing guides.

This is about the why. Why certain light makes someone feel safe. Why breaking eye contact for two seconds can kill a connection. Why the images clients love most are rarely the ones I think are technically perfect.

I talk about contrast and color temperature, sure. But also about Aristotle's concept of logos, mirror neurons in neuroscience, and what beginner's mind from Zen Buddhism teaches us about staying curious. Because good portrait photography lives at the intersection of all three: science, philosophy, and consistent practice.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

-Why your eyes only focus on a thumbnail-sized area at any moment and your brain constructs everything else based on prediction and past experience

-How contrast, color temperature, and symmetry trigger specific emotional responses because of millions of years of human evolution

-The difference between knowing the technical rules and understanding which rule serves the specific person in front of you right now

-Why mirror neurons mean your subject unconsciously picks up every bit of stress or disconnection you bring into the session

-How treating photography as a practice instead of a skill you master once keeps you learning from every single session

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Website: https://stonetreecreative.com

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Hey, there.

I wanted to go live today because I've been kicking around this concept for a while, and I wrote some stuff out, and I wanted to give you my thoughts.

It's about brain science.

Now, it might sound a little bit weird at first, but I want you to stick with me.

Understanding the science behind how we see and how our brains process images is pretty important.

Over time, that's made me a better photographer because I focus on connection above everything else.

Now, most folks don't talk about this part, but it matters way more to me than you think.

Here's the thing about vision that blew my mind when I first learned about it.

Your brain is guessing all the time.

It goes like this.

Light hits your retina.

Your.

Your brain takes that information and then fills in the gaps.

It makes assumptions about what you're seeing based on patterns that you've learned over your entire life.

So shadows and colors and shapes.

Your brain is constantly interpreting and deciding how you should feel about what it is you're looking at.

But here's where it gets really cool.

Your eyes can only focus on a tiny area at any given moment.

So let's say you focus on the size of your thumbnail, kind of out at arm's length.

Well, everything else that you see, your brain is just constructing it, it's predicting it based on all these context clues and past experience.

In fact, there's a phenomenon called change blindness.

And researchers have done experiments where they change major elements of a scene.

They swap out entire objects or colors or move things around.

And people don't even.

Not this, because we're not actually seeing everything.

We're seeing what our brain expects us to see.

So as photographers, we can use this, right?

Let's take the composition of an image.

When I'm composing a shot, I'm thinking about where someone's eye is going to land first, where it will travel next.

Because the brain itself follows contrast.

It follows lines.

It's drawn to the brightest part of an image, which in portraits, is usually faces and especially eyes.

So understanding this concept means I can guide someone through an image in a specific order, telling a story with where their attention goes.

All right, so what about depth of field?

Now, when I shoot a portrait with a shallow depth of field, I'm working with how the brain processes visual information.

Sharp areas, like eyes really demand attention, but soft areas recede.

The brain, it reads all this as spatial relationships and importance.

I'm literally telling the viewer's brain what matters most in the frame.

Color perception's another wild thing.

The Same color can look completely different depending on what's around it.

And your brain then adjusts for context.

I know you've probably seen them out there.

There's all these optical illusions where you have two squares and they're the exact same shade of gray, but one looks light and one looks dark because of the surrounding colors.

So in the studio, this means the background color I use changes how skin tones are perceived.

Warmer backgrounds make skin look cooler by comparison.

A cooler background makes warm tones pop.

Now, I'm not changing the light on the person.

I'm changing what the brain does with that information.

When I learned all of this, it really changed how I approach my sessions.

If I can understand how someone's brain is going to process the image I'm making, then I can make choices that help them feel something specific, like warmth or safety or confidence, whatever it is that they need to see in themselves.

So what does this actually mean when you put a camera in your hand?

Let's start with contrast.

High contrast images, like strong blacks or bright highlights, they create visual tension.

Your brain has to work harder to process them.

That tension then creates energy and drama, and it demands attention.

I live in this world, and it's my favorite style to shoot when someone gives me free rein to do whatever I want.

But low contrast images feel softer.

They feel gentler, or they're easier for the brain to process.

So that reads as calm and peaceful.

That said, neither one is better.

They just communicate different things.

For example, I use lower contrast a lot of the time.

The beginning of a personal branding or a headshot session.

Because when someone comes into the studio and they're nervous or they're unsure of themselves, I'm probably going to light them with softer contrast and create much more gradual transitions from light to shadow.

Their brain processes this as safety or approachability.

It helps them relax into the session.

Now, there's plenty of time for us to play and explore later.

But if someone wants to communicate authority or strength or presence, what am I going to do?

I'm tossing on some reflectors and bringing in harder light to define the shadows.

Their brain and the viewer's brain reads this as confidence.

Now, color temperature works kind of the same way.

Our brains have spent millions of years associating certain colors with certain feelings.

So warm light equals things like golden hour or a fire or candlelight, things that are tied to safety and community times when humans gathered together and just rested.

Now, cool light, like overcast skies or shade, or like evening twilight, that creates distance, not in a bad way, just Different.

It's more introspective or quieter.

There's tons of stuff on color theory out there.

Kate Woodman has a great course on that.

But I use color theory all the time in post processing.

If I want an image to feel intimate and connected, I'm going to push the color temperature warmer.

If I want it to feel darker or more dramatic, I'm going to make it cooler.

And here's the thing.

Most people can't articulate why an image makes them feel a certain way.

They just feel it.

And that's the science working underneath the surface.

Symmetry's another big one.

The human brain is obsessed with symmetry.

Faces that are symmetrical are perceived, perceived as more attractive.

Buildings that are more symmetrical feel more stable.

If we go way back to, like, caveman days, symmetry in nature usually meant health.

A symmetrical animal was well fed and disease free, good eaten.

A symmetrical tree had good access to water and resources.

So those who paid attention to symmetry survived longer.

So when I compose an image, I try to stay aware of this.

Sometimes I use symmetry deliberately.

I create a sense of order and calm.

But other times, I break it intentionally because asymmetry, to me, is more interesting and creates a little bit more visual tension.

I love asymmetry.

A common symmetrical thing are leading lines.

And that always works because of how the brain processes visual information.

Your eyes follow lines like roads and fences and shadows, even the direction that someone is looking.

The brain wants to finish the journey.

It wants to see where that line goes.

So I use this, like when I'm shooting landscape and environmental portraits.

I use it all the time.

If I put my client at the end of a natural line, like a row of windows or a row of trees, even the line created by the light across the floor, well, the viewer's eye is going to travel that path and land on the person.

So it feels intentional and purposeful.

And like I said before, the brain also prioritizes faces, especially eyes.

There's a specific part of the brain called the fusiform face area that's dedicated entirely to recognizing faces.

So when you look at an image with a person in it, your brain goes there first every single time.

So if I want to make sure someone feels connected to the image, I make sure that the eyes are sharp and in focus most of the time and well lit and bright, because that's where the viewer's brain is going to land.

And that's where the emotional connection happens.

Hell, even pupil dilation matters.

So think about it.

Wider pupils are perceived as more attractive and trustworthy.

Why because think about it in low light, say, an intimate moment, our pupils naturally dilate.

The brain associates this with closeness and vulnerability.

So if you think about all of this, these aren't just technical details.

They're tools that we can use for communication.

When you understand the why behind them, you stop just following rules and start making better, more intentional choices.

Now, I know a lot of you might be thinking, this sounds like you're turning art into a formula.

And since I naturally gravitate towards science because it gives my brain the order that it craves, I originally thought the same thing that the.

The artist in me was worried that understanding the science would somehow make photography mechanical.

Like, I'd lose the magic if I knew how the trick worked.

But I gotta tell you, the opposite thing happened.

There was a guy a long time ago that wore a sheet and spent a lot of time thinking about how we know things.

His name was Aristotle.

Now, he had this concept called logos, which, loosely translated, means logic and structure behind how the world works.

But he also understood that knowledge without wisdom is useless.

You can know all the rules and still create nothing worth looking at.

It's like 95% of the Internet.

So the science gives me a vocabulary and a way to understand why certain choices work and others don't.

But how do I get the wisdom?

Well, that comes from a completely different place.

When someone walks into my studio, I'm not running through a mental checklist of brain science.

I do my best to stay present with them.

I listen to what they're not saying.

I watch how they hold themselves.

I notice what makes them light up or shut down.

It's way easier than you think, because all that technical knowledge becomes instinct over time or muscle memory.

I see the light falling across someone's face, and I know without thinking about it that this angle is going to make them look closed off, but this other angle is going to make them open up.

That this color temperature will make them feel seen, but that other one will create mystery.

And the rules give me options.

But the art.

The art is knowing which option serves this specific person in this specific moment.

Here's an example.

I had a client a couple of months ago, really successful guy.

He was a CFO of a company out west.

So I drive to his house for headshots.

And like most people that aren't used to being in front of the camera, he was wound super tight.

You could feel it.

He was talking real fast.

His shoulders were up.

He kept, like, clenching his hands the whole night.

I had a couple of lights with me And I could have lit him in that hard light to make high contrast and make them look powerful.

That's what the science would suggest for someone wanting to project strength.

But I didn't do that, because when I asked him about his business, his whole face changed.

He got animated, talking about why he loves what he does and how he built his team by treating people well, how we want clients to feel welcome and not intimidated.

So I lit him with this soft and warm light and made sure it had low contrast.

I brought the shadows up and made the light feel really inviting.

And the headshot that we ended up using, he's smiling, but he's really smiling.

He's not using that, like, pasted corporate smile.

And it's all because we spent a few minutes talking about what actually mattered to him.

And when I finally got ready to take the shot, he forgot to put all that mental armor back on.

So that's where the philosophy comes in.

The science tells me how to light and how that affects perception, how the brain processes all that visual information.

But the philosophy asks the harder questions.

Why does this person need to be photographed?

What are they afraid of seeing?

What do they need to see instead?

What truth or story am I trying to show them about themselves?

Those questions don't have formulas.

They require paying attention and being curious.

You have to stay open to the possibility that what someone says they want and what they actually need might be two different things.

There's this other old guy named Socrates, and he had this method of asking questions.

It wasn't so much of a method as it was he just kept asking more and more questions until people got to the real answer, underneath the surface stuff.

That's what a good portrait session feels like to me.

I'm not interrogating anyone, but I'm constantly trying to push past all those rehearsed answers that we have.

And I want to find out who they actually are when they become themselves.

The technical knowledge gives me the tools.

The philosophical approach helps me know when and how to use them.

Now, here's something else that took me way too long to figure out.

The energy that I bring into a session determines everything.

There's more neuroscience behind this.

They're called mirror neurons.

Now, these are specialized brain cells that fire both when we do something and when we watch someone else do it.

That's why yawning is contagious and why you get all tense when you watch someone about to get hurt in a skateboarding video.

In a portrait session, this means my subject is unconsciously picking up on every Bit of stress, distraction, or whatever it is that I'm feeling.

So if I'm rushing because I'm running late, they feel rushed.

If I'm distracted thinking about the next session, they feel like they don't matter.

And if I'm trying to project confidence, but I'm actually kind of a mess inside, well, they're.

They sense the gap between what I'm saying and what I'm feeling.

So the mirror works both ways.

I'll give you a practical example.

When I first started shooting, I had this habit of looking at my screen after every few shots.

They call it chimping.

You know, I was just looking down, make sure the exposure was good, the composition was working, whatever.

It seemed harmless, right?

But I noticed that when I did that, the client would shift a little bit.

Maybe they pull back a little bit and close off.

And I always thought it was a problem with them.

And it took me longer than I should have to connect the dots.

Every time I looked down on my screen, I broke eye contact, which in turn broke the connection that I had been trying to build.

And their nervous system registered that as rejection and me pulling away, so they pulled away, too.

It's crazy how it works.

So now I do my best to dial in my exposure before we even start.

I trust my lights and my experience, and I try to keep my attention focused on the person in front of me.

Because here's what I've learned, and I'm going to borrow a quote from Maya Angelou.

People don't remember the technical perfection of a shoot.

They remember how they felt.

And if they felt seen, they'll love the images.

If they felt judged or rushed, or if they were just some other client, then no amount of perfect lighting is going to fix that.

And this is where being a student of yourself becomes essential, because you have to do it in that ruthlessly honest, what am I actually feeling right now?

Kind of way.

So before every session, I do this quick internal check.

Am I present or am I somewhere else?

Am I curious about this person, or am I just going through the motions and phoning it in?

Am I bringing something into this room that shouldn't be here?

If I'm carrying stress from some other part of the business, I mean it.

I acknowledge it.

But then I put it aside for the next couple of hours.

If I'm tired, I don't pretend that I'm not.

I just make sure it doesn't turn into impatience.

The more honest I am with myself, the more capacity I have to be present for someone else.

There's also this thing that happens when you photograph people for years and years and years.

You start to see patterns and trends in all of these people.

The way someone holds their shoulders tells you if they feel safe or defensive.

The way they make eye contact or don't tells you how comfortable they are being seen.

The questions they ask tell you what they're worried about.

I've learned to pay attention to all of it, because you have to.

The session is never about the camera or the gear.

Those are just tools.

The session's about creating a space where someone can drop their guard long enough for me to show them who they really are when they take off this mask.

And I can't create that space if I'm not willing to show up honestly myself.

So the mirror effect means my subject will only go as deep as I'm willing to go.

If I keep things on the surface, they're going to do the same thing.

But if I'm willing to be vulnerable and admit when something isn't working, or laugh at myself when I trip over an extension cord or turn a light on or whatever, they relax.

They stop trying to be perfect, because I'm certainly not perfect.

And that's when the really, really good stuff happens.

So here's where all of this comes together.

Think of photography as a practice and not as a job.

It's not a skill you master once you have to think of it as a practice.

It's like meditation or yoga or playing an instrument or anything that requires you to keep showing up and staying curious.

The science explains how vision works.

The brain processes information, how light and color and composition create emotions.

And the philosophy asks why it matters and what we're trying to communicate or reveal.

But the practice, that's where you actually learn who you are as an artist.

Now, for me, every single session teaches me something.

Sometimes it's technical, like I'll use a modifier in a different way, and it creates a look that I've never seen before, and it's awesome.

Or maybe I bounce light off of a specific surface.

That gives me more control than I expected.

But more often, the lesson is about something else.

I learn that I make a lot of assumptions about people based on how they present themselves.

And those assumptions are almost always wrong.

I learned that silence in a session isn't awkward unless I make it awkward.

And I learned that the images that I think are the best ones are never the ones my client choose.

So the practice of photography keeps me humble, because just when I think I've figured out A formula for a certain type of portrait.

Someone walks in who doesn't fit the formula.

And so I have to adapt and improvise and pay attention to what's actually happening instead of what I expected to happen.

Now, there's this concept in Buddhism called the beginner's mind.

And it's the idea that approaching something fresh, with fresh eyes and without assumptions or expectations opens up possibilities that expertise can close off.

So I try to bring that to every session.

I photographed hundreds of people, and I know how to light a face.

I understand the technical side of photography inside now, but the person in front of me right now, I've never photographed them before.

They're not like anyone else.

And if I treat them just like everyone else, I. I miss what makes them different.

So the practice is also about integrating everything.

The technical knowledge becomes instinct over time.

For example, I don't think about things like the inverse square law or lighting ratios.

I just know that if I move the light closer, it gets softer and falls off faster.

The philosophical questions become automatic.

I don't have to consciously remind myself to ask why.

It's just built into how I see the world now.

And the self awareness?

Well, it's always hard, but it becomes easier the more that I practice it.

Like, I notice faster now when I'm distracted or I'm being judgy.

I recognize when I'm trying to force something instead of letting it develop naturally.

So here's what this looks like in real time.

Let's say someone comes in for a personal branding session.

They've brought all their outfit changes.

We've gone over a Pinterest board of all the poses and looks that they want to recreate.

Now, when I started, I would have just executed the shot list.

I'd have given them exactly what they asked for and called it a day.

And now I still start there.

And we do the poses and we get the safe shots.

But then I put the camera down for a minute and we just talk.

I ask them about themselves, what they want people to feel when they come to the website, what they're afraid won't come across, or what went wrong in their last session.

And usually somewhere in that conversation, they say something that shifts everything.

Like, I want people to know they can trust me.

Well, that becomes a different kind of portrait than I want to look professional, approachable, requires a lot of different choices than successful.

So again, understanding the science gives me the tools to create those different feelings.

The philosophy helps me understand why it matters.

But the practice is where I learned to Listen well enough to know which approach is right.

This all happens like that.

Every time I'm about to take a shot, I'm making a ton of different choices.

Aperture and shutter speed and ISO and composition and color and on and on and on.

But I also think about, do I shoot from above or below?

How do I want to use the light to sculpt their face or reveal something else?

Do I create more or less separation or connection from them in the background?

Think of it like this.

Every choice is like a word in a sentence.

And the sentence that I'm trying to write is about how this person should be seen.

That's really the base of it.

If someone trusts me enough to stand in front of my camera and be vulnerable, my hope is that I can show them something about themselves that they can't see on their own.

So the more I understand about how vision works, about how emotions come through images and how our brains interpret what we see, the better I get at honoring that trust.

All right.

I'm not saying that you have to go get a neuroscience degree to take a good photo.

What I am saying is that the more curious you are about the why behind what you do, the better your work is going to become.

So start asking yourself better questions.

Why does this angle feel better than that one?

Why does this light make someone look tired versus energetic?

Why does this particular moment in time matter?

The answers aren't always obvious.

Sometimes you won't know until you've taken a thousand more pictures.

But that's the point.

Being a student of the craft of photography means never assuming you've figured it all out.

There's always another layer, another question, another way of seeing.

So go out, mess up, learn what works and what doesn't work, and then keep asking better questions.

Pay attention to the science, sure, but pay even more attention to the person in front of you.

Because when you finally get it right, when you capture that moment where the science and the art and the real human connection all come together, that that's the good stuff.

That's the stuff that matters to people.

So I hope, like, all of this made sense.

And honestly, I can't wait to see how you interpret it and see what you create with it.

So that's it.

Just wanted to get on here and talk about that a little bit.

Thanks for watching, and I'll catch you next time.