An evening where we present our themed images for critiquing, by guest appraiser Ken Scott.
We have asked Ken to set a theme for your photographs and he has chosen Mood
The following is a guide he has written to help with your selection and presentation:
Mood – A Photographic challenge
What is Mood?
Mood is often used synonymously with feeling or emotion, but in a psychological sense it is slightly different. Feelings and emotions can be fleeting and sudden in onset, whereas mood is an affective state that persists often for a longer time.
Mood can be on the positive or negative side – active or passive, energetic or calm, heavy or light – anywhere on the spectrum but not neutral.
Mood as a Photographic Idea
Most of us as photographers would like to produce photographs with more feeling. The trouble is, mood, feeling and emotion are inside of us; you cannot just point your camera at it. The great Don McCullin said:
“Photography for me is not looking, it’s feeling. If you can’t feel what you’re looking at, then you’re never going to get others to feel anything when they look at your pictures.”
How often do you stop to notice how you are feeling at the moment of making a photograph or during your activity? How do you use that awareness to infuse that mood into your photograph, whether in camera or during your post-production phase?
Mood in photography can be conveyed in many ways: through colour (bright, vivid, subtle, pastel); through tonal range (low-key, dark, heavy, sombre, high-key, light, airy); through energy (frenetic, intense, fast, calming, tranquil, relaxed, slow); through atmosphere (sunny, breezy, stormy, misty, wet) – a combination of all these qualities.
It might also be portrayed by depicting mood in people – their expressions and body language – could I tell from your picture what a person’s mood state is, or what the mood of a crowd? Are they angry, depressed, excited, joyous?
What effect does point of view have? Or perspective or scale or relationships or space?
The Photographic Challenge
This challenge is to make and present photographs that are full of mood and invoke feeling in the viewer. It is much more than creating images that are ‘of’ something; it is creating images that are ‘about’ something, something intangible that the viewer cannot fail to notice and feel for themselves.
I love to be challenged as an appraiser; to be asked to think, to interpret and to feel … Remember, whatever you choose, it should not be neutral. Be brave, be bold. Step outside the usual bubble.
… Ken Scott ARPS GMBPsS
October 2025
Image Upload
Sorry, you must be logged in to see this.
Note: you must be logged in to view the image upload form. If you joined the club after July 2025 and can’t log in please email web.team@bhcc-online.org