For a long time, I thought of photography as capturing the world in a two-dimensional format. Recently, I have been giving it more of an "out of the box" perspective and realized that even though we think of a photographed image, in whatever format, as two-dimensional, there are two more subtle but crucial dimensions present. The third being depth and the fourth being time, but neither are in the normal sense. Time put aside, our world is three dimensional, consisting of height, width, and depth. When photographed, depth is transformed from a measurement, to the interplay between tones. This means that triangulation is no longer needed, and people with only one eye can appreciate a photograph as much as people with two.

In this application, the fourth dimension is time. The best way I believe to look at this dimension is to think of a timeline of history. Think of seeing a particular scene over a section of that timeline, compressed into a still image. My Canon has a shutter speed range of 1/4000 of a second to infinity. It is up to my brain to decide what speed to choose. I will then study the content of a potential image and decide from there. For example, at 1/1000 of a second the camera can capture the intense look in the eye of a climber going for the crux move, and at the same time ruin a stream winding through a meadow. In the case of the climber, it is that intense moment that is desired, and is the reason people climb and what makes that image intriguing to the eye. In the case of the stream in the meadow, it is the feeling of flowing and timelessness that is desired, and 1/1000 of a second to 6 seconds may be more applicable to acquire that timelessness feeling.

Even though a photographic image is physically two dimensions, there are two more dimensions that are portrayed by the content and makeup of tones. An experienced photographer can recognize the relationship between all of these dimensions, take into account innumerable variables, asses them efficiently, and release the shutter.