Reframing is an important skill in photography.

When I don’t like a shot, I reframe. And I do this by answering three questions.

What if I were higher?

What if I were lower?

What if I were closer?

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Without fail, once I’ve processed through those three questions, I get the shot I want.

Reframing. It’s critical for solving problems in photography.

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Reframing is also a critical skill for every other problem in life.

I have started cycling through these three questions in attempts to solve difficult other problems that may need a new angle or new light or even a different F-stop.

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Three questions for reframing everything.

What if this were easy?

A friend and colleague of mine asks me this all the time. I think he stole it from Tim Ferris. I don’t know where it came from, but it’s a really helpful reframing question.

What if everyone involved has good intentions?

It’s easy to assume that most people are ill-intentioned and mean. We do it driving all the time. The person who just ran the stop sign is an idiot. Or distracted. Or in a crisis I could not possibly understand. People are not always out to get us. And there’s a reason that even the biggest jerks act like jerks.

What if I had information that’s unavailable to me right now?

Similar to intentions, every thorny problem has hidden information. Facts, figures, statistics, human involvement, and history that we know nothing about. Bits that only surface when we start unknotting the thorns. Sometimes it helps to step into those situations assuming you don’t know every detail - even though you think you do. Because inevitably - you don’t.

And there’s one more question which might be helpful for reframing in both photography and life’s problems:

What if I’m taking the wrong shot?

What about​ you? How do you reframe?