Visualization does help when seeing what you're wanting to shot and I use this often. yet trying to convey this visualization to the camera is not that easy. In my case, not often does the image turn out as I had hoped. if I sit and look at the digital image long enough I'll find what it is I was shooting, tree, limb, flower etc. and crop to that visualization I was attempting to achieve the first time.

Take my most current image. I was asked to create an image using text or letters.. Not willing to get outside on that day I recall an old key board in the basement , popped the keys off and shot an image of the keys scattered about on the counter top.



The visualization was that I wanted the escape key to stand out. later after studding my shot, I though that I should have create a flow within the image from foreground to background using the same lighting.. I didn't like the harsh light effect in the background, but it was good enough to submit to the letters challenge.

The point is, I seen in my mind how I wanted to achieve the shot, so I lowered the tripod, set the camera up and dropped the keys on the counter top. Though it may have been a more dramatic effect is I took a long exposure to create a blurry of keys dropping.