About the Photo-dice

The photo-dice take five key decisions or elements from the making of a photograph, each of which lead to the final outcome of a picture, subjecting them to chance. The dice can be used to make new images, interrupt those you plan to take, or to learn about the essentials of photography. You can use one or all of the dice as you wish.

The five dice represent:

Shutter Speed: the speed of the shutter, for example, 1/250th of a second (1/250) which can make moving objects stop, or 1/8th of a second (1/8), where moving objects become a blur.

Aperture: the size of the camera shutter opening when a photograph is taken. This concentrates the light, and has an effect on the depth of field in a photograph. f/2.8 is a shallow depth of field; f/16 is a deeper depth of field, with more of the image in focus.

Sensitivity: camera films and digital sensors use an ISO system to describe the balance of sensitivity to light and detail. ISO 50 is less sensitive but very detailed; ISO 1600 is very sensitive but less detailed and more noisy or grainy.

These three dice can all affect the balance of light in a photograph: whether the image is too light or too dark, or in balance. It can be very interesting to explore the outer reaches of what we think a ‘correct’ photograph looks like: don’t be afraid to test the limits of your camera to get some extraordinary results.

Focusing: the choice of distance where the image is in focus. This is usually decided by adjusting the lens by looking through the camera, however most camera lenses show this on the outside as distances, in feet and metres. A camera might focus at just under 1 metre (1m), and go to infinity (∞).

Orientation: the choice about where you stand and what you look towards, and what you choose to photograph! This has six directions: the four cardinal points, North, South, East and West, but also above (Zenith) and below (Nadir).

These last two dice very much affect the question of what is photographed: used separately, they can change your subject matter, and encourage you to look around and see images you might otherwise have missed.

How To Use The Dice

You can make up your own games with the photo-dice and use them for your own purposes: you use one die or all five dice. Simply set your camera to its manual or semi-manual setting, and go.

When using the dice to learn or understand photography, it is a good idea to start with one at a time and allow the process to become more complex. When using the dice to make experimental photographs, it is a good idea to set some rules first (some example rules and strategies are available online at the address here: (Sam, I’ll send this to you before we go to print).

The dice embrace failure and produce sometimes very unfamiliar or ‘incorrect’ images: the first inventors of photography realised that at the edges of every photograph were empty images or monochromes. One of the intentions of the dice is to encourage us to embrace these images – each roll of the dice has 7776 permutations – but we usually only see just one.

Some games or propositions: