---
name: whatsuppiyush/ai-dslr-photography
source: https://app.decimal.ai/s/whatsuppiyush-ai-dslr-photography@2/SKILL.md
source_sha256: 50cdee0a3ba4
---

# AI Photography: The DSLR Style Guide

Most AI images look fake for one reason: they never name how a real photograph is made. Real photographers choose a camera body, a lens, a film stock, an angle and a light, and that language carries into the image. This guide is that language, distilled from a working photography and cinematography vocabulary and tested against current models. It runs long on purpose: work through it top to bottom the first time, then come back and use the table of contents like an index.

Works in: Midjourney, GPT Image, Flux, Nano Banana, Stable Diffusion.

## How to use this skill

When the user asks for an image prompt in this style, compose one using the formulas and vocabulary below. Fill each slot with a concrete choice, then return the finished prompt. Prefer naming a real camera/lens, a light, and a colour or film treatment, which is what makes the output read as a real photograph rather than an AI render.

## Formulas

**The photograph formula**
```
[shot type] of [subject + action], [setting], shot on [camera + lens], [lighting], [film stock / colour grade], ultra-realistic, natural skin texture
```
The order matters less than the ingredients. Every slot you fill pulls the image further from 'AI render' toward 'photograph'. Naming a real camera and lens is the single biggest jump in realism.

**The cinematic-still formula**
```
Cinematic film still from a [year] [genre] film, [shot type] of [subject + action], [setting], directed by [director], shot on [cinema camera], [lighting], [emotion], cinematic colour grading, film grain
```
Starting with 'cinematic film still' tells the model to render a frame from a real movie, not a poster. Naming a director tints scenery, wardrobe and mood; adding a decade adds period detail.

## Worked prompt examples

_Period drama_
```
A cinematic scene, detailed photograph from the fictional Oscar-winning historical drama 'The Last Empress'. The close-up image captures the Empress in her royal attire, standing in the grand hall of her palace. The intricate details of her costume and the grandeur of the palace create a visually striking image, showcasing the film's meticulous attention to historical accuracy and the stunning costume design that won it the Oscar.
```

_Dynamic action_
```
Cinematic scene from a samurai movie, wearing traditional armor and holding a katana sword, in the middle of an intense battle in feudal-era Kyoto, image capturing the dynamic and implied movement, motion blur, the background is a battlefield with smoke in the distance, masculine, determined, epic, action scene, dynamic action, dynamic motion, combat pose, dramatic, dutch angle shot, captured by a Phantom High-Speed Camera, cinematic lighting, intricate details of his costume, hyper-realistic, clean sharp focus, cinematic color grading, film grain
```

_Golden-hour portrait_
```
Editorial DSLR portrait, extreme close-up of a woman with freckles, golden-hour backlight rim-lighting her hair, shot on a Canon EOS R5 with an 85mm f/1.2 lens, ultra-realistic natural skin texture with visible pores, shallow depth of field, creamy bokeh, warm cinematic colour grade, subtle film grain
```

_Analog film stock_
```
1980s analog film photograph, a blonde woman in aviator sunglasses holding a paper cup on a sunny beach, shot on Kodak Portra 400 film, warm faded tones, soft grain, natural skin, candid
```

_Cinematic neon still_
```
Cinematic film still, a lone figure holding an umbrella on a rain-soaked neon-lit city street at night, moody Blade Runner atmosphere, shot on Arri Alexa, dramatic low-key lighting, teal-and-orange colour grade, reflections on wet asphalt, shallow depth of field
```

_Architectural interior_
```
Architectural photograph of a minimalist cozy bedroom with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a sea of clouds at dawn, light wood and matte concrete, soft diffuse morning light, shot on a Sony A7R IV, hyper-detailed, serene
```

## Vocabulary

### Cameras & lenses

**General camera keywords**
- **Canon EOS 5D Mark IV**: The default workhorse. Reach for it when the brief is general: portraiture, landscape, event photography.
- **Sony Alpha a7 III**: Fast and light. Street, sports, wildlife, anywhere the moment won't wait.
- **Hasselblad X1D**: Medium-format clarity. Landscape, fashion, product work where detail is the whole point.
- **Canon EOS-1D X Mark II**: Built for speed. Sports, wildlife, action sequences.
- **Nikon D850**: High dynamic range. Landscape and portrait work that needs shadow and highlight detail.
- **Panasonic Lumix GH5S**: A hybrid stills/video body, useful when a scene needs a slightly more clinical, modern rendering.
- **Kodak Portra 800 film**: Not a camera, a film stock: name it for a nostalgic, grain-forward look.
- **Sony CineAlta / Canon Cinema EOS**: Dedicated cinema cameras. Use for the full motion-picture look and colour science.
- **Phantom High-Speed Camera**: Built to capture fast motion without blur. The right choice for action and impact shots.
- **Blackmagic Design Camera**: A cinema camera associated with a raw, unpolished digital-film look.
- **Arri Alexa**: The industry-standard cinema camera. The look most 'expensive movie' images are chasing.
- **Super-16 (vintage film)**: Grainy, warm, nostalgic. For a found-footage or 1970s film look.
- **DJI Phantom 4 Pro drone camera**: For aerial and bird's-eye shots.

**By angle and shot type**
- **Eye-level shot**: Sony Alpha a7 III with a Sony FE 24-105mm f/4 G OSS. Neutral, natural perspective.
- **Low-angle shot**: Sony Alpha a7 III with a Sony FE 16-35mm f/2.8 GM. Makes the subject read as dominant.
- **High-angle shot**: Nikon D850 with a Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8E ED VR. Makes the subject read as smaller, more vulnerable.
- **Extreme low-angle shot**: Canon EF 14mm f/2.8L II USM on a Canon EOS 5D Mark IV, with a low-angle tripod.
- **Extreme high-angle shot**: Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS III USM on a Canon EOS 5D Mark IV, with a high-angle tripod.
- **Side-angle (side-view)**: Panasonic Lumix GH5S with a Panasonic Lumix 12-35mm f/2.8 II.
- **Shot from behind**: Nikon D850 with a Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8E FL ED VR.
- **Close-up shot**: Canon EF 50mm f/1.2L USM on a Canon EOS 5D Mark IV.
- **Medium shot**: Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM on a Canon EOS 5D Mark IV.
- **Full shot**: Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L III USM on a Canon EOS 5D Mark IV.
- **Extreme close-up shot**: Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM. For texture: skin, fabric, small objects.
- **Ground-level shot**: Canon EOS-1DX Mark III with a Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM.
- **Aerial shot (bird's-eye view)**: DJI Phantom 4 Pro drone camera.
- **Webcam-style shot**: Logitech C920 HD Pro Webcam. For a deliberately low-fi, found-footage feel.
- **GoPro-style shot**: GoPro HERO9 Black with a Super Suit Dive Housing. Wide, immersive, action-cam distortion.
- **Underwater shot**: Canon EOS-1D X Mark II with a Canon EF 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye USM, in underwater housing.
- **Underwater close-up shot**: Canon EOS 5D Mark IV with a Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro.

**By weather**
- **Sunny**: Canon EOS 5D Mark IV with a Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM.
- **Partly cloudy**: Nikon D850 with a Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8E ED VR.
- **Rainy**: Sony Alpha a7 III with a Sony FE 16-35mm f/2.8 GM, in a waterproof housing.
- **Snowy**: Canon EOS-1D X Mark II with a Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS II USM, plus waterproof housing.
- **Overcast**: Panasonic Lumix GH5S with a Panasonic Lumix 12-35mm f/2.8 II.
- **Foggy**: Sony Alpha a7R IV with a Sony FE 70-200mm f/2.8 GM OSS.
- **Hazy**: Canon EOS R6 with a Canon RF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM.

**By time of day**
- **Sunrise**: Sony A7R IV with a Canon RF 15-35mm f/2.8L IS USM.
- **Morning**: Fujifilm X-T4 with a Fujinon XF 16-55mm f/2.8 R LM WR.
- **Afternoon**: Sony A7 III with a Sony FE 70-200mm f/2.8 GM OSS.
- **Golden hour**: Canon EOS R5 with a Canon RF 50mm f/1.2L USM. The safe, flattering default.
- **Sunset**: Sony A7R IV with a Sony FE 16-35mm f/2.8 GM.
- **Twilight**: Panasonic Lumix S1H with a Panasonic Lumix S Pro 50mm f/1.4.
- **Night**: Sony A7S III with a Sigma 35mm f/1.2 DG DN Art. Built for low light.

**By mood & styling**
- **Dark and moody**: Sony a7S III with a Sony FE 50mm f/1.4 ZA.
- **Bright and vibrant**: Canon EOS R6 with a Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L III USM.
- **Fantasy**: Fujifilm X-T4 with a Fujinon XF 56mm f/1.2 R.
- **Historical**: Fujifilm GFX 100S with a Fujinon GF 23mm f/4 R LM WR, or a Nikon Z7 II with a Nikkor Z 50mm f/1.2 S.
- **Adventure / action**: GoPro HERO10 Black.
- **Documentary**: Canon EOS C300 Mark III with a Canon CN-E 24mm T1.5 L F.
- **Horror**: Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K Pro with a Sigma 18-35mm f/1.8 DC HSM Art.
- **Mystical**: Nikon D6 with a Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 24mm f/1.4G ED.
- **Romantic**: Canon EOS R with a Canon RF 50mm f/1.2L USM.
- **Rustic**: Panasonic Lumix GH5S with a Sigma 18-35mm f/1.8 DC HSM Art.

### Angles & shot types

**Distance & framing**
- **Extreme long shot**: Great distance from the subject, who is barely visible. Used to highlight surroundings, scale and location over the subject itself.
- **Long shot (wide shot)**: Shows the entire subject and their environment. For a person, this means the full body with real surrounding context.
- **Medium shot**: Frames roughly waist-up or chest-up. The default for dialogue scenes: enough face to read emotion, enough of the room to place them in it.
- **Closeup shot**: The subject, usually a face, fills the frame. Emphasises detail and emotion over context.
- **Extreme closeup shot**: Isolates one feature, an eye, a hand, a mouth. Emphasises a single specific detail intensely.
- **Full shot**: Head to toe, the entire body visible in the scene. Showcases physicality, posture and action.
- **Two-shot**: Frames two subjects together. The standard for conversation scenes; it establishes the relationship between them.

**Angle & perspective**
- **Over-the-shoulder shot**: Shot from behind one subject, their shoulder and the back of their head in frame. Adds depth and intimacy to dialogue.
- **Point-of-view (POV) shot**: Frames the scene exactly as the subject would see it, putting the viewer inside their perspective.
- **Establishing shot**: Usually an extreme long shot that opens a scene, telling the viewer where and when the action is happening.
- **Master shot**: Includes all key figures and the full action of a scene. Often the first shot filmed or shown in a sequence.
- **Low-angle shot**: Camera positioned below the subject, looking up. Makes the subject appear larger, more dominant, more powerful.
- **High-angle shot**: Camera positioned above the subject, looking down. Makes the subject appear smaller, less significant, sometimes vulnerable.
- **Eye-level shot**: Camera at the subject's own eye level. Neutral and natural: how you'd actually see them in person.
- **Dutch angle shot**: The camera is intentionally tilted off the horizontal. Reads as disorientation, tension or unease.
- **Overhead shot**: Camera directly above the subject, looking straight down.
- **Bird's-eye view shot**: Higher than an overhead shot, as if viewed from the sky. Emphasises scale and a wide perspective.
- **Drone shot**: An aerial shot captured via drone, typically higher and more mobile than a bird's-eye or overhead shot.
- **Worm's-eye view**: Looking up at the subject from ground level. Dramatic, and makes the subject feel formidable.
- **Ground-level view**: Camera positioned at ground level, with the background rising up from the horizon line.
- **Side view**: Camera positioned to the side of the subject rather than facing them directly.
- **Off-centre view**: The subject is placed away from the centre of the frame, adding visual interest and tension.
- **Rule-of-thirds shot**: The frame is divided into nine equal parts, with the subject placed along the grid lines. The default for balanced, professional composition.

**Style & treatment**
- **Candid shot**: Taken as if the subject doesn't know they're being photographed. Reads as natural and relaxed, the opposite of a posed portrait.
- **Silhouette shot**: The subject is backlit and the exposure is set for the background, so the subject renders as a dark shape.
- **Shot from behind**: Frames the subject from their back. Dramatic and mysterious: it withholds the face.
- **Underwater shot**: Captured from beneath the water's surface, for perspectives you can't get any other way.

### Lighting

**Natural lighting**
- **Sunlight**: The most common outdoor light source. Its quality shifts everything else: hard and direct at noon, soft and warm at the edges of the day.
- **Moonlight**: Soft, cool, ethereal. Reads as night without going fully dark.
- **Firelight / candlelight**: Warm, flickering, intimate. The default for cozy, rustic or romantic indoor scenes.
- **Cloudy skies / overcast**: Soft, diffused, shadowless light. The most flattering condition for portraits.
- **Reflections**: Shimmering light bounced off water, glass or wet surfaces. Pairs well with other lighting for a dreamy effect.

**Ambient lighting**
- **Overhead**: Ceiling lights or chandeliers, the default indoor ambient source.
- **Wall sconces**: Decorative fixtures that throw soft, indirect light.
- **Table lamps**: Can read as warm and cozy, or bright and harsh, depending on the shade and bulb.
- **Floor lamps**: Warm and cozy, useful for lighting the corners of a room.
- **Natural light**: Light entering through windows or skylights. Gives a scene consistent, believable illumination.

**Artificial & directional lighting**
- **Studio lights**: Fully controlled light. The default for portrait, product and fashion work.
- **Strobe lights**: A bright flash. Freezes motion and adds punch.
- **Ring lights**: Even, flattering, shadow-minimising light. The beauty-portrait and influencer-video default.
- **Neon lights**: Coloured, saturated light. The signature of a cyberpunk or night-city look.
- **LED lights**: A wide range of colour temperatures, from clinical cool to warm practical.
- **Butterfly lighting**: Light placed above and slightly in front of the face, casting a small shadow under the nose. A classic glamour setup.
- **Rembrandt lighting**: A triangular patch of light on the cheek under one eye, with dramatic shadow on the rest of the face.
- **Split lighting**: Light placed at 90 degrees to the face, so exactly half is lit and half is in shadow.
- **Rim lighting**: Placed behind the subject to illuminate their edges, separating them from the background. Moody and cinematic.
- **Low-key lighting**: One or two light sources, mostly shadow. Dramatic and moody: the default for noir and horror.
- **High-key lighting**: Bright, even, mostly shadow-free. Light and airy: the default for clean, commercial images.
- **Top light**: Light from directly above, emphasising texture and shape through hard shadows.
- **Side light**: Strong shadows and highlights from one side, emphasising texture and dimension.
- **Backlighting**: Light placed behind the subject, creating a glowing halo around them.

**Hard & soft lighting**
- **Direct sunlight**: Strong, well-defined shadows. Punchy but unforgiving.
- **Spot lighting**: A tight, strong beam. Creates sharp shadows and highlights.
- **Halogen bulbs**: Harsh, intense light, associated with commercial and industrial spaces.
- **Laser lighting**: Sharp coloured beams. For stage and concert effects.
- **Fresnel lighting**: A focusing lens used in theatre and film lighting rigs.
- **Hard fill lighting**: A second light used to fill in shadows without softening them entirely. Common in commercial and fashion work.
- **Window light**: Soft and directional. The classic indoor portrait light.
- **Cloudy days**: Naturally soft, even light with no hard shadows.
- **Softbox lighting**: Softens and evenly distributes a studio light source.
- **Umbrella lighting**: Reflects and diffuses light for a soft, even result.
- **Beauty dish lighting**: Soft but still directional. A flattering middle ground for portraits.

### Filmmakers

**Action**
- **James Cameron**: Terminator, Aliens.
- **Michael Bay**: Bad Boys, Transformers.
- **John Woo**: Hard Boiled, Mission: Impossible II.
- **Robert Rodriguez**: Sin City, Desperado.
- **Zack Snyder**: 300, Watchmen.
- **Peter Hyams**: Timecop.

**Comedy**
- **Woody Allen**: Annie Hall, Manhattan.
- **Mel Brooks**: Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein.
- **Charlie Chaplin**: The Gold Rush, City Lights.
- **Pedro Almodovar**: Talk to Her, All About My Mother.
- **Greta Gerwig**: Lady Bird.

**Drama**
- **Martin Scorsese**: Goodfellas, The Departed.
- **Francis Ford Coppola**: The Godfather.
- **Akira Kurosawa**: Seven Samurai, Rashomon.
- **François Truffaut**: The 400 Blows, Day for Night.
- **Kathryn Bigelow**: The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty.
- **Alejandro González Iñárritu**: Birdman, The Revenant, Babel.
- **Federico Fellini**: 8½, La Dolce Vita.
- **Chloé Zhao**: Nomadland, The Rider.
- **Sofia Coppola**: Lost in Translation.

**Fantasy**
- **Peter Jackson**: The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit.
- **George Lucas**: Star Wars, Indiana Jones.
- **Guillermo del Toro**: Pan's Labyrinth.
- **Tim Burton**: Edward Scissorhands, Beetlejuice.

**Superhero**
- **Jon Favreau**: Iron Man, The Mandalorian.
- **Sam Raimi**: Spider-Man, Doctor Strange.
- **Patty Jenkins**: Wonder Woman.

**Horror**
- **Alfred Hitchcock**: Psycho, The Birds.
- **John Carpenter**: Halloween, The Thing.
- **Wes Craven**: A Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream.
- **George A. Romero**: Night of the Living Dead.
- **Lars Von Trier**: Melancholia, Antichrist.
- **David Lynch**: Mulholland Drive, Blue Velvet.
- **Vincenzo Natali**: Cube.

**Musical**
- **Bob Fosse**: Cabaret, All That Jazz.
- **Baz Luhrmann**: Moulin Rouge, The Great Gatsby.
- **Gene Kelly**: Singin' in the Rain, An American in Paris.

**Sci-fi**
- **Ridley Scott**: Alien, Blade Runner.
- **Stanley Kubrick**: 2001: A Space Odyssey.
- **Christopher Nolan**: Inception, Interstellar.
- **Denis Villeneuve**: Arrival, Dune, Blade Runner 2049.
- **James Cameron**: Titanic, Avatar.
- **Steven Spielberg**: E.T., Ready Player One.
- **Joseph Kosinski**: TRON: Legacy, Oblivion.
- **Vincenzo Natali**: Splice.
- **Peter Hyams**: 2010: The Year We Make Contact.

**Thriller**
- **David Fincher**: Fight Club, Se7en, Gone Girl.
- **Quentin Tarantino**: Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill.
- **M. Night Shyamalan**: The Sixth Sense, Split.
- **Darren Aronofsky**: Requiem for a Dream, Black Swan.
- **David Lynch**: Mulholland Drive, Blue Velvet.
- **Orson Welles**: Citizen Kane, Touch of Evil.
- **Joseph Kosinski**: Only the Brave.

**Western**
- **Sergio Leone**: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
- **John Ford**: The Searchers, Stagecoach.
- **Clint Eastwood**: Unforgiven, The Outlaw Josey Wales.

**Animation**
- **Hayao Miyazaki**: Princess Mononoke.
- **Walt Disney**: The Lion King.

**Crime**
- **Brian De Palma**: Scarface, The Untouchables.
- **Michael Mann**: Heat, Collateral.
- **Quentin Tarantino**: Pulp Fiction.

**Historical**
- **Steven Spielberg**: Schindler's List.
- **James Cameron**: Titanic.
- **Mel Gibson**: Braveheart.
- **Robert Zemeckis**: Back to the Future, Forrest Gump.
- **Ang Lee**: Brokeback Mountain, Life of Pi.

### Photographers

**Portrait**
- **Richard Avedon**: Portrait and fashion, stark white-background clarity.
- **Annie Leibovitz**: Dramatic light, staged narrative portraits.
- **Yousuf Karsh**: Formal, classic studio portraiture.
- **Platon Antoniou**: Bold, high-contrast close-up portraits.

**Street**
- **Henri Cartier-Bresson**: The decisive candid moment.
- **Garry Winogrand**: Raw, energetic American street life.
- **Vivian Maier**: Quiet, observational street portraits.
- **Bruce Gilden**: Close, confrontational flash street photography.

**Landscape**
- **Ansel Adams**: Dramatic black-and-white tonal range.
- **Galen Rowell**: Vivid natural light in wilderness landscapes.
- **Sebastião Salgado**: Epic monochrome humanism and landscape.
- **Peter Lik**: Hyper-saturated, large-format nature photography.

**Wildlife**
- **Frans Lanting**: Intimate, painterly wildlife portraiture.
- **Art Wolfe**: Bold colour and composition in nature.
- **Nick Brandt**: Elegiac black-and-white African wildlife.
- **Joel Sartore**: Clean studio-style species documentation.

**Fashion**
- **Irving Penn**: Clean, minimal studio fashion portraiture.
- **Richard Avedon**: Stark, kinetic high-fashion imagery.
- **Helmut Newton**: High-contrast, provocative fashion work.
- **Mario Testino**: Glossy, glamorous editorial fashion.

**Documentary**
- **Dorothea Lange**: Humanist Depression-era documentary work.
- **Walker Evans**: Plainspoken American documentary style.
- **Robert Capa**: Immersive, in-the-action war documentary.
- **Steve McCurry**: Saturated colour, piercing-eyed portraiture.

**Architecture**
- **Julius Shulman**: Iconic mid-century modern architecture.
- **Ezra Stoller**: Precise, formal architectural photography.
- **Iwan Baan**: Architecture shown in lived, human context.

**Still life**
- **Edward Weston**: Sculptural form and texture.
- **Paul Strand**: Sharp-focus modernist still life.
- **Karl Blossfeldt**: Botanical forms shot like sculpture.
- **Laura Letinsky**: Quiet, muted domestic still life.

**Black and white**
- **Ansel Adams**: Dramatic tonal range.
- **Dorothea Lange**: Humanist documentary monochrome.
- **Sebastião Salgado**: Epic monochrome humanism.
- **Sally Mann**: Intimate, atmospheric black-and-white.

**Fine art**
- **Cindy Sherman**: Staged, identity-shifting self-portraiture.
- **Jeff Wall**: Large-format, cinematic tableau photography.
- **Andreas Gursky**: Vast, hyper-detailed scale.
- **Hiroshi Sugimoto**: Minimal, meditative long exposures.

**Sports**
- **Neil Leifer**: Iconic, decisive-moment sports photography.
- **Walter Iooss Jr.**: Dynamic, athletic action photography.
- **Annie Leibovitz**: Staged, narrative athlete portraiture.
- **Elsa Garrison**: Modern editorial sports photography.

**Travel**
- **Steve McCurry**: Saturated colour, striking portraiture.
- **David Alan Harvey**: Warm, intimate travel documentary.
- **Michael Kenna**: Minimal, long-exposure landscapes.
- **Jimmy Nelson**: Formal portraiture of indigenous cultures.

**Macro**
- **Harold Davis**: Luminous, painterly macro florals.
- **Thomas Shahan**: Extreme close-up insect photography.
- **Levon Biss**: Hyper-detailed, sculptural insect portraiture.
- **Robert Thompson**: Textural natural-world macro work.

**Underwater**
- **David Doubilet**: Split-level, immersive underwater imagery.
- **Ernst Haeckel**: Scientific illustration of marine organisms.
- **Brian Skerry**: Documentary-style ocean wildlife.
- **Anuar Patjane Floriuk**: Dramatic underwater seascapes.

**Concert**
- **Jim Marshall**: Intimate, backstage rock photography.
- **Lynn Goldsmith**: Bold, iconic musician portraiture.
- **Danny Clinch**: Raw, documentary music photography.
- **Anton Corbijn**: Moody, high-contrast band portraiture.

**Nude**
- **Edward Weston**: Sculptural, form-focused nude studies.
- **Helmut Newton**: High-contrast, provocative nude fashion.
- **Robert Mapplethorpe**: Formal, classical nude composition.
- **Spencer Tunick**: Mass, large-scale outdoor nude installations.

**Abstract**
- **Man Ray**: Surrealist experimental photography.
- **Laszlo Moholy-Nagy**: Bauhaus abstraction and photograms.
- **Aaron Siskind**: Graphic, texture-focused abstraction.
- **Wassily Kandinsky**: Abstract colour and form composition.

**Photojournalism**
- **Robert Capa**: Immersive, in-the-action war coverage.
- **W. Eugene Smith**: Deeply humanist photo essays.
- **James Nachtwey**: Unflinching conflict photojournalism.
- **Don McCullin**: Stark, brutal war photography.

**Mobile**
- **Dan Rubin**: Warm, minimal mobile photography.
- **Richard Koci Hernandez**: Gritty, textured mobile street work.
- **Murad Osmann**: Staged travel-and-hand mobile series.
- **Misho Baranovic**: Documentary-style mobile street photography.

**Astrophotography**
- **Adam Block**: Deep-sky and nebula astrophotography.
- **Jason Weingart**: Storm and night-sky photography.
- **Brad Goldpaint**: Landscape astrophotography with the Milky Way.

**Food**
- **Donna Crous**: Warm, natural-light food styling.
- **Bea Lubas**: Moody, editorial food photography.
- **David Loftus**: Rustic, chef-collaboration food imagery.

**Drone**
- **Dirk Dallas**: Symmetrical, graphic aerial photography.
- **Gabriel Scanu**: Vivid coastal and landscape aerials.
- **Maksim Tarasov**: Minimalist aerial abstraction.

**Pet**
- **Carli Davidson**: High-speed, expressive pet action shots.
- **Elke Vogelsang**: Playful, character-driven pet portraiture.
- **Seth Casteel**: Underwater and action pet photography.

### Colour

**Colour manipulation**
- **Color / colorized**: Adds colour to what would otherwise read as vintage or historical.
- **Hue / tones**: Basic colour variation.
- **Gradient**: A smooth transition between colours.
- **Vibrance / vivid**: Intense, saturated colour.
- **Bright colors**: High luminance, energetic.
- **Light colors**: Less saturated, softer.
- **Dark colors**: Low luminance, moody.
- **Darkened**: Reduced overall brightness.

**Number of colours**
- **Monochromatic**: One colour.
- **Bichromatic**: Two colours.
- **Trichromatic**: Three colours.
- **Tetrachromatic**: Four colours.
- **Pentachromatic**: Five colours.
- **Hexachromatic**: Six colours.
- **Heptachromatic**: Seven colours.
- **Octachromatic**: Eight colours.
- **Polychromatic**: Effectively infinite: full rainbow range.
- **Analogous colors**: Colours adjacent on the colour wheel.
- **Triadic colors**: Three colours evenly spaced around the wheel.
- **Tetradic colors**: Two complementary colour pairs.

**Extended colours**
- **Tan**: A warm, muted light brown.
- **Beige**: A pale, neutral sand tone.
- **Blush**: A soft pink.
- **Scarlet**: A vibrant red.
- **Olive-green**: A muted, earthy green.
- **Chartreuse**: A sharp green-yellow.
- **Turquoise**: A blue-green.
- **Aqua**: A bright, clear blue-green.
- **Azure**: A bright, clear blue.

**Colour palettes**
- **Neutral**: Muted, unassuming tones.
- **Dingy colors**: Dull, grimy tones.
- **Pure / purity**: Clean, unmixed colour.
- **Faded**: Washed out, low contrast.
- **Warm color palette**: Reds, oranges, yellows. Inviting.
- **Cool color palette**: Blues, greens, purples. Calm or clinical.
- **Inverted colors**: A negative-image effect.
- **Colorful / multicolored**: Many distinct colours at once.
- **Rainbow / spectral color**: The full visible spectrum.
- **Monochrome / black and white**: No colour, tonal range only.
- **Desaturated**: Muted, drained of colour intensity.
- **Sepia**: A warm brown monochrome, the classic vintage-photo tone.

### Theme: realism & abstraction

**Realism & abstraction**
- **Hyper real / hyperrealistic**: Pushes past normal photographic realism. Pairs well with horror and caricature.
- **Magic realism**: The mundane world with one impossible element treated as normal. Pairs well with dream and fantasy scenes.
- **Fantastic realism**: Realistic rendering of fantastical subjects. Pairs well with dream and horror scenes.
- **Contemporary realism / new realism**: Grounded, present-day realism. Pairs well with people and dramatic scenes.
- **Surreal / surrealism**: Dreamlike, illogical juxtapositions. Pairs well with weird and creepy scenes.
- **Ethereal / ethereality / lucid**: Delicate, otherworldly, dreamlike. Pairs well with spiritual creatures, characters and environments.
- **Fiction / science fiction**: Speculative and technological. Pairs well with technology and space subjects.
- **Imagined / imaginative / imagination**: Invented, non-literal subjects. Pairs well with animals and otherworldly, strange scenes.
- **Dreamlike / dreamy / fever-dream**: Soft, illogical, floating. Pairs well with afterlife, spiritual and lofty scenes.
- **Dreampunk**: Dream logic mixed with technology. Pairs well with technology and vintage subjects.
- **Dreamcore / weirdcore**: Internet-native uncanny nostalgia. Pairs well with memes, creepy and trippy scenes.
- **Otherworldly / unworldly / another realm**: Alien, non-earthly. Pairs well with space, futuristic and landscape scenes.
- **Abstract / abstraction**: Non-representational form. Pairs well with backgrounds, modern design and logos.
- **Fantasy / ethereal fantasy / dark fantasy**: Mythic, invented worlds. Pairs well with beings, gods and landscapes.
- **Illusion / impossible**: Visually paradoxical. Pairs well with dreams, optical effects and strange scenes.
- **Exaggerated / exaggeration / visual exaggeration**: Pushed past realistic proportion. Pairs well with emotions and extremes.
- **Immaterial / intangible**: Formless, weightless. Pairs well with smoke, lines and objects.

### Material & texture

**Physical properties**
- **Blobby / blobs**: Soft, rounded, amorphous form.
- **Cracks / cracked**: Surface fracture and wear.
- **Corroded**: Chemically degraded, worn surface.
- **Dirty / with imperfections**: Realistic wear rather than a clean render.
- **Carbonated / effervescent**: Bubbling, fizzing surface texture.
- **Icy**: Frozen, crystalline surface.
- **Charred**: Burnt, blackened surface.
- **Corrugated**: Ridged, wave-patterned surface.
- **Perforated**: Punctured with regular holes.
- **Hydrophobic**: Water-repelling; beads rather than spreads.

**Hardness & phase**
- **Soft / hard**: The basic material-firmness axis.
- **Soft body / squishy**: Deformable, yielding.
- **Solid**: Rigid, fixed form.
- **Melting / freezing**: Mid-transition between liquid and solid.
- **Vaporization / condensation**: Mid-transition between liquid and gas.

**Reflections & refractions**
- **Rough / matte**: Diffuse, non-reflective surface.
- **Glossy / shiny / polished**: Smooth, reflective surface.
- **Reflection / reflective / retroreflective**: Bounces light back toward its source.
- **Refraction / refractive**: Bends light passing through the material.
- **Caustics**: Focused light patterns cast by refraction, like light through water.
- **Glare / specular highlights**: Bright, concentrated points of reflected light.
- **Shimmer / shimmering / glimmering**: Fine, moving highlights across a surface.

**Optics & light manipulation**
- **Transparent / translucent / opaque**: How much light passes through the material.
- **Scattering / subsurface-scattering**: Light diffusing beneath a surface, as in skin or wax.
- **Ambient occlusion**: Soft shadowing in crevices and contact points.
- **Opalescent**: Milky, shifting iridescence.
- **Polarized / polarization**: Light filtered to a single orientation.
- **Solarized / solarization**: A partial tonal inversion, a classic darkroom effect.
- **Iridescent**: Colour that shifts with viewing angle.
- **Dispersion / chromatic / prismatic**: Light splitting into its component colours.
- **Sparkly / glitter**: Many small, bright reflective points.

**Chromism & luminescence**
- **Glowing / glowing neon / glow-in-the-dark**: Self-illuminating surfaces.
- **Radiant**: Emitting light outward.
- **Cherenkov radiation**: The eerie blue glow associated with high-speed particles, useful for sci-fi.
- **Luminescence / bioluminescence**: Light generated by a living organism, think a glowing forest.
- **Chromism**: Colour that changes in response to a stimulus.
- **Piezochromism**: Colour change from pressure.
- **Tribochromism**: Colour change from friction, like race-car tyres.
- **Metallochromism**: Colour change from metal content.
- **Goniochromism**: Colour that shifts with viewing angle.
- **Hydrochromism**: Colour change from water exposure, like a mug that reveals an image when filled.

### Adding emotion

**The emotion glossary**
- **Suspense**: Mental uncertainty and anxiety, keeping the viewer on edge.
- **Fear**: A response to perceived threat or danger.
- **Joy**: Open, unguarded happiness.
- **Sadness**: Sorrow, loss, or disappointment.
- **Anger**: Intense displeasure or hostility.
- **Disgust**: Revulsion toward something offensive.
- **Surprise**: A sudden, unexpected reaction.
- **Anticipation**: Expectation of something about to happen.
- **Love**: Deep affection or attachment.
- **Hope**: Optimistic expectation of a good outcome.
- **Despair**: The complete absence of hope.
- **Nostalgia**: Sentimental longing for the past.


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From **God of Skills**: a curated, hand-tested directory of AI skills, prompts, templates and image style guides.
Source: https://godofskills.com/playbooks/ai-dslr-photography?ref=claude-skill