Composition training and resources?

[l2oBiN]

I am more and more recognising that i would like to improve my "eye" for pleasing arrangements/composition to be able to make great images of my surroundings rather than relying on "the grand views" as so many images do. Does anyone have any recommendations on books/reading material/example photos/general tips etc...that helped develop their "eye" or might be a good read in general?

Marko

[Tim Meisburger]

I have read three books on composition recently, and truthfully I don't think they helped me much. They do provide a compositional vocabulary that is useful in describing why an image works, but nothing I read set off any insights in my head. I think the only advice I've ever had that was really useful was get closer, look around the frame, and that a strong composition will be visible in a thumbnail.

I will be really interested in the responses to this question.

[jnantz]

hi marko

i haven't ever found instructional photo books helpful at composition
but i have found going to museums, and looking at artwork very helpful,
any kind of art, painting, sculpture, photography ... new, old, its all good.

good luck !
john

[IanG]

You might look at the Michael Freeman book "Achieving Photographic Style". It's a book that looks at the style &ways of working of many well known phographers and talks about trying to find your own style.

Ian

[Preston]

Reading a book is a good way to understand the basic concept behind composition and to learn the terminology. Also, looking at the work of those who's work 'sings' for you is also helpful. In my opinion though, making photographs is really the only way to refine your craft and vision.

As we all know, the view camera has that nice, big groundglass. So, link up with a fellow photographer whos work you admire, or inspires you, and kindly ask them to have a look at your proposed composition. Ask that person pointed questions and let them know you will not take their critical comments personally.

Bear in mind though, that anyone providing suggestions on composition will be imparting their own vision/ compositional style. You are the final arbitor.

--P

[chassis]

This is a great thread. The OP’s question is one I have been thinking about lately. I agree with the comments that reading a book gives an appreciation and a common language. For my own work, I have found that getting out there and making the image is the best way to develop composition skills.

I like the idea to get closer and look around the frame.

There is a good thread somewhere on this site started by Frank Petronio, something like “what I would have done..." is a good one. The comment in mind is the one about making the image anyway, rather than thinking to yourself, “nope, there’s nothing here”.

[Nathan Potter]

A really excellent thread and here is how I handle composition.

In the broadest sense composition comes from knowing what you are trying to show and say in a photograph. What exactly are you trying to communicate about the scene? Once you have a clear idea about that, then composition needs to take hold, and for me that means eliminating every possible distraction that could muddle the intent of the message.

Composition is not very difficult in concept and general principles can be found in books on design. In general I try to avoid any image elements that are not related to the subject at hand. Any geometrical construction within the image will weaken the composition unless of course that is the subject of the image. In a sense such an approach leads to some degree of minimalism but in practice often complex subjects and ideas will require a complex scene but always the message should be clear.

Of course after years of image making I now am super critical about how to frame a scene in a way that eliminates distractions. I don't bother taking stuff I really like unless the composition is nearly flawless. Maybe the penalty I pay for being obsessive.

Nathan Potter, Austin TX.

[ROL]

Excellent question, and one I believe many, many photographers would benefit from asking themselves. In the absence of natural talent, I generally suggest seeking out basic drawing (i.e., basic art) classes at your local college or extension program. You gotta know the rules before you can break them. It is also worth considering that composition involves more than physical subject structure, but also light itself, both tonal and/or saturation. You may find useful in your education the ability of most modern dCams to provide a simple assisting "Rule of Thirds" overlay, without the penalty of developing and printing. And if at first you don't "succeed", there's always cropping (http://www.rangeoflightphotography.com/index.php?p=pages&title=cropping-a-negative).

[Struan Gray]

I internalised more than I realised by visiting lots of art galleries. Some of it had to be unlearned.

Photography claims to have revolutionised the framing of images, but any good art history will have a chapter on the influence of Japanese woodcut prints on western painting, and a lot of that had to do with framing and interactions with the borders of the image. A lot of the famous sets of images are now available online.

I have learned a lot from abstract or near-abstract art, particularly painting and print making. Some of it is nothing but composition, and provides good lessons in how feeling and gesture can be generated from very simple means.

I've deliberately refrained from specific recommendations. You'll learn much more if you find your own. Expose yourself to as wide a variety as you can, and choose your own favourites and models to follow. I am largely inspired by landscape, but many of those I have learned the most from are landscapes by people best known for other work. I wouldn't have found them by asking others where to look for the best landscape photographers and painters.

One exception. A book I browsed in a bookshop on a rainy afternoon but have never forgotten. Pictures on a page by Harold Evans. A news editor's view of how to take the photographs submitted by the photojournalists and crop them to make headline images. A great way of seeing how narrative can be built (or destroyed) by framing and juxtaposition.

[Greg Miller]

And if at first you don't "succeed", there's always cropping (http://www.rangeoflightphotography.com/index.php?p=pages&title=cropping-a-negative).

Assuming the camera was in the right place, at the right height, with the right focal length lens, with the right depth of field, at the right time of day, in the right season, when the sun is coming from the right direction, in the right weather conditions.

I agree with Preston and the concept of finding a mentor who can go out in the field with you and assist you.

[AF-ULF]

You can start with Dow's "Composition." You can get a free e-book from it in google books, or read it there as well.


http://books.google.com/books?id=uL0aAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

[C. D. Keth]

Squint so your vision blurs. Does your picture still look interesting?

[Lenny Eiger]

Assuming the camera was in the right place, at the right height, with the right focal length lens, with the right depth of field, at the right time of day, in the right season, when the sun is coming from the right direction, in the right weather conditions.

No intention to pick on you Greg, but I don't think those conditions ever existed. Another shooter commented to me that it was "all about the shot". I disagreed with him. I said, "there is no shot." There is only you and this photographic object you are creating.

IMO, the only way to do well in composing is to internalize enough about it that you forget it all. There are a lot of books that talk about composing, but I find reading them tedious, to be polite. As bad as curators. Rule of thirds, rules of this or that, won't help you to connect deeply with one's subject, which is what this is about in the first place.

That said, I would agree with Struan that Japanese woodcuts have had a very positive influence on photography. If you look for design in photography, you will find it. The Photo Secession was a very rich time with respect to design. I'd start there.... I have a wonderful book about Weston and Mather that has some beautiful images in it...

I will offer two suggestions. 1) Almost never stick something in the center of the frame. My Dad rejected a job for Nat'l Geo in the 50's as he didn't want to be part of what he considered the "stick something red in the center of the frame" tradition. That was then.... Sticking something in the center often indicates that you have seen a "thing" that impresses you somewhat. There are no things, nothing exists in of itself, everything exists within the context of its surroundings (multiple contexts of course). The tree is bent over because a rock is keeping it from the water on one side, for example. There is design everywhere. Centering can imply that you have no relationship with your subject. It is a tool to be used very sparingly.

2) Take your photograph. Then pick up the tripod and walk forward a few steps and try again. Leave out the stuff you don't need. Do it again. What did you understand that made you want to stop? Refine, refine, refine.

The photography that interests me is all about relationship. When you connect with something, without all the extras, then it allows me to connect to it as well. The deeper/clearer you have seen, the deeper I can go. I don't want to be impressed, I want to be moved.

Hope this helps.


Lenny

[ROL]

Assuming the camera was in the right place, at the right height, with the right focal length lens, with the right depth of field, at the right time of day, in the right season, when the sun is coming from the right direction, in the right weather conditions.

:confused: I don't get your point. Although cropping still demands compositional skills, is an available option when any of the factors you list conspire against one's best aesthetic efforts, as is often the case in natural light and environments (so stated in the link).

[Greg Miller]

No intention to pick on you Greg, but I don't think those conditions ever existed. Another shooter commented to me that it was "all about the shot". I disagreed with him. I said, "there is no shot." There is only you and this photographic object you are creating.

You've never put the camera in the right place and used the right lens in the right light? I work hard to find subjects and make plans to be there when the conditions are optimal. It's hard work, but it happens. If any of those conditions aren't right, then I'm not happy, andI keep trying until it happens..

[Greg Miller]

:confused: I don't get your point. Although cropping still demands compositional skills, is an available option when any of the factors you list conspire against one's best aesthetic efforts, as is often the case in natural light and environments (so stated in the link).

Much of composition is about image design. Creati8ng a composition with the right details arranged in a way that guides the viewer though the image. If the light is wrong, or the wrong lens is used, or the camera is in the wrong place, then cropping usually isn't going to help. Can cropping help? Certainly in some circumstances. But everything else has to be right in order for that to be the case. Most of the poor images that I see have a lot more wrong in terms of composition than cropping.

[Doremus Scudder]

I plan the crop when I shoot. For me, the subject dictates the composition and the aspect ratio of the final print. I think it is pretentious and "uncompositional" to feel bound by the aspect ratio of your film. Cropping for me is not "saving" an otherwise badly-composed image, it is an essential part of the composition.

As for composition tips: I learned more in art history classes and from viewing great art than I ever did reading books about photography. Look for resources about how painters organized their canvasses, and how that developed through history. There is a whole lot more written about the last ten centuries of painting than about the last (less than) 200 years of photography...

Absorb all this, stand on the shoulders of the giants of the past and then create something of your own. It is nice to know about ancient Greek ideas of symmetry, or Medieval correlations of size to importance, or experimenting with point-of-view a lá Canaletto, or drawing attention to a point in the composition with leading lines, etc., etc., the list is endless. It is just as important to know how to deny all that.

Best,

Doremus

[Drew Wiley]

I'm kinda with Brett Weston on this one. You're either born with it or you're not. But I do
think a lot of photographers are borderline and just need to be coaxed a little. Think of the
groundglass as an actual picture frame, and whether or not what you see there is actually
worth printing and framing. Otherwise, I think it helps to view the work of others in fine art
books and museums etc - not that you need to copy them, but as a general concept of quality. Most how-to manuals are written by visual illiterates who use routinely use stupid
cliches. And above all, print, print, print, until something really clicks.

[Lenny Eiger]

You've never put the camera in the right place and used the right lens in the right light? I work hard to find subjects and make plans to be there when the conditions are optimal. It's hard work, but it happens. If any of those conditions aren't right, then I'm not happy, andI keep trying until it happens..

This may be an issue of semantics. One of my mentors, Phil Perkis, used to ask, "at the end of the day, do you haver any wisdom to share with the rest of us?" For me, I am successful when I have understood something, and even more so when I understand something that is universal, or at least universal to humans. I don't know this until I print it, of course, but I can feel whether I am connected when I am in the field.

Design is important to keep from boring everyone, but the placement of the camera or the lens is not an important part of the final image. Often times it would not have mattered where I placed the camera, it is the "seeing" that mattered. Light is important, of course, but it is to notice and understand the light, light as a subject, rather than to pick only the dawn light, for example.

I am very jealous that you get to be at Olana. I went to college at Bard, went all over the area, climbed in the Gunks, and I think the Hudson River Valley is one spectacular area of natural beauty. I miss it.

Best,

Lenny

[Lenny Eiger]

I'm kinda with Brett Weston on this one. You're either born with it or you're not.

I agree with the rest of this post, but these sentences don't ring true for me...

I think I was born with it. My father was a photographer and I was in the darkroom helping out when I was quite young, 7-9 years old. I did the high school yearbook. After running around for a number of years here and there I finally went back to photography school at Pratt. I remember my first class indelibly. The teacher gave us an assignment and when I presented mine, she told me to "never bring that crap into my class again". It was a shock, I had thought I was pretty cool, after all, I had all this experience. However, she was right. There was no thought behind what I had done at all. She could have had a bit more tact, to say the least.

I stayed and studied. I learned about the history, I learned how to speak about aesthetics, describe what I was trying to accomplish, and measure whether I had. I had a language, and a context for my work. It has been invaluable to me.

There is a famous teacher, who can remain nameless, who used to simply say "Behold" and let the work speak for itself. I know this only second hand, so I don't know if he ever said anything else. If he didn't, this would be quite unfortunate for his students. As an artist, it is important to study, to know what you are doing. You have to have a foundation, and a genre in which you live and breathe. I won't say everyone has to go to a school, atho' it was great for me, but I don't think it is quite so haphazard as Brett's comment would make it.

I prefer to quote Bill Irwin, one of the great clowns of all time, "There is no Art without History". Or Marina Heredia, a well-known flamenco singer, "You can't build a house from the roof down. You need foundations to know what you are doing."

Lenny

[rdenney]

A really excellent thread and here is how I handle composition.

In the broadest sense composition comes from knowing what you are trying to show and say in a photograph. What exactly are you trying to communicate about the scene?

I find that if it's easy to say in words, it does not necessarily make a strong photograph. It might, however, make a dandy poem. I have to work at a more gut level than that.

Same with music. I can describe what I do, but I cannot express what it means, or even what I feel, in words. Well, maybe in very broad terms, such as "sad" or "joyful." But I think it takes more than that for the words to be useful.

Usually, it doesn't work. But if I try to express it explicitly, words come into play and the visual aspects recede.

Funny from my perspective that this comes up now--I was in Portland last week and spent an evening on my usual pilgrimage to Powell's Book Store. I spent some time looking at composition books, both in the photography section and in the art section. The books I found were slight expansions on 1. Rule of Thirds, 2. No poles growing out of people's heads, 3. Action drawing the viewer into rather than out of the picture, 4. Clean edges, yada yada.

I ended up with Andrea Stillman's Looking at Ansel Adams as well as Eliot Porter's Maine. I think I might get more about composition from looking at Porter's photos than from anyone's words about composition. And Stillman shows several of Adams's works in various forms, including various crops. The crops that look best with respect to his works seem to come from the same aesthetic as what Strunk drilled into White: "Delete unnecessary words!"

But Porter's work is often positively verbose, and it certainly does not always work in a thumbnail, any more than Pollack would. But he has a way of showing chaos as it is...meaningfully. Rather than trying to put order to it. I'd like to be able to do that. I think it's still, though, a matter of knowing what reinforces the idea versus what distracts from it. It's just that the idea can only be expressed visually.

The questions seem to be: What adds? What subtracts? Get those right and maybe the idea remains, whatever it is. The answers are visual, no more expressable in words than "that, and that".

I just don't often remember to ask them.

Rick "who likes the idea of following a master around" Denney

[Eric Biggerstaff]

There is a neat little book titled "Picture This; How Pictures Work" by Molly Bang that is a good read on compostion. That said, I am of the opinion that the best way to learn is by doing and getting those whom you respect give you honest feedback. The challenge is getting honest feedback.

I learned more looking at photographs in magazines and books than I ever did in formal classes when it comes to composition. Determine what you enjoy photographing and why; then find artists whose work you admire and dive into it. Study their work closely and figure out what it is about those images that draws you in. This will be a good guide to your own work and after a period of time your images will come closer to your artistic vision.

Good composition is like an elegant woman; her hair, clothes, makeup and manner all work together to compliment her as a person. Nothing competes for attention. A good image does the same thing, all the elements in the frame work together to tell a story to the viewer in a simple, straightforward and powerful way. The art of elegance is being lost in the world these days, which is unfortunate.

[Lenny Eiger]

The questions seem to be: What adds? What subtracts? Get those right and maybe the idea remains, whatever it is. The answers are visual, no more expressable in words than "that, and that".

I just don't often remember to ask them.

Yeah, questions. "Man is not judged by his knowledge, but by the quality of his questions."
The first time I heard that it was attributed to Lao Tzu, but I really have no idea.... if anyone knows, I'd love to attribute it correctly. Great questiosn are truly amazing...

Lenny

[ROL]

Much of composition is about image design. Creati8ng a composition with the right details arranged in a way that guides the viewer though the image. If the light is wrong, or the wrong lens is used, or the camera is in the wrong place, then cropping usually isn't going to help. Can cropping help? Certainly in some circumstances. But everything else has to be right in order for that to be the case. Most of the poor images that I see have a lot more wrong in terms of composition than cropping.

Understood. It was perhaps a mistake to muddy the waters of the OP's question with the idea of cropping. The idea was to expand the sphere of discussion. The fact is, I have many negatives shot in formats and perspectives that embody all the potential of a fine art print (so defined by me) – except by composing the original negative within camera, due to equipment and and environmental constraints. Virtually none of the 5x7 I film shoot is printed full frame. As Doremus, the approximate crop is almost always planned in the gg.


...and I still hold to my initial advice: get away from photography (and other photographers) to learn and appreciate basic composition.

[John Olsen]

Try taking a workshop from a good teacher. I recently was a teacher's assistant for a 3-day digital photography workshop taught by Robert Stahl at the Pacific Northwest Art School. His large slide presentation really refreshed my image perception, and after the workshop I went back with film to get new images where I had quit looking previously. Today I bought a new truck just to get back into taking my LF out into the further field. This workshop experience must have fired me up, even though I usually discount "mere digital stuff."

[C. D. Keth]

...and I still hold to my initial advice: get away from photography (and other photographers) to learn and appreciate basic composition.

It's fine advice. Going to a museum and thinking critically about which paintings work and why is incredibly helpful to me.

[Lenny Eiger]

Originally Posted by ROL
...and I still hold to my initial advice: get away from photography (and other photographers) to learn and appreciate basic composition.



Ridiculous. Nothing wrong with looking at painting and design and everything else. By all means, its actually a good idea, IMO. But "get away from photography"? That's nuts. You must be looking at the wrong photographers. There is a lot of great work out there, its quite instructional to look at what worked and what didn't. You want to deny the heritage?

You want to dismiss Walker Evans, Frederick Evans, O' Sullivan, Watkins, Frank, Weston, Stieglitz, Lewis Hine, to name a few? Will you tell me that you weren't influenced by AA? You would not even know how to look without them. It's the height of hubris...

We live in a media-saturated world. You can not be innocent.


Lenny

[C. D. Keth]

Originally Posted by ROL
...and I still hold to my initial advice: get away from photography (and other photographers) to learn and appreciate basic composition.



Ridiculous. Nothing wrong with looking at painting and design and everything else. By all means, its actually a good idea, IMO. But "get away from photography"? That's nuts. You must be looking at the wrong photographers. There is a lot of great work out there, its quite instructional to look at what worked and what didn't. You want to deny the heritage?

You want to dismiss Walker Evans, Frederick Evans, O' Sullivan, Watkins, Frank, Weston, Stieglitz, Lewis Hine, to name a few? Will you tell me that you weren't influenced by AA? You would not even know how to look without them. It's the height of hubris...

We live in a media-saturated world. You can not be innocent.


Lenny

I don't think it's ridiculous at all, and I don't think the intention of that comment is to never look at other photographs. I think the intent was to suggest that somebody look at classical paintings and drawings first so you can study the evolution of composition and follow it through time. The "rules" have changed many, many times and just as you wouldn't read "War and Peace" before learning your alphabet, I wouldn't suggest that somebody study Steiglitz's and Weston's composition before studying Michaelangelo's and Picasso's. Sometimes composition in painting is easier to grasp for beginners because in the past it was often much simpler and bolder than now.

[Struan Gray]

Perhaps it would help if those of use who are advocating 'just look a lot' could say how we direct that looking to make it a learning process. (If indeed we do :-).

I know that I made a conscious effort to break out of what I saw as the stifling conventions governing outdoor adventure and nature photography. It started with climbing photography, but rapidly extended to other forms of experience in the great outdoors. I think that 'getting away from photography' really just means paying attention to how other arts treat the same subject matter - this includes descriptive writing and poetry. Although conventions and blind spots do span the gaps between different media, they also - by definition - tend to run in their own limited groove and are much more noticeable from a wider perspective.

So my first step is, and was, to survey how various arts and media have treated the same topic, and to try and work the good things I found elsewhere back into my photography. A concrete example would be the use of colour in landscape painting and printmaking, which is fabulously rich and sophisticated when compared to the habits of mainstream photography. I don't personally like to push colour to unrealistic or fantasy levels (and the whole IR thing leaves me stone cold in B+W or colour) but I do try and look for times and places where the palette is more nuanced than the usual Velvia summer flowers. Examples would be the oddball greens, oranges and magentas that flush the twigs of our local trees just before they break leaf in early spring, or how in twilight our scotopic vision turns powder blue weeds like chicory or cranesbill into intense little pools of pure colour contrast. It was looking at landscapes by Klimt, and watercolours from Rennie Macintosh, Klee and Nolde, which led me away from copying the established norms of colour composition in photography.

A second lesson, which has now become a habit, is to attend critically to my own preferences, particularly when I come across something I find myself liking in opposition to my established tastes - a new thing that I like even though I would have expected myself not to. Arts appreciation usually warns against 'over analysing' the experience of enjoying art lest you suck the pleasure and emotion out of the work, but I personally think the risk is wildly overestimated.

This is where going to museums and galleries, looking at books, films or other pictorial media, and even googleing suitably leading catchall terms is turned from a passive activity to an active pedagogy. Note that bad art, or art you dislike, can be just as instructive as good or pleasureable art, if not more so. You don't have to squelch your initial gut reaction, but rather, having given it time to sink in, allow yourself to question explicitly why you think you had that reaction. What about the work repelled or attracted you? How does the layout and framing of the subject matter speak to you? Is there a thread or narrative formed by the way the main components relate to each other, or a flow created by how they lie within the frame. Crucially, are there other works (perhaps in other media) which raise the same emotions or work in the same way?

An example from my own journey would be when I switched from making images with a narrative flow or gesture to a more static style of composition which - I hope - encourages looking over reading. By narrative I mean the sort of landscape which leads the eye with the use of foreground and leading lines, and which has a clear explicative purpose, usually "this is beautiful". I still like - love - this style of landscape, but find its lack of emotional range restricts me too much in terms of what I can show people and how. My 'static' composition came from two wildly different traditions. One, that of all-over abstract painting and the geometry of pattern making and applied arts, is the way that certain patterns and structures make the frame irrelevant, in the sense that the viewer can easily imagine the pattern repeating on beyond the frame. The part shown by the photographer or artist is a choice of scale or magnification rather than a choice of position. My other form of static crops up on paintings of the uncanny (think Hopper, or more commercial work like Michael Sowa) where a sense of stasis draws you in and makes you look more attentively, and fosters the niggling feeling at the back of your mind that there is a message or piece of information there which you are not quite perceiving. The landscapes of Fay Godwin are my favourite photographic examplar, but it's there too in much classic photoreportage such as the work of Cartier Bresson.

A final tip is to look hard at the interplay between your own tastes and the canonical tradition. If you hate something lots of other people love, you don't have to change your opinion, but it can be worth examining it. Neglected or minor artists are not of worth simply because they might be the next Vivian Meier - you can learn things from them without having to embark on a mission to make them popular. I personally have very little time for fashion photography or celebrity portraiture, but I have learned much about how pictures speak to an audience by considering why they are so very popular.

[Doremus Scudder]

...
A second lesson, which has now become a habit, is to attend critically to my own preferences, particularly when I come across something I find myself liking in opposition to my established tastes - a new thing that I like even though I would have expected myself not to. Arts appreciation usually warns against 'over analysing' the experience of enjoying art lest you suck the pleasure and emotion out of the work, but I personally think the risk is wildly overestimated. ...


Very well said, Struan, especially the quote above.

@Lenny: I think "getting away from photography" means backing away from the compositional practice more specific to the traditions and techniques of photography and looking at other artistic media in order to find something new, or at least underlying, in the approaches of great artists from other traditions and techniques. I find this extremely useful. I find real instruction in the works of Mondrian, Whistler, and Rauschenberg in areas that I doubt I would find in photographs alone. I don't take this to mean one should eschew photographic traditions or looking at the photographs of others, just that there are often things to learn that come from outside our chosen medium.

Interesting and informative thread.

Best,

Doremus

[Greg Miller]

Design is important to keep from boring everyone, but the placement of the camera or the lens is not an important part of the final image. Often times it would not have mattered where I placed the camera, it is the "seeing" that mattered. Light is important, of course, but it is to notice and understand the light, light as a subject, rather than to pick only the dawn light, for example.

I am very jealous that you get to be at Olana. I went to college at Bard, went all over the area, climbed in the Gunks, and I think the Hudson River Valley is one spectacular area of natural beauty. I miss it.

Best,

Lenny

It is always interesting to see how others work. Camera positioning is very critical to me. When framing a 3 dimensional scene, moving the camera up down, left, right even a few inches can dramatically alter the relative spatial placement of different objects in the frame. Moving the camera forward or backward and selecting a different focal length affects what and where object appear in the frame and their relative size. So personally no paying attention to camera placement would never work for me. And I tend to use longer focal lengths than most landscape photographers so camera placement probably affects me less than others. But I guess we all have our ways of working, and that's a good thing since otherwise we would all be creating the same images.

Olana is a special place; you can almost feel the presence of the great Hudson River School painters. We don't have the great dramatic landscapes of the west, but this area does have its own special beauty.

[Drew Wiley]

I dunno, Lenny ... when I was a lil kid my aunt came out and told my folks never to allow
me to go to art school. I'm grateful for that advice to this day. And she had a phD in art
history, taught both art history and technique until she was in her 90's, and was represented in major museums on both side of the Atlantic. Encouragement is one thing,
trying to mould someone into a particular genre or mechanically coach them is another thing. The best thing that could ever happen to "fine art" photography would be to divorce itself from that very terminology and the artificial mentality that goes with it.

[ROL]

Originally Posted by ROL
...and I still hold to my initial advice: get away from photography (and other photographers) to learn and appreciate basic composition.



Ridiculous. Nothing wrong with looking at painting and design and everything else. By all means, its actually a good idea, IMO. But "get away from photography"? That's nuts. You must be looking at the wrong photographers. There is a lot of great work out there, its quite instructional to look at what worked and what didn't. You want to deny the heritage?

You want to dismiss Walker Evans, Frederick Evans, O' Sullivan, Watkins, Frank, Weston, Stieglitz, Lewis Hine, to name a few? Will you tell me that you weren't influenced by AA? You would not even know how to look without them. It's the height of hubris...

We live in a media-saturated world. You can not be innocent.


Lenny

Wow, those are some charges. I have not dismissed any of the fine artists you list either in word or in deed, and I don't appreciate your unfounded leap to that conclusion. It is precisely because of that uncurated media saturated world that I suggest students of photography (as the OP has suggested he is, in the finest sense of that word), solely in terms of developing their eye, look beyond the democratic medium to other artists who create composition out of whole cloth, paper, wood, or stone.

I look to my own heritage and experience in places I love for inspiration – though that was not part of the OP's question as I read it, nor part of anything I posted. That includes nineteenth and twentieth century artists – painters, woodblock artists, sculptors and photographers. I stand unabashedly upon the shoulders of all who came before me, including AA for technique and his relentless efforts to have photography accepted as fine art, but certainly not for the inspiration you so vulgarly suggest.

I don't need to defend my work to you or anyone else here, but at least I post images when appropriate to make a point in a PHOTOGRAPHY forum, rather than to crouch behind the cowardice of unsubstantiated diatribe. I am not so nuts as to launch into a personal attack as you have, Lenny Eiger. Although I am too much of a gentleman to comment specifically on your work (which I have seen), it would have been perhaps better to have admonished the OP to steer clear of any photography by anyone participating in internet forums.



P.S. For anyone reading this exchange, I would hope that if you come away with one positive thing, it would be that you cannot know anyone here by their postings alone. That is the heighth of hubris.

[Lenny Eiger]

ROL,

First of all, I meant no attack. I was attacking the concepts here, not the person. I have no disrespect for you or your work, or anyone else here. It is clear to me, numerous folks have pointed it out, that I took your statement to the absolute when it wasn't intended that way. So, my apologies.

I happen to live on the West Coast. The percentage of photographers who call themselves landscape photographers, who have only ever looked at one photographer's work (you guessed it, the distinguished Mr. Adams) lies at about 95% or so, by my reckoning. It has been a pet peeve of mine that photographers ought to be educated, or that they should educate themselves. As worthy of study as Mr. Adams may be, he is certainly not the only photographer worth studying, and there is the painting... Should they educate themselves in painting first? Maybe not first, but at least concurrently would be my take. Apparently we don't disagree quite so much after all.

Lenny

[rdenney]

Many young tuba players ask what they should do to learn musical interpretation (rather than just how to play faster, higher, louder).

The best recommendations include:

1. Listen to great music performed by great musicians (instrument not specified).

2. Listen to great tuba players.

3. Study with a great teacher.

So, we learn what is characteristic about our instrument from great artists of our instrument. We learn musical expression from great musicians. We can learn both from listening to their performances, rather than from reading what they wrote, though, when available, getting their direct input into what we are doing is particularly valuable. And just occasionally we can learn both from great musicians who happen to play our instrument.

Sometimes those who recommend a regimen of listening to musicians of other instruments get challenged by those who believe there are tuba players who are great musicians. And those who recommend becoming steeped in the tuba playing tradition are sometimes challenged by those who think musicianship isn't a matter of which instrument is being played. I think most great tuba players learned from both sources, without really thinking there is any competition between them.

I think I see some parallels.

Rick "who never learned anything about musical expression by reading words" Denney

[Greg Miller]

And #3 can assist in pointing to worthy #1's and #2's and explaining why. an what to listen for.

That's why I think finding a good mentor is the best first step.

[Drew Wiley]

Rick - one of my favorite Far Side cartoons shows the devil escorting a coat n' tails symphony conductor into his own private cell in hell with a pimply-faced high-school kid in there blowing on a tuba. That's how I feel about 90% of the photo galleries I inadvertently
walk into. They've all been listening to other kids who didn't know how to play either,
and the web culture has only made things worse.

[Drew Wiley]

Lenny - I'm not sure about your stereotype about landscape photographers only knowing
about AA. I had several prominent shows of my own work before I ever saw an actual AA
print in my life, just a few really poor magazine reproductions. I did see a handful of EW prints up close, along with good reproductions of his Pt Lobos work in a classic early book,
and did have access to Eliot Porters early books. But that hardly made me a clone of any
of them. And to this day I can appreciate all kinds of photog genres and methods which I
do not personally practice or feel influenced by. But it does help to get an idea of quality
to look at fine prints in particular, which is something I feel is rapidly diminishing with the
web-only generation.

[Lenny Eiger]

Lenny - I'm not sure about your stereotype about landscape photographers only knowing
about AA.

Drew, I know you to be a serious guy, as are most others here, and certainly in this conversation. It may be that I have lived in the North Bay for a bunch of years, right after living in NYC for a long time. I celebrate anyone who knows their stuff, and has taken the time to educate themselves in their own medium (and others). I had 6 years of Art History in my schooling, along with another 2 of PhotoHistory. It's hard after one is in a rich environment to move to the hinterlands, so to speak. On occasion, I have traveled down to SF for the PhotoAlliance lectures, some of which I have enjoyed tremendously. A few of them are to postmodern for my taste, but many of them are great.

Lenny

[Drew Wiley]

Well I was a downright hillbilly, Lenny, who literally grew up with cowboys and Indians.
My mom would drive into the city to buy big rolls of butcher paper to feed my childhood addiction to drawing. But due to the family connection, I was exposed to world-class painting from an early age, so that probably subconsciously imprinted something upon me.
Photographically, I just took off own my own, and made got a bit of a reputation in color
well before I even attempted black and white photography. My brother was a pro photog,
but stylistically we had little in common. I don't know if it's really all that different here than the North Bay. Jillions of wannabee artistes of all descriptions, but as usual, just a
handful of really good ones who don't need all that nonsense to understand what they want to do. There are some nice venues like the historical collections in the Oakland Museum, though I find SFMMA to be a bit predictably pretentious at times. But I rarely visit
museums or galleries anymore. Did have some one on one connections with the famous old
timers down in the Carmel area back when I personally exhibited in their back yard. No
need to bluff or BS if you're confident in your own vision. But I do kinda relate to that whole West Coast school thing to the degree I like very crisp detailed prints (not that I
dislike "pictorial" ones, but it's not what I do).

[C. D. Keth]

Perhaps it would help if those of use who are advocating 'just look a lot' could say how we direct that looking to make it a learning process. (If indeed we do :-).

My process for this is simple, maybe too simple after reading the thoughts of others here. When I see something in a museum or gallery that I react to (and this reaction can be like or dislike), I ask myself, "why?" What, specifically, is pleasing about the composition? Where is my eye drawn to? Where is it repelled from?

[Leonard Metcalf]

Learn 'balance'

Increase your visual literacy (study lots of photos & art if it interests you)

Copy, to learn but not to plagourise

Get a mentor / teacher

[Leonard Metcalf]

Oh...

Learn how to steer the eye around the picture... Via tones and lines.. The easiest way to learn this is in bw. Tone trumps colour...

[thefurman]

I'll throw in my 5 cents.

I've spent a whole lot of time trying to find good resources on composition and have come to the realization that I've simply been looking in the wrong place. Now, when people ask me about books or classes, I tell them to stay the hell away from photography books and photography instruction in general (again, we're talking about composition here, not technical stuff) and sign up for a good art-class. Traditional art education is cheap and readily available, and art teachers are really good about cutting through the bullshit (there's not much there in the first place) and getting right to what matters about how you compose your drawing or painting. Practicing with still-life is especially helpful - you have full control of what goes there, and thus full responsibility for the results you get. You can make quick sketches in rapid succession and see what changes about the feel of the image as you alter the composition in small ways. In my experience, this is the best way to learn.

alex

[Andrew O'Neill]

I'm kinda with Brett Weston on this one. You're either born with it or you're not. But I do
think a lot of photographers are borderline and just need to be coaxed a little.

I agree with this. It's just like someone who is tone deaf... they cannot sing well no matter how much training they receive. If you feel you have an eye and you want to fine tune it, then use a cardboard view finder. Cut out a rectangle the same size as your film format. Walk around and look for comps. It will also help you determine which focal length to use and where to place your tripod.

[Alan Gales]

After I graduated from High School I attended a local community college for commercial art but I found that I didn't want to be a commercial artist and went into the sheet metal industry.

When I was at college I took Design 1 and 2 and Art History 1 and 2 from a couple of excellent teachers. Both ended up helping me with my photography.

[Peter Langham]

I think it was Edward Weston who defined composition as "the strongest way of seeing" When I first heard this, it drove me nuts. "Of what value is this to me?" I thought. I now think it is all you need to know. When you find subject / light that interests you, move around it (in it?), up, down, left, right, in, out...etc, carefully observing the shapes and form until you find the composition that works for you. I used to do it with a zone vi viewing filter (til I lost it...ugg). I find using a cropping frame is very helpful.
Oh and then when you are all set (per Michael Kenna in a class many years ago) turn around and look behind you...you may find a better picture there.

This and careful study of whatever art you like (think I'll stay out of that one). Look at what you like and figure out what about the composition makes it work for you? There are great and lousy pictures of any subject matter you can think of. What is the difference?

Practice, practice, practice.

Hope this helps.

Peter

[t0aster]

Step 1) Quit worrying about not being good enough and just grab your camera and start making images.
Step 2) Look and think critically at and about your images. Determine what works and keep doing it, find what doesn't and stop doing it.
Step 3) Go to step 1

[Andrew O'Neill]

Another great exercise is to make a couple of cropping L's and look for compositions within prints that you have made. I make my design students and art students do this all the time.

[Alan Gales]

I think it was Edward Weston who defined composition as "the strongest way of seeing" When I first heard this, it drove me nuts. "Of what value is this to me?" I thought. I now think it is all you need to know. When you find subject / light that interests you, move around it (in it?), up, down, left, right, in, out...etc, carefully observing the shapes and form until you find the composition that works for you. I used to do it with a zone vi viewing filter (til I lost it...ugg). I find using a cropping frame is very helpful.
Oh and then when you are all set (per Michael Kenna in a class many years ago) turn around and look behind you...you may find a better picture there.

This and careful study of whatever art you like (think I'll stay out of that one). Look at what you like and figure out what about the composition makes it work for you? There are great and lousy pictures of any subject matter you can think of. What is the difference?

Practice, practice, practice.

Hope this helps.

Peter

That's a great explanation!

[Bill Burk]

I'd like to be knowledgable about composition, but at composition I would classify myself as "primitive", largely self-taught.

So following this thread I just read a few paragraphs of "Metropolitan Seminars in Art" by John Canaday...

Books like this are not specific to photography, as Doremus Scudder points out art has been around for a very long time and the ideas how to organize a 2-dimensional surface can apply just as easily to photography as to painting...

This book mentions the realist, the expressionist and the abstractionist. There's an interesting illustration about Lady in Blue by Matisse. Photographs were taken daily as Matisse worked on that painting, so you can see the refinements of position and the simplification of design as he changed his mind and reworked it. Akin to looking at contact sheet of a photographer exploring a scene and repositioning the camera until the composition looks best.

[Bill Burk]

There's an interesting illustration about Lady in Blue by Matisse. Photographs were taken daily as Matisse worked on that painting, so you can see the refinements...

There's more... And an upcoming show.

http://www.thejewishmuseum.org/site/pages/uploaded_media/cone/matisse/index.html

http://www.vogue.com/culture/article/portrait-of-an-artists-process-a-new-matisse-exhibition-at-the-met/#1

[rdenney]

But photography requires different strategies for including only what we want, because we can't just paint something else over offending parts of the scene. We may seek similar results, but our medium requires a different path.

And, as I said before, if I could verbalize what it is about a scene that moves me, I should be a poet. The language is visual, and needs visual tools. I'll take that composing cutout over verbal self-talk any day. The tricky bit is knowing when what's inside the view of that card is right. That is also a visual process, as demonstrated, for example, by Ken Lee.

Rick "for whom the emotion of the moment distracts from careful composition more than not knowing how" Denney

[Doremus Scudder]

But photography requires different strategies for including only what we want, because we can't just paint something else over offending parts of the scene. We may seek similar results, but our medium requires a different path.

And, as I said before, if I could verbalize what it is about a scene that moves me, I should be a poet. The language is visual, and needs visual tools. I'll take that composing cutout over verbal self-talk any day. The tricky bit is knowing when what's inside the view of that card is right. That is also a visual process, as demonstrated, for example, by Ken Lee.

Rick "for whom the emotion of the moment distracts from careful composition more than not knowing how" Denney

I agree wholeheartedly, Rick.

I also use a framing tool and rarely bother to even unpack the camera until I have arrived at a composition that I think has potential. And I couldn't agree more about the "wordless world" of visual art. I get a bit flippant these days when gallery owners, curators, etc. ask me what I am trying to do with my art. If they can't see it in the image, then all the words I can spew at them will have little effect. I usually just let them know that, yes, there is something to look for; in fact, there are many things to look for.

I think my own emotional reaction to the scene I compose in the viewing frame is often the deciding factor as to whether the composition is effective or not. There's a whole lot of our brain that isn't directly linked to our conscious mind, but to other, more primitive and fundamental parts. We need to listen to those parts as well as that verbal, educated, analytical part.

As for not being able to paint over a composition; well, that's just one of the characteristics of our medium. We can only change viewpoint, framing, and try, try again.

Many years ago, I attended a workshop with a Minor White student (can't remember his name anymore...). When a participant asked him what his most useful compositional tool was, he simply made a walking motion with his fingers. That has stuck with me. That's my different path.

Best,

Doremus

[Brian Sims]

When I was teaching photography many decades ago, I required my students to sit knee to knee with a fellow student holding their enlargement towards the other student but with a piece of paper covering the image. Their task was to uncover the image and follow the other student's eye movements. Where did the eye first go to? What was the path of eye movement? What did the eye keep coming back to? I had them mark that info on the photo with a black marker. They would switch roles and then talk about how the other person's eye movements were compatible (or not) with the photographer's intention regarding the subject matter.

When we look at our own work, we are biased by what we wanted to accomplish. When we watch others look at our work we see how the image really works. I often spend as much time in art museums watching people look at the art as I spend looking at the art.

There are some important biological and cultural influences to perception and composition that are important to understand. A useful book that may be updated is "Perception and Photography" by Zakia.

[Bill Burk]

But photography requires different strategies for including only what we want, because we can't just paint something else over offending parts of the scene.

I was afraid to even bring up that difference between painting and photography, because I know you are right. Painters can start with a composition and put anything anywhere. We have to be on the lookout for what might make a good composition, and we take what we can get, true. But painters and photographers both have absolute control over what we present. We can shoot, or not. We also have absolute control in a studio. We can wait for fog to diffuse a scene (or choose a foggy day over sunny) when we wish to be expressive instead of realistic. We can shoot strange things in strange light and create abstracts.

[Bill Burk]

Their task was to uncover the image and follow the other student's eye movements. Where did the eye first go to? What was the path of eye movement? What did the eye keep coming back to? I had them mark that info on the photo with a black marker.

That sounds like a very effective lesson

[rdenney]

I was afraid to even bring up that difference between painting and photography, because I know you are right. Painters can start with a composition and put anything anywhere. We have to be on the lookout for what might make a good composition, and we take what we can get, true. But painters and photographers both have absolute control over what we present. We can shoot, or not. We also have absolute control in a studio. We can wait for fog to diffuse a scene (or choose a foggy day over sunny) when we wish to be expressive instead of realistic. We can shoot strange things in strange light and create abstracts.

That way I would say it today (it's brainstorm day) is that while the goals are the same and the objectives are similar, the strategies for achieving those objectives may be different and the tactics profoundly so. So, a general art class that concentrates on understanding goals and objectives would be more useful than a general art class that concentrates on strategies and tactics. Those who think in terms of goals and objectives will be favorable to that advice, while those for whom such considerations are either transparently automatic (or, it must be said, nonexistent) will focus on what makes painting and photography different.

An example of my thinking: I might seek a composition that is both dynamic and balanced (goal). That may typically require that weight be distributed equally around the image and that the focal points are not centered and lead around the image to the main subject relationships (objective). The strategy in painting is one of arrangement, while the strategy in photography is one of perspective and framing. To a beginner, it might be presented as a tactical rule, such as the Rule of Thirds. Moving from the rule to the strategy to the objective to the goal is the hard way to learn but the easy way to teach. A general art class that illuminates how to set one's goals and objectives, or how the work of great artists reflects their goals and objectives, would be really useful. But my experience is that art teachers do not think that systematically, so their classes require a good dose of "take what you need and leave the rest."

Bottom line for me: I've had no shortage of art training, from well-known artists, and art history. And I was 30 hours short of an architecture degree when I switched to engineering--and not because my grades were poor. But when I try to describe what "dynamic and balanced" means, I can only do so by example--I know it only when I see it. There is no doubt that much compositional sin has resulted from trying to be true to such simplistic statements (and I offer my own work as evidence). That's what I mean by the centrality of a visual language for describing visual art--words are insufficient and maybe antagonistic to the goal.

One thing from art training that sticks with me: The need to see what's there. I can still remember my first and most important art teacher telling me, "Rick, stop it! Nobody has eyelashes that look like that!" or, for an exercise in false shading, "You were lazy in that portion--can't you see all that texture there that you just colored gray?" His objective with his students was getting them to see. But those comments were aimed at tactical issues of the medium, and their driving goals and objectives need to be understood before they translate to photography. For example, if I represent eyelashes based on my understanding of their structure rather than what I could actually see, I might draw each lash. But if I'm driven by what I see, I'll realize that the individual lashes don't resolve in my vision, and need to be represented as a smudge. If my governing objective is to put the viewer where I am (to achieve the goal of imparting my--literal--perspective), the strategy might be realism, and too sharp a representation might actually fight that strategy. (What was it Renoir was attempting? "What is real, not what is realistic"--my paraphrase.) When we make very sharp photos and mammoth prints, we are not consistent with that goal--that represents a very different perspective, and the goal driving that strategy might be to try to understand the whole by sensing the detail (as might be the case with landscapes). Or, I might soften the focus a bit. But I've stretched my rubber band a little too far.

A musical example: Let's say I'm playing McCartney's Yesterday. It's a sad love song, and my goal is to evoke feelings of melancholy based on having and losing something desirable and important. My objective is to keep the presentation simple and undecorated, with phrasing being paramount to, say, tonal texture. That much could be agreed to by a singer, a tuba player, and a pianist. When we get to strategies, however, we diverge. As a tuba player, I don't have the lyrics, but I do have the sonority. My strategy will be to produce song. Tactically, I will play each phrase all on one breath, with a noticeable swell in the middle of the phrase, soft articulations, and no space between the notes, so that each note leads seamlessly to the next. (To the beginner, the instruction would be: Don't breathe in the middle of phrases.) Even that much might be similar between the singer and the tuba player, though the pianist has different strategies--the piano is a percussion instrument--for tying notes into phrases. For a song representing emotion as obviously as Yesterday, these considerations are transparently automatic for any musician. With more complex and elusive subjects, it becomes much, much more challenging. But I doubt there are many musicians who would even try to articulate this process.

Rick "noting that the systematic thinking of artists is built in, not built on" Denney

[C. D. Keth]

I stumbled onto this today. Only 10 steps to mastering composition!

http://121clicks.com/tutorials/10-simple-steps-to-mastering-composition-by-ian-plant

[Maris Rusis]

Here's a short primer I rehearse when fretting about composition:

Composition? Easy steps...

1. Learn and use the rules of composition. People naturally find some picture arrangements more attractive or persuasive than others. The "rules" are the ploys we picture-makers use to make our audiences fall in love with our pictures. They don't know why they embrace some pictures and not others, but we do.

2. Have something in mind before starting. Random scouting for masterpieces rarely delivers. A good half-hour think is more productive than a day in the darkroom (or in front of a computer) trying to spin straw into gold.

3. Go and get the subject matter that is needed so that the photograph says what it has to say. This often involves effort and disappointment. Genuine "subject failure" exists.

4. Place the camera in the subject space so all the things in that space have the right relationship front to back and side to side. That's composition finished. What's right? See items 2 and 3 above.

5. After composition comes framing. Framing is not composition. Don't move the camera. Either change lenses, zoom, or crop to include only those things that support items 2, 3 and 4 above.

6. Complete the picture making process faithfully and without hurtful error.

The resulting picture features good composition. The goodness comes not from the physical arrangement of pictorial details but because a sentient photographer in full possession of their faculties and skills chose those details, that arrangement. The picture is a mind-map of the photographer; Art in a nutshell!

[C. D. Keth]

Maris, that's an excellent thought process except for one thing. Are you really suggesting that you find a camera position without concern for your lens? I think finding that perfect camera position and finding the perfect lens to portray it have to be done hand-in-hand. One decision cannot come before the other.

[Maris Rusis]

Maris, that's an excellent thought process except for one thing. Are you really suggesting that you find a camera position without concern for your lens? I think finding that perfect camera position and finding the perfect lens to portray it have to be done hand-in-hand. One decision cannot come before the other.

That's an excellent comment and it's something I agonised over for too long.

Now I feel sure that the camera position really does come first as a determinant of spatial composition and the lens comes second as the determinant of framing. Resolutely separating composition and framing gives me a reliable mental tool to seek elegant arrangements in a world largely dominated by small and large scale chaos.

The ideal lens selection has an angle of view that includes everything I want and no more. I practice the chosen lens is often slightly wider than necessary and final framing is achieved by cropping. Large format negatives are generous and leaving a bit of "air" around the subject matter sure makes things easier. One thing that must be avoided is using a longer focal length lens and stepping back to "get everything in". Stepping back delivers a different composition even if the framing is quite similar.

If I don't have the right lens I will often mark the spot and come back later with the appropriate focal length.
If no available focal length will do the job then I'll write off the composition as subject failure, set aside wishful thinking, and look elsewhere. The world is big enough.

[Bill Burk]

I know this must be an oversimplification because it only took me two minutes to think about it while reading Maris' post...

Maybe it hit me from those composition books I read last week...

A simple way to make a good photographic composition, say a landscape: Look around for a "scene" which gives the viewer's eye a path to follow around and within the scene.

The rules of composition are there to have artists create the same; a path for the eye

[Lenny Eiger]

I stumbled onto this today. Only 10 steps to mastering composition!

http://121clicks.com/tutorials/10-simple-steps-to-mastering-composition-by-ian-plant

No offense meant to you at all, Christopher.... I went to this link. I would say that Mr. Plant is a very slick commercial photographer, and that his composition is quite untrained. There are so many other photographers I would rather take inspiration from. Walker Evans, Paul Strand, Paul Caponigro, Carleton Watkins, Edward Weston and Timothy O'Sullivan, just to name a few. These folks helped define photographic design.

Also, to Mr. Rusis' comment that one choose the lens after composing - if one looks in the History of Photography by Newhall, for example, most of the people in that book used one camera and one lens at a time, for many years at a time. There are some notable exceptions, of course. What this does is to train the eye to see within a particular form factor, so that when one sees a photograph they can simply put the camera down and focus. One's eyes become sensitive to the distances, and what will fit inside a frame. I had a friend who shot with a telephoto lens all the time and we would be walking down the street and he would say, "Wow, do you see that?" to which I would answer "What?" all the time. Then he would point out something far off in the distance. One gets used to the lens they use, their eye gets sensitive to how it will see, and I believe the seeing gets better.

As much as I like pretty lenses as much as the next guy, I carry one lens with me. The more I photograph, the easier is is to compose. I carry a longer lens I use when what I want to photograph is across a river, for example. Something I can't get closer to by using my feet and walking. I do my best not to use it so I don't pollute my eyes. If I was a commercial photographer, this would be different, of course, one is expected to have an array of tools.

This is just one more viewpoint. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion...


Lenny

[Leonard Metcalf]

...most of the people in that book used one camera and one lens at a time, for many years at a time...

Lenny

This is a fantastic way to work... Restricting things forces us to be more creative. I also recommend this to all my students... and often work this way... and I love it and the work it creates...

[Doremus Scudder]

Limitations are often liberating. Using one lens exclusively for a while will certainly train one how to "see" like that lens does.

That said, I think I can "see" pretty well with a number of focal lengths, so I carry a number of lenses.

Actually, my approach to finding a photographable composition is more like Maris'. I construct the scene, "moving" objects relative to each other by moving me, i.e., walking around and changing the perspective and spatial relationships of the objects in the scene (unless I'm doing still-life, then I really move the objects themselves...). When I have a scene I want to photograph, I have already decided on the framing. How wide or how narrow that framing is dictates lens choice.

Using just one lens means you walk around looking for scenes with just one framing option. Some are keenly aware of this, others work more intuitively. I tend to keep a continuous spectrum of framing options in mind. My imagination, however, is limited by the lenses I have on hand. No problem if the framing I want is a little tighter than a lens I have; I just crop a bit during printing. Seeing wider than the widest lens I have usually makes me give up, or resort to an approach based on the framing possibilities of the widest lens I have and re-thinking the entire composition. Sometime this works, sometimes not. And, often I'd love to have that 1200mm telephoto along, but shooting the scene with the 450mm just won't cut it; I won't crop that much...

So, I'm still limited, just with a few more options.

Best,

Doremus

[Lenny Eiger]

Limitations are often liberating. Using one lens exclusively for a while will certainly train one how to "see" like that lens does.

How wide or how narrow that framing is dictates lens choice.
Doremus


We see a little differently. I like the golden section very much, or the 4x5 form factor. It is not in me to do panoramas. I not only do not change lenses that often, I don't change my printed format either. I will crop a little here or there but I stay close to the 4-5 relationship. I am very uncomfortable doing otherwise.

I do all sorts of work for other in any format they like, square, 35mm, etc. but I can't do it for my own work. I can't imagine how anyone would come up with a square format. It makes no sense (ok, to my little mind.) It seems a shame to have wasted all that good work in created the 80 Planar for a Hasselblad, just to put it on a Hasselblad. Why didn't they make a 6x7 Hasselblad? What is wrong with them? I'm kidding, of course, but only a little. Some little voice inside of me does think that way.

I also don't ever want to reach for that 1200. i don't want to emulate Ansel Adams and in general I am not interested in the big mountain shots... To each his own, I suppose...

FWIW, I do think its possible to train one's self to see with more than one lens but it takes a lot of shooting and printing. I am interested in more and more subtle things these days, so the 6 inch lens is doing just nicely.

Best,

Lenny

[Doremus Scudder]

Lenny,

Your comment opens a new avenue for this discussion, namely that composition can be very personal and that there are myriad possibilities to create an effective composition. That's why there are so many different approaches and why simple "rules" tend to fail.

There surely are reasons for the Golden Section and the classical proportions of symmetry; I believe they lie in the way we are "wired" through evolution and how we and our surroundings are physically constructed.

On top of this there are layers and layers of socialization, symbolism, intent, affirmation or negation, reaction to predecessors, etc., etc. that we often add to communicate or make a visual statement. We all have to sort through all of this somehow, either intuitively or consciously (or both) in order to find a personal approach.

For me, the "physical construction" of a photograph, i.e., the graphic organization is an important aspect on its own, and one of the expressive layers of my work. I try to allow the subject and the ideas I wish to communicate with it dictate that organization. I, therefore, often end up rejecting, or at least stretching, the principles of a "consonant" symmetry with a more "dissonant" imbalance which implies the non-existent symmetry and at the same time denies it. That often leads me to frame anything from square to long and skinny with all variants in between. Sometimes, though, it is the symmetry that works. It's all really to complicated for words.

Best,

Doremus

[Lenny Eiger]

composition can be very personal and that there are myriad possibilities to create an effective composition. That's why there are so many different approaches and why simple "rules" tend to fail.

Indeed. However, I would add that I think its important to educate one's self. And to allow the education to improve on the personal aesthetic. I look at images I took in high school and I can see some of my design ideas at their beginning. The education brought a new level of sophistication to what I was doing, not to mention understanding. I appreciate this knowledge, there are themes I have been working on for 30 years, and I can see myself doing it. I keep taking shots at it because I haven't gotten it right yet.

Education doesn't have to be a traditional photography school, there are many fine books and workshops. I think there are many folks who have been influenced by the likes of a Galen Rowell or Rodney Lough and haven't taken the time to understand Walker Evans or O'Sullivan. I consider this to be unfortunate as the latter went so much further.


For me, the "physical construction" of a photograph, i.e., the graphic organization is an important aspect on its own, and one of the expressive layers of my work. I try to allow the subject and the ideas I wish to communicate with it dictate that organization. I, therefore, often end up rejecting, or at least stretching, the principles of a "consonant" symmetry with a more "dissonant" imbalance which implies the non-existent symmetry and at the same time denies it. That often leads me to frame anything from square to long and skinny with all variants in between. Sometimes, though, it is the symmetry that works. It's all really to complicated for words.

Symmetry is an odd word. We might be using the same word and talking about something different. I generally don't like images that stick something in the center. I have done this myself on occasion but I keep it to an absolute minimum. I like to have a photo where there is more dynamism - or eye movement, as was suggested earlier in this thread. It doesn't happen when both sides of the image are matched. I like a design where all parts of the image are interesting and I get to drive around and see everything...

I studied under Phil Perkis. He recently published a book called the Sadness of Men, which I think is exquisite. He has been called "the best photographer no one has ever heard of". Very insightful guy...

Best,


Lenny