Composition training and resources?

[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).