“Good composition is merely the strongest way of seeing.” [Archive]

Benjamin

31-Jul-2021, 14:07

Fascinating. I actually don't mind the old-style editing and story telling, nor the general hagiographic tone - only the new-age music got on my nerves, as I had forgotten how much of an annoying fad it was at the time to put that stuff in these types of one-hour docs.

What it had to say about Adams or Weston is mildly interesting today, but what I found really enjoyable was to hear about all these photographers - Henry Gilpin, Huntington Witherill, Robert Byers, Edna Bullock or Morley Baer that were totally unknown to me and whose works, a lot of it quite wonderful, aren't in the public eye as much as that of Adams and Weston.

The idea of a place, southern California, being an inspiration for a whole group of artists - not at all explored in the short doc as much as it title implies - is quite fascinating. Top of my head, I can't think of any other such example elsewhere in the world, at least as far as photography is concerned (I'm not counting cities like Paris or New York), but I'm certainly wrong...

r.e.

31-Jul-2021, 14:37

Discuss.

O.K.

One of the first sentences in the video says that "Robert Louis Stevenson used [Point Lobos] as a setting for his adventure novel Treasure Island".

That sounded so implausible that I checked.

In 2015, the Monterey County Weekly quoted an expert on both Point Lobos and Stevenson to the effect that the odds that Stevenson even set foot on Point Lobos, let alone set Treasure Island there, "are low".

Of course, we're talking about California. The people who made this film probably think that because a Hollywood version of Treasure Island was shot in the area, the story took place there. They probably think that Treasure Island is a work of history, too.

I figure that the opening credits, the insipid music and the opening of the narration are a pretty good indication of what's to come, and stopped watching.

One thing's for sure, Dead Chest Island is in the British Virgin Islands. I've been there, it does indeed look like a Dead Man's Chest, and Stevenson specifically said that Dead Chest Island inspired the phrase :)

Benjamin

31-Jul-2021, 15:27

O.K.

One of the first sentences in the video says that "Robert Louis Stevenson used [Point Lobos] as a setting for his adventure novel Treasure Island".

That sounded so implausible that I checked.

In 2015, the Monterey County Weekly quoted an expert on both Point Lobos and Stevenson to the effect that the odds that Stevenson even set foot on Point Lobos, let alone set Treasure Island there, "are low".

Of course, we're talking about California. The people who made this film probably think that because a Hollywood version of Treasure Island was shot in the area, the story took place there. They probably think that Treasure Island is a work of history, too.

I figure that the opening credits, the insipid music and the opening of the narration are a pretty good indication of what's to come, and stopped watching.

One thing's for sure, Dead Chest Island is in the British Virgin Islands. I've been there, it does indeed look like a Dead Man's Chest, and Stevenson specifically said that Dead Chest Island inspired the phrase :)

Robert Louis Stevenson was in Monterey in 1879 (https://www.seemonterey.com/listings/robert-louis-stevenson-house/515/), staying with friends and spending a lot of time walking along the coast. Chances are he did go to Point Lobos.

Doesn't mean he wrote Treasure Island there - many coastal towns that he visited elsewhere seem to make that claim -, but it doesn't mean he wasn't inspired by the California coast, at least partially, when writing the book.

This is a light, one-hour doc, it does show its age, and there are much better films, especially on Weston, that have appeared since ("Eloquent Nude", the Charis Wilson doc, comes to mind). As I said, it still an interesting watch for the glimpse it offers on the lesser-kown photographers. Edna Bullock, for me, was a discovery.

Drew Wiley

31-Jul-2021, 15:39

That's not southern California, Benjamin, but mid-coast. No palm trees or warm beaches, but characteristically mostly cliffs and tide pools, and a lot of fog. Big difference both scenically and sociologically. It's just a moderate distance south of San Francisco. Before my dad passed away, we put him in assisted living right there, just minutes from the shore. There was an old Japanese gal in there the same age as him (95) who had actually grown up at Pt Lobos as the daughter of an abalone diver, which was a major activity there prior to all the things mentioned in that video. Before that, it held a small whaling operation.

The "West Coast School" of photography centered around the central coast from Big Sur to somewhat north of San Francisco, emphasized acute composition combined with fine printmaking, and is still very much alive. I'd have to include myself as part of the extenuation of it. And that specific esthetic heritage is still locally appreciated by many.

Benjamin

31-Jul-2021, 15:56

That's not southern California, Benjamin, but mid-coast.

Thanks for correcting me Drew. Don't know why I wrote that, since I've been deep in Weston's life and work these days. Slip of the tongue, I mean pen, I mean keyboard, I guess. :rolleyes::D

j.e.simmons

31-Jul-2021, 16:18

I enjoyed the comment about color taking the place of composition. A good way of putting it.

Vaughn

31-Jul-2021, 18:51

That's not southern California, Benjamin, but mid-coast. ...

When one is heading south, for some, Southern California starts somewhere just north of Santa Rosa. For example, Hopland is a nice little northern CA town, especially Old Hopland. Southern California can be further divided into whatever one wants to...:cool:

I experienced Carmel traffic back in the late 80s/early 90's assisting at Friends of Photography workshops. No thank you.

Watkins made a similar statement about composition when asked by a judge why he took the photo in question from that spot. Something along the lines of, "It was the best view." Might be a bit of a stretch, but I have always enjoyed it. I'll have to find the quote again.

r.e.

31-Jul-2021, 19:17

Robert Louis Stevenson was in Monterey in 1879 (https://www.seemonterey.com/listings/robert-louis-stevenson-house/515/), staying with friends and spending a lot of time walking along the coast. Chances are he did go to Point Lobos.

It is well known that Stevenson spent time in the area. A local expert, who is among other things the President of the Monterey RL Stevenson Society, says that the odds that he was ever at Point Lobos "are low".

Stevenson kept a detailed journal in California, and apparently there isn't a single mention of Point Lobos. There are a couple of dozen claims about where the book is based, and there isn't much evidence for any of them. Except that Dead Men's Chest is definitely based on the British Virgin Islands island.

If you want to believe otherwise, go for it.

I'm just horsing around. Watched a couple of minutes of that film and decided, don't think so :)

pdmoylan

31-Jul-2021, 21:34

Visually I find the super clean whites and deep blacks of John Sexton images or the color work of Morley Bauer and his contemporaries far more compelling than the early fraternity of the F64 collective - Adams being the exception to some extent.

Many Westin compositions are distinctive but not aesthetically appealing. I wouldn’t hang most of them on my walls.

For me Composition is wrought in priority by choice of lens focal length, angle, intensity and color of light, degree of magnification (I.e. closeup vs not), choice of vertical vs horizontal, and last by subject/object. In many ways similar to Brett W., Ralph Gibson’s choice of 50-90mm lenses (35mm format), choice of bright sunny frontal or side lighting, and vertical orientation dictates his initial quest for subject matter. He like Brett juxtaposes disparate forms to provide a visual cacophony (not seeing much visual harmony in most pics but rather tension).

A distinctive Compositional signature is what many photo devotees are seeking it seems to me.

lenicolas

1-Aug-2021, 01:42

Many Westin compositions are distinctive but not aesthetically appealing. I wouldn’t hang most of them on my walls.
[…]
A distinctive Compositional signature is what many photo devotees are seeking it seems to me.

Agree with that sentiment. All this stuff to me is dated, I get the same feeling when looking at Russian avant garde photographers like Rodchenko. I get an intellectual reaction, like “I see what you did there”, but not an emotional one.
Best way I can explain it is that I don’t connect with the reasons they had to take the photographs?
Weston had excellent reasons to photograph a parade of bell peppers, but am I ever in the mood for looking at pictures of bell peppers?

Obviously if Weston’s peppers and Rodchenko’s weirdly cropped, tilted photographs resonate emotionally with you then you win.

Even AA I struggle with. The idea that B&W is the best medium for landscape just doesn’t sit well with me. B&W is an abstraction, why chase the best possible reproduction with an abstract medium?
I don’t like all of his pictures, but the ones I do like, I still think they’d look better in colour. And looking at his actual colour photos, you can tell he had an understanding of how to work with colour ("https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/ansel-adams-in-color-145315674/)

I think of composition as the drum part in a rock song (and the melody/lyrics would be subject matter, and the guitar lead would be the punctum). Many mediocre songs have a perfectly good drum part ; I don’t listen to those. Some promising songs have a poor drum part ; those are demos, they can’t be considered the finished product. And some good songs have an over the top drum part that is detrimental to the whole. But when a great song also happens to have a unique and striking drum part, that’s when things take off…

Vaughn

1-Aug-2021, 09:43

Pictures of Peppers? I thought they were studies of form and light...I can look at those all day. It can be a trap to be so subject-orientated.

Bernice Loui

1-Aug-2021, 09:58

Benjamin

1-Aug-2021, 10:05

Pictures of Peppers? I thought they were studies of form and light...I can look at those all day. It can be a trap to be so subject-orientated.

My feelings exactly.

Mark Sawyer

1-Aug-2021, 10:21

The idea of a place, southern California, being an inspiration for a whole group of artists - not at all explored in the short doc as much as it title implies - is quite fascinating. Top of my head, I can't think of any other such example elsewhere in the world, at least as far as photography is concerned (I'm not counting cities like Paris or New York), but I'm certainly wrong...

I don't think it was the place that inspired the group. Rather, the group was together in one place and inspired each other, a more modern incarnation of the Hudson River School, the French Impressionists, New York's Photo Secession...

Bernice Loui

1-Aug-2021, 10:24

Texture of the peppers in Edward Westons photographs are similar to the texturing in Auguste Rodin's sculptures. It is much about how this texturing interacts with light-form/shape-composition. With an Auguste Rodin sculpture, sight change in viewers position can dramatically alter the way this texturing alters the lighting interacts with it's form/shape/texture.
218177

This is one aspect of what makes Edward Weston's pepper photographs a visual treat.

Bernice

Pictures of Peppers? I thought they were studies of form and light...I can look at those all day. It can be a trap to be so subject-orientated.

pdmoylan

1-Aug-2021, 12:02

[QUOTE=Bernice Loui;1608860]Texture of the peppers in Edward Westons photographs are similar to the texturing in Auguste Rodin's sculptures. It is much about how this texturing interacts with light-form/shape-composition. With an Auguste Rodin sculpture, sight change in viewers position can dramatically alter the way this texturing alters the lighting interacts with it's form/shape/texture.
218177

This is one aspect of what makes Edward Weston's pepper photographs a visual treat.

Conceptually the Cubists came closest to the simultaneous multiple-view of a 3D object. Unless you are saying the pepper image is a collage or a multiple exposure of various angles/views, I guess I don't follow. I can't recall any photo collages or multiple exposures which I found successful in visually expressing this idea. Taking it one step further, if one subscribes to string theory, how does one depict that in photos? I have seen merged files of multiple times of day (panoramic) of the same scene (cityscape), some of which are reasonably successful visually. But multiple angles (NSEW or increments), no.

I am told that Santa Cruz remains an artists' "hub" even today (I have no way of knowing); yet it seems unlikely that DH Lawrence would hang with the F64 group, and Steinbeck with D. Lange? Why writers and photographers were drawn to Monterey likely has more to do with the climate, aesthetic environment/subjects, and perhaps a common temperament/acceptance among its inhabitants. The video I expect oversells this notion of a "collective". Was Monterey the Montmartre of its day?

With fractured societies and global anxiety, other than in Leica store gatherings/workshops, or photographer led trips to Iceland and other exotics (zoom for those unwilling or unable to venture), where in the world can one find a "collective" of artists/photographers/authors intentionally at a location? Budapest perhaps? Certainly most large cities have a variety of artistic centers etc, but have we seen the last of what Monterey represented in the 20s and into the 90s? Perhaps the internet moots the point of living close to your LF companions?

lenicolas

2-Aug-2021, 01:31

Subject is merely a means to utilize these three elements of visual language.

Strong disagree here.
Place your sentence in any other context than photography and see how appealing it sounds?

Will you come to my lecture? Subject to me is merely a means to experience the sound of my own voice.

Ditto to Vaughn, it can be a trap to be so form-oriented.

Jim Jones

2-Aug-2021, 06:22

Good composition is sometimes sometimes merely adhering to rules that seem to result in successful competitions among your peers, whether a small camera club or a huge national photographic organization. Perhaps more often it is the arrangement of light and subjects to best present the subject or the photographer's response to the subject. Most often it tells the viewer what you saw on vacation or how wonderful your children or pets are. Considering the well-established rules can be useful even for experienced photographers: when doubt, follow the rules. This is especially true when the photographs will be judged by the type of expert who also evaluates a glamour model with tape rule and bathroom scales instead of his (or her) eyes.

Vaughn

2-Aug-2021, 09:11

Strong disagree here....Ditto to Vaughn, it can be a trap to be so form-oriented.
Thankfully painting is not a subject-oriented art-form. Otherwise it certainly would have died with the invention of photography. Who needs more paintings (or photos, really) of things? :cool:

Bernice Loui

2-Aug-2021, 10:11

"Subject is merely a means to utilize these three elements of visual language."
~Bernice Loui.

Assertions re-imposed again. Not just Photographs, it applies to what is processed by the visual perception system and much more.

This applies to each and every photographic image made to this date. Definition of a ~Photograph~
Photo = Photon aka light as defined as a small section of the electro magnetic spectrum.
Graph = "A diagram showing the relation between variable quantities" in the case of a photographic image, this would involve varying densities of tone-contrast ratios and possibly color.

Given these basic definition of the noun Photography, this implies then defines graph made using light. By extension the given will be light, shape/form then composition which is the overall system which these elements exist on a 2D flat sheet.

Without light, there can be no visible image, without shape/form there will not be content for the mind-brain to translate into meaning which is directly related to emotions and memory. Know the human mind-brain is a remarkable pattern recognition system. This is why shape/form is so important and holds meaning to what is processed by the human visual system coupled with the mind-brain.

As for your lecture, link to this lecture on the web or published Thesis or Studies on your Academic Assertions?

Bernice

Strong disagree here.
Place your sentence in any other context than photography and see how appealing it sounds?

Will you come to my lecture? Subject to me is merely a means to experience the sound of my own voice.

Ditto to Vaughn, it can be a trap to be so form-oriented.

r.e.

2-Aug-2021, 10:43

As for your lecture, link to this lecture on the web or published Thesis or Studies on your Academic Assertions?

I'd like to suggest that you re-read what Leni wrote about his lecture (the two italicised sentences, post #18).

His two sentences did trigger a question in my mind: "What would Marshall McLuhan respond?"

r.e.

2-Aug-2021, 11:23

The view on criticism that Bernice and Vaughn appear to hold reflects one approach that became fashionable during the 20th century, especially after World War I. It has been applied not just to the plastic arts, but to arts like theatre, dance and writing.

I think that matters such as what preceded the work, story and values are more important than the theory credits. For that reason alone, I did a double take at the equation of Weston's pepper with a Rodin sculpture. The theory requires a re-evaluation of the work of most of the important figures in the history of photography. It's entirely possible that the result is to say that the work of just about everybody from Julia Margaret Cameron to Jeff Wall is rubbish.

When asked what I think are the two greatest novels that I've ever read, I have no hesitation in replying Don Quixote from La Mancha and War and Peace. However, according to the theory that Bernice and Vaughn appear to recommend, I don't know whether these novels are any good, let alone masterpieces, because I've only read them in translation. To wit Robert Frost: In translation "poetry is what gets lost".

I suspect that most of the participants in this forum are well-aware of these differences of view. What interested me in this thread is that Bernice and Vaughn appear to be taking a position that is particularly hard line. Nothing wrong with that. They aren't the first. It just isn't my cup of tea. It's also not worth debating, because nobody's going to change his or her mind :)

For people who are interested in the issue, I would like to recommend Paul Fussell's The Great War and Modern Memory, first published 46 years ago but still very much in print.

Jody_S

2-Aug-2021, 11:51

A crucial element of photography remains storytelling. Nick Ut's Napalm Girl isn't a strong composition, focus might be a little off, it's grainy, but it remains one of the greatest photos of the 20th century. Contrast that to Kevin Carter's Starving girl with vulture, which is a much stronger composition with Kevin taking some pride in making an aesthetically pleasing photograph with all the right light and textures. But in so doing, he changed the story from 'there's a child starving to death about to be eaten by a vulture' to: 'why didn't that asshole help her instead of poncing around taking pictures?'

So light and a 2d area remain important elements of a photograph, but outside of what most of us do, storytelling and emotional attachments play a much greater role than textures and shapes and contrast.

Bernice Loui

2-Aug-2021, 11:59

The "hard line" is rooted in the current scientific-medical understanding of how the human visual systems coupled with the mind-brain functions.
It is a product of Neurology, Brain/mind studies, Psychology and similar Academia-Intellectual endeavors. Once these observations of the human condition is coupled trying to understand human behavior nets some consistent and viable fundamental aspects of why Art and Creativity is appealing to few or many.

Lets try it this way:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbFM3rn4ldo

In the Feynman example of a flower, once that 3D to visualized/processed by the human visual/mind/brain system has been flatted into a 2D image, those three fundamental elements apply.. Light, Form-Shape, Composition which is a fixed given by the frame edges of the 2D image or the peripheral vision limits of the viewer..

Then we get into how visual perception is filtered by an individual's history, emotional make-up, personality tendencies and every other aspect of the human condition.

Bernice

r.e.

2-Aug-2021, 12:15

Bernice, if you want to be taken seriously, don't start saying that your views on art criticism are the necessary result of physics. At that point, you're saying that nobody can have a different view than yours, and that we should dismiss almost everything that has been written about aesthetics and art criticism for the last two thousand years, starting with Aristotle.

Really?

Have you re-read what Leni wrote and now understand what he was saying?

lenicolas

2-Aug-2021, 12:17

I don’t need to know more about the mind-brain that Rothko did, or Caravaggio or AA for that matter.

Maybe if these considerations enter an Artists mind when composing their pictures, is it why I find it hard to connect with said pictures?

rdenney

2-Aug-2021, 12:25

I enjoyed the comment about color taking the place of composition. A good way of putting it.

Adams said something related in the FilmAmerica biography of him. He said that color has a lot of scenery value, but that it can’t be manipulated as deeply can black and white without becoming “obviously unreal”.

Rick “interesting idea” Denney

Tin Can

2-Aug-2021, 13:08

August 2021 Artist in Residence: Nicole Mauser

https://www.latitudechicago.org/news/2021/june-2021-artist-in-residence-nicolemauser?mc_cid=3500640af5&mc_eid=66d7e0698e

pdmoylan

2-Aug-2021, 14:09

Color is its own genre. B&W images that usually work best for me have the widest gamut of tones and lots of information, but with a clear vision. Where E Weston perhaps fails us and where Adams found some success, is incorporation of the zone system and using the sharpest lenses available. My reference to John Sexton’s work, including his commercial B&W work, is technically and visually his is superior because he has the benefit of knowing how to maximize values and the skill as a printer to extract them. Take a still life Westin vs Sexton. Quite a difference in tonal palette and detail.

Other than the fact that Weston’s pepper looks like say an oddly lighted OlMec sculpture, I see no relevance to the Rodin sculpture - well maybe their surfaces reflect light similarly? IDK

Whether taken in color or B&W, the Human Condition has the greatest value to us because ii is closest to our own experience. Salgado, McCurry, war photographers generally, Jacob Aue Sobol (some of his work is quite extraordinary) or a host of others their images tug at our emotions. Observers tend to look at such images longer and with an eye of understanding and empathy (perhaps true also with images of animals).

jmdavis

3-Aug-2021, 07:28

Any Edward or Brett Weston photographs that you don't want to display, please send to me. Not only are they almost instantly recognizable to my eye, they evoke feelings that I don't find in the work of many modern photographers.

Thanks for sharing the link Bernice. I am sending it to a retired friend whose parents were part of the salon movement in SF/Monterey etc (they lived in Hollister).

h2oman

3-Aug-2021, 13:39

Interesting discussion, if a bit dogmatic here and there. I wish I had photographer friends where I live, that I could have such visits with, in person. But this is the next best thing.

Not long ago I defined composition, for myself, to be the arrangement of objects being photographed, with respect to each other. I even went to the point of separating it (for my own purposes) from framing which, to me, is putting an edge around things once they are arranged. (That is where I think of lens selection, aspect ratio and/or cropping, and horizontal vs vertical coming in.) In reality, I usually determine my composition and decide on framing somewhat simultaneously, so maybe framing is part of composition.

In light of others' comments, I'm now revising my personal definition of composition to be the arrangement of tone shapes (B&W) or color and tone shapes (color) within a frame. Of course both tones and color are determined by form and lighting, so those things play a role in composition as I define it for myself.

All possibly subject to change after a few minutes of reflection, or input from others in this thread!

Tin Can

3-Aug-2021, 13:56

So as studio shooter I should make sandbox, adjust sand tonal shades and shapes, then light it for perfection

I have done some shadow box art and posted it ....

and I never made mud pies, but I just got new idea, me age 5

Titles are important!

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51356210399_3347303d7a_c.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/2mfb18r)Nailed to the Cross (https://flic.kr/p/2mfb18r) by TIN CAN COLLEGE (https://www.flickr.com/photos/tincancollege/), on Flickr

Vaughn

3-Aug-2021, 15:27

Good composition is merely one of the many ways of seeing.

j.e.simmons

3-Aug-2021, 15:53

A photograph is an image of events and relationships.

Drew Wiley

3-Aug-2021, 16:29

What significant photographers and artists actually do, and how they verbalize or preach about it, are seldom fully synchronized. A few individuals can be especially articulate about it. But I always take esthetic talk with a grain of salt, especially if it's coming from an art critic. There's a lot that transpires in the subconscious that is unrealistic to pigeonhole. And things would be a lot more boring if we could do that. Mystery and magic go together.

Take Tin Can's image just posted, for example. I have neither the credentials nor motive to psychoanalyze him. But that picture by itself tells me something fascinating is going on.

Bernice Loui

5-Aug-2021, 11:28

YES :o

Bernice

Take Tin Can's image just posted, for example. I have neither the credentials nor motive to psychoanalyze him. But that picture by itself tells me something fascinating is going on.

Bernice Loui

5-Aug-2021, 11:31

Not possible to separate the means and methods and results and products of creative human expression from the innate workings of the human condition. They function as a system and must be considered as a much larger whole.

Bernice

Bernice, if you want to be taken seriously, don't start saying that your views on art criticism are the necessary result of physics. At that point, you're saying that nobody can have a different view than yours, and that we should dismiss almost everything that has been written about aesthetics and art criticism for the last two thousand years, starting with Aristotle.

Really?

Have you re-read what Leni wrote and now understand what he was saying?

LabRat

5-Aug-2021, 19:35

"Good" or "proper" composition leaves a lot to the interpretation of the maker or expectations of the viewer... General (older) expectations were the subject matter would dominate the image, as this was the point of the photo, and subjects were shot dead-on center in the frame... Some negative space was allowed to creep in to give subject a more "natural" breathing space over time, then later, an environmental quality where object "lived" in environment with other related things (like home decor etc)...

On thing we tend to take for granted now is how "radicalized" composition became early last century, as rules were smashed during "new vision" constructivist thinking... Subject wasn't dominant in frame, frame could evolve from perfect order to chaos (Eggleston etc), other approaches were welcome to extend this new "vision" etc...

When I go to the big photo art shows, the images I see with little red dots next to the ID tags are usually composed "painterly" form orientated images (usually Franz Klein like) of form growing on its own...

Steve K

Drew Wiley

6-Aug-2021, 10:02

Order from choas? Eliot Porter routinely solved it in a tapestry sense. Eggleston just put a human demographic spin on the idea. He had his own conventions, some new, some old; but these are rather predictable, and either got copied, or were there all along. Nor was he a minimalist. It might look that way nowadays when some of his small format shots get excessively enlarged; but in original fashion, not so. Constructivist thinking goes back to the marriage of painting to photography by Charles Sheeler. I could also mention early Outerbridge and others. But long before that, in a few of his mammoth plate landscapes, it is highly evident in Carleton Watkins, whom I envy in that respect.

We all hopefully have our own signature way or ways of seeing things. There are no fixed rules. What works, works. For example, one of the traditional rules of composition stated to never place the main object of interest dead center in the picture; but that's exactly what Eggleston often did, in a deliberate colored thumbtack effect. And unless one is just randomly swirling developer or dyes in the darkroom, there is no such thing as an "abstract" photographic composition if a lens is involved. It's all objective, whether taken from nature of from a studio setup. It might be inspired by abstract painting. But once you focus a lens on anything tangible, it's an objective photograph, no matter how composed. Most such images, abstract so-called, are just pattern studies anyway.

Joe O'Hara

7-Aug-2021, 06:58

Composition is part of making images that reflect the way you see the world. I think this is partly why some photographers' pictures are often instantly recognizable as "theirs".

Of course, choice of subject matter, decisions about tonality, etc, also enter into it.

Bernice Loui

7-Aug-2021, 09:02

Joe gets a Gold Star, Thank you.

Bernice

Composition is part of making images that reflect the way you see the world. I think this is partly why some photographers' pictures are often instantly recognizable as "theirs".

Of course, choice of subject matter, decisions about tonality, etc, also enter into it.

Merg Ross

7-Aug-2021, 09:12

Composition is part of making images that reflect the way you see the world.

Exactly!

Tin Can

7-Aug-2021, 09:16

and the way we remember

do we internalize events or pictures?

perhaps we have changed memory

Bernice Loui

7-Aug-2021, 09:22

Emotions are one strong aspect of what created memories. Emotional triggers can also bring up memories created by previous emotional experiences.

Bernice

and the way we remember

do we internalize events or pictures?

perhaps we have changed memory

pdmoylan

7-Aug-2021, 13:09

This is where I diverge.

Composition is structure, like architecture, it’s your decision in design/framing. It is restricted first by your choice of focal length. There is a vastly different way of visualizing with say a 210mm vs 90mm. The longer the focal length, generally the more restrictive in compositional options (this is where visual creativity comes in).

It is an evaluative thought process brought on by one’s sense of perhaps aesthetics, a concept, precept, set of rules etc as to how one should function in the taking process. It need not be emotional - in fact there is nothing emotional about it. It is simply advantaging visual opportunity based upon some notion of what works, and that is purely personal.

It is akin to decisions one might make to optimize profit in a business given a “new” set of options, criteria and associated restrictions.

I was out two days ago trying to capture the effect of strong sidelighting on an intimate landscape scene. There was little room to maneuver. I worked with 2 lenses of different focal length and what worked best was the first image I took. I experimented for an hour and pursued that special light throughout the open forest. It seemed to me there were an almost infinite number of compositional structures, but generally my initial reaction was my most favored.

It is unclear to me how one translates emotion into the making of a photograph. In fact I eschew emotion in any creative process because it seems to limit possibilities. Keeping open visually, maintaining a calm awareness, once one has skill/craft honed, is the way I work.

Alan Klein

7-Aug-2021, 13:16

h2oman

7-Aug-2021, 13:26

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/283282

Discuss, in the context of this thread.

pdmoylan

7-Aug-2021, 13:52

Alan,

Your choice to think in terms of a “subject” for me limits the possibilities. One can think animals, insects, humans, vehicles, buildings as subjects and record an image accordingly. I am saying break free of a specific notion of a subject and you have expanded the possibilities exponentially.

Perhaps it is the difference conceptually between a portrait and a “scene”, the latter with no specific focus but rather a rambling viewpoint well manicured. It could be relationship of forms, color, lines, etc and which may not provide something familiar to the viewer.

Take Stephen Shore’s work in the last 3 years. Even in his Uncommon Places, the concept of subject goes out the door. It is more about “objects” that comprise a visual structure that makes an image interesting.

r.e.

7-Aug-2021, 13:57

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/283282

Discuss, in the context of this thread.

"Not On View"

:)

Tin Can

7-Aug-2021, 14:10

you broke cover and scramble, good!

I run hot, without passion we are stone

I wake each morning with so much energy, I take notes for later, as reality appears...

sadly

This is where I diverge.
...It is unclear to me how one translates emotion into the making of a photograph. In fact I eschew emotion in any creative process because it seems to limit possibilities. Keeping open visually, maintaining a calm awareness, once one has skill/craft honed, is the way I work.

pdmoylan

7-Aug-2021, 14:31

Weston’s Excusado is an object which is framed distinctively but which lacks in visual impact, though for its time, it was breaking free from convention. Like many Dadaists of the period, it is providing a new perspective on a familiar product.

So take Caspar David Fiedrick’s “Wanderer above Sea and Fog”, or Wyeth’s “Christina”, are these about a subject, or more about a concept of the artists, therefore objects within the scene.

And if the girl in “Christina” is rather the subject, why is her back toward’s us, and why is Wyeth so keen to provide the curve of her body as a balance to the broader landscape?

Neither of the people in these paintings is the “subject”, but rather a visual amplification of the artists concept, for Friederick, a romanticized notion of man’s relationship with nature, and for Wyeth, a penetrating psychological journey into an individual’s vulnerability perhaps.

h2oman

7-Aug-2021, 14:47

.. but which lacks in visual impact...

I thought I was sort of in your camp on all this, but now I'm not so sure! :)

pdmoylan

7-Aug-2021, 14:54

:) well H2O, I believe it was J. Campbell who said follow your bliss, but with ageI am following the dictates of my brain. Sorry, not trying to confuse.

Tin Can

7-Aug-2021, 14:58

we may be moot

humans are caught in many corners, we may not escape

art...

for whomhttps://www.google.com/search?q=art+for+whom&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS850US850&oq=art+for+whom&aqs=chrome..69i57j0i22i30.5283j1j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

I think you missed my earlier handle

NOT ART

pdmoylan

7-Aug-2021, 15:06

“… handle”.

Nothing there to latch onto - seen but neither understood nor embraced.

h2oman

7-Aug-2021, 16:17

Light, Form-Shape, Composition are three foundational and fundamental language elements of any 2D image be it a Photograph, Painting, Print or similar. Subject is merely a means to utilize these three elements of visual language.

I like the Weston toilet image for several reasons. First, it was a video centered around Weston that started this thread. Second, when I look at it, all I see (see, not feel) are light, form-shape (and I'll include here texture - the polish of the porcelain), and composition. Finally, there are some very distinct compositional choices Weston made, that are quite easy to discern.

Those who photograph portraits or still lifes get to determine the arrangement of their subjects in space, but those of us who photograph things like architecture, nature, or toilets control composition only by where we place our camera and how we put a frame around what is in front of us. When I look at Weston's photograph from a compositional point of view, here is what I see: He chose to center the subject in the frame, and make it occupy almost the entire frame (the latter done done by choice of focal length). He chose to photograph from a low point of view, and slightly off-center. And that is the end of composition as I see it, in that image. The subject is very important (especially how it reflects light), as is the direction and intensity of light, but I wouldn't consider those to be aspects of composition. (Bernice seems to agree with me on that.) Nor would I consider any emotional feeling the artist had when making the image, or that they might try to evoke in a viewer, to be part of composition. (The idea of trying to evoke a particular emotion in a viewer is a bit laughable, as we have no idea what life experiences a viewer brings with them.)

I'm not trying to change anyone's mind here, just expressing this simpleton's notion of composition!

Vaughn

7-Aug-2021, 20:11

His toilet was an inspiration! On my bathroom wall: Our beach motel room's toilet, Costa Rica, ca1992 and a line of no longer used urinals at the Marin Headlands. Available light. Both 16x20 prints from 4x5 negs. with 150mm lens.

h2oman

7-Aug-2021, 20:37

I enjoyed comparing and contrasting the composition of your second image with the composition Weston chose for his single toilet.

Vaughn

7-Aug-2021, 20:45

Thanks...Watching me making the toilet image in Costa Rica, is when I think my (now ex) wife realized I was probably not going to make a lot of money as a photographer.

BTW...the single toilet image is titled, "No Excuse"

r.e.

7-Aug-2021, 20:55

So far, this thread has managed to go from drawing an equation between a picture of a pepper and a Rodin sculpture to the artistic merits a picture of a toilet. Can't wait to see where it goes next :)

Bernice Loui

7-Aug-2021, 21:53

Berenice Abbott, eyes_mirror..

218471

Discuss,
Bernice

pdmoylan

7-Aug-2021, 22:58

Not sure what to say about this image Bernice. Surely Abbott is a fascinating personality and her posed portraits of Joyce are well crafted and historically significant (MOMA).

Vaughn I always felt you had your head in the clouds when it came to LF, but it’s clearly in the “head”. :) And here I was always told that your best collection should hang on the bathroom wall. Certainly not my cup of yellow tea (or white porcelain). At least we now have a varied selection from Koehler nowadays.

Bernice Loui

7-Aug-2021, 23:33

"Not sure what to say about this image Bernice"..

~Why ?

Bernice

Not sure what to say about this image Bernice. Surely Abbott is a fascinating personality and her posed portraits of Joyce are well crafted and historically significant (MOMA).

Bernice Loui

7-Aug-2021, 23:52

Kohler plumbing fixtures brings up this 1992 photo by Joyce Tenneson:
218472

Another image by Joyce Tenneson:
218473

~Discuss,
Bernice

LabRat

8-Aug-2021, 02:07

Berenice Abbott, eyes_mirror..

218471

Discuss,
Bernice

Abbott, my favorite photographer of all time!!! As I think I remember, this image was from a series where she was illustrating school science books with images of science in action... I think this was an image of an device used in medical research, turned into a Dali-like surreal image that goes beyond words... Totally provocative, as it transcends our expectations and baseline of understanding and identification of things we know and see... (Like a magician, we see what is happening, but no idea how it was done, and we tend to try to analyze the "trick", and miss the marvel and "magic"...)

One of the loud voices in my head is the one that constantly moans "is that all you got" when trying to bring an image/idea forward, and the usual "shoot what's there" or create a "reality" in a studio or space starting with a blank (canvas) background... Will the subject be the meaning, or does it go beyond??? :-\

Steve K

Tin Can

8-Aug-2021, 03:39

Obviously Joyce Tenneson https://www.tenneson.com/content/portfolios

can do it all

inspirational

Kohler plumbing fixtures brings up this 1992 photo by Joyce Tenneson:
218472

Another image by Joyce Tenneson:
218473

~Discuss,
Bernice

Alan Klein

8-Aug-2021, 04:54