composition help

[markc]

Here's just a quick idea. My idea of a snapshot's "style" is generally expressed by:

- shot at eye level
- wide angle
- long DOF
- direct on-camera flash
- centered subject and horizon line
- horizontal
- cluttered background

If you want to take some steps to just get away from the snapshot look to start, choose some different options than these defaults that are so commonly used. You don't have to change them all, because sometimes they make sense to use, but try to make them conscious choices.

 

[Arch]

I agree with mark..... people can be too quick to say 'i dont want to follow any rules'..... but these rules arnt there to make life difficult for you..... or to make your pictures boring..... they exsist because they help our brains understand aesthetics..... a landscape scene which follows the rule of thirds is much more likely to be aesthetically pleaseing to our eye than one which is centered.

I think also that people are following rules, even if they think they arn't...... if you take a shot of of a tree in the countryside.... and you compose it to the left or right of the frame you are already conforming to a rule....

'Rules' is a bad word in the art world i know..... but its best not to think of them as 'rules' of a game.... or political 'rules'...... they are just part of a general guide, you can still be creative with it. But to disregard rules altogether and just go out shooting without knowledge, produces results similar to marks 'snapshots' discription above.

 

[mysteryscribe]

One of the other things going on these days is all the preachers who don't truly understand the sermon.

It tends to make me smile and remember Iva. Iva was a nurse I once knew (yes in the biblical sense to) Iva when talking to me about my thinking on some stupid subject, said we aren't unique you know.

I had been filled with the everyone is a unique person crap all my life. The elements are all in each of us, fortunately in different perportions.

When I hear people say snapshot as if it were a curse, I laugh my butt off. If there were no snapshots there would be no film labs to get the film processed. Everyone would have to do it theirself and companies wouldn't be making affordable film, and there certainly wouldn't have been autofocus or digital photography, no need for it.

The truth is and we don't seem to want to get it. You learn all you can about composition, then you usually forget it on a conscious level. When you make a picture, you make an inspired snapshot. Meaning you bring your toolbox with you even if you don't realize it.

 

[UberToyotaX]

You learn all you can about composition, then you usually forget it on a conscious level. When you make a picture, you make an inspired snapshot. Meaning you bring your toolbox with you even if you don't realize it.

Good advice. This is true for a lot of things in life.

 

[markc]

I think we are using different definitions of "snapshot". To me, it means an image taken with no real regard to compostion and other elements. It's just a shot taken to assist in remembering the moment. I've also found that people who are skilled in photography don't really take many snapshots, even when it's a moment when the shot normally would be.

A friend of mine asked me to scan some of his vacation photos for him. He's shot for some big magazines. A couple might fall into that "snapshot" category, but most showed his personal style. Even when just taking a quick snap of a friend, he was using the techniques he had learned and that had become ingrained in him.

Using that definition, many snapshots are curseworthy in my opinion. They have their place for people who just want to have something to help their memory of a nice moment, but if you want to create art, I think they are the dredge of the barrel. I don't think that just because a person no longer needs to think about composition means that the image becomes a snapshot again. It just means they have become more effecient.

If every image is a snapshot in someone's definition, then the word doesn't have any real meaning other than a synonym. It doesn't help you distinguish one image from any other.

One of the hard things about teaching someone a skill that you've spent a lot of time honing is being able to break it back down into discrete parts. So much of it becomes habit that you don't even think about it any more. It's nearly impossible for me to teach someone how to use a computer with any kind of patience because it's so ingrained in me. That's the way I think. I have a very hard time breaking it down into steps. "You just do it!"

It's an important part of learning, though. People usually can't just absorb it all at once. They need it in parts. So breaking down composition into basic concepts lets someone play with each one as a learning process. Eventually it all comes together in a way that they don't have to think much about asside from deciding what's best for this particular moment.

 

[mysteryscribe]

Usually the first thing a person says when advising a person on composition is dont shoot things centered. I'm sorry centered is not bad composition no matter what they tell you. It might not always be the right but it surely isnt always the wrong.

I agree with marc some people shoot to just remember the moment. If the shot does what it was intended to do (Make a memory) I don't have a bit of a problem with it.

I can look back at shots I made on my asian vacation before I took a single course and am amazed at how man are just what I would shoot today. Yes I would shoot more temples now and do a better job of it, but I didn't shoot any temples back then. I shot the people I knew and tried to be careful what I shot so my mom wouldn't freak out.

The truth is I had a guy at a flea market in 1980 ask me to put some slides he shot on his vacation onto negatives to print. They were shots mostly taken too far away and mostly didn't impress me at all. When he saw them he was thrilled. He mostly likely wouldn't have been impresse with mine.

Okay forget the war story and think about this why do we get interested in the craft. If we have no talent and no sense of balance AT ALL we most likely would take up knitting. We bring a certain amount of native skill with us, then if we really give a rats behind we learn more (one way or another). That makes it easy for both sides of this discussion. The guy says there are no rules and the guy (me) who says yes there are. The truth is he is following rules he just doesnt realize it. They surely aren't my rules but he is dancing to some piper in his head.

One last thing, I think there are snapshots which I generally like but wouldnt shoot myself and there are inspired snapshots. I think that is most anything you don't take time to manipulate yourself.

The famous execution shot in Saigon was an inspired snapshot and the man if he has any cool would say the same. The composition is terrible as is the little afghan girl with half her face cut off, but there are both compelling shots. So like them man said composition is seconardy to what you have to say.

The above are the ramblings of a far behind the times photographer.

Ah art don't even get me started there lol....

 

[JC1220]

When you are approaching photography as visual art form, there are no rules of composition. This has nothing to with conforming or not conforming, it has to do with vision, creativity and seeing photographically, none of which having anything to do with ideas, informed by intelligence yes, but certainly nothing to do with rules of how to compose a photograph. This is important to understand for those who are trying to find their way. One does not choose a compositional strategy, vision or style; they are things that emerge as function of the work process. They are nothing that one trys to adopt. After one has been working for a number of years, you look back on all you have done and you see, readily or not, what those things are. To intellcually choose or follow so called compositional "rules," would be fine for a commercial photographer, but not for an artist or an asipring artist. These things come from deep inside, they are who you are, they choose you.

If you choose them you would be doing something more superficial than what otherwise might emerge. You get something clever or trendy; you may make good pictures and get noticed, happens all the time. But, because they have been made from the mind and not the soul as part of an emerging ongoing organic process, it is most likely the pictures made by choosing a style, a rule or a vision, will not last to join the great art that has persisted through the ages.

 

[Digital Matt]

If you could stop calling them "rules", and stop thinking of them as such, you would see that it's a pretty natural thing to look at what inspires you, and find out why it works, and why it makes you feel the way it does, and to then try and be aware of those things in your own work. The only way to achieve your own true personal expression is to be aware of that which makes it. The "laws" of composition are a part of that. The things that naturally make a composition interesting, no matter what the subject.

You wouldn't tell a photographer not to be aware of color. There are the same type of "rules" to color, and you need to be aware of them so you can make informed decisions when taking photos, or drawing, or painting, or whatever you do.

This reminds me of a story my friend told me. He was in line at the post office and two young girls were behind him. They were talking about playing guitar, and the one said, "I kinda wanna take lessons, but I'm afraid it will stifle my creativity." The other one said, "Do what my dad did. Just take one lesson for each string".

 

[JC1220]

You assume making photographs comes from ideas, from the mind.
Again, I will state as an artist it should not, it comes from the soul, it comes from feeling, it comes from growth and the organic and from that emerges compositions in your work, not from ideas.

You Say, "The only way to achieve your own true personal expression is to be aware of that which makes it." I agree with you on this to the point at which you discover this is over time through the function of working, that which evolves as you grow.

You say, "The things that naturally make a composition interesting,..." The word "naturally" is the key here for me, yes, one needs to have vision in order to capture successfully what happens in the natural world, feel and see those natural rythms that excite or even inspire us. This has nothing do with thinking that or the idea of that while photographing. It is how one see not what one sees, and being excited or inspired is not vision.

The point I am trying to get across here is as an artist or an aspiring artist, that deciding on what to include or not include in a photograph should be intuitive - never analytical, i.e. that intuitiveness is not based on ideas or a thought process on what to include or not include, but feelings.

 

[Arch]

Hmmm i agree with some of what your saying.... but alot of it i dont personally.....

You assume making photographs comes from ideas, from the mind.

...of course it can be.

I will state as an artist

alot of us here are

that intuitiveness is not based on ideas or a thought process on what to include or not include, but feelings.

This very much depends on what kind of 'art' you are creating.... or what kind of photograph you want.

What you have have to remember is that there are so many types of photographic subjects,.... some are more successful with the general guide of composition.

Composition itself, which is what this thread started as...... is an integral part of the art world. All forms of general art teaching include it as an important part of the process..... and it should be understood by any artist.... whether you choose to use it or not.

Every art class i took for over 5 years.... drawing, painting, design, sculpture, graphics and photography all taught a basic understanding of composition. As did i when i taught a few years back. That is all that people are trying to say here...... its certainly not something imo that people should ignore and just go out and try and 'feel' a photograph.

But if you choose to not use the compositional skills you have learned to pursue a more individual creative approach, then there is nothing wrong with that..... in fact it should be encouraged.

 

[JC1220]

As I said above, I come from the approach of photography as a visual art. Not commericial, photojournalism, etc.

I agree other visual arts and their disciplines may have their rules, guidelines, laws, etc. of compositon. But, when it comes to photography as a visual art in the pursuit of fine art, one does not need to know them or should they ever be taught. This type of work should always be made from the core in the deepest sense.

I guess we are at the point of having to agree to disagree on this one folks.

 

[markc]

I know it's popular to talk about "coming from the soul", but how exactly does one think with it? I personally don't believe in souls. I'm not religous at all. From my point of view, it's the mind all the way. A lot of what we do is directed by the subconscious, but it's still the mind.

I'm curious as to the people who you think are/were great artists. I'll bet if you research them, a number will have had some sort of training. Even Picasso was a skilled realist.

I personally think there's a skill involved in making great art, especially consistantly. The guitar is a great example. Someone can just pick one up and hit the strings that they "feel" like hitting, but I don't know if a lot of people will call it music. Or singing. Look at all the American Idol contestants who enjoyed what they did. Did you really enjoy all of the people they rejeted? I'm not saying that it has to be something everyone will like. I'm a big fan of Mike Patton, and I don't think there's a lot of people who dig Fantômas, but he's got the skills. He isn't just making music like that because he has too. He knows what he's doing, as his work with Faith No More showed.

A skilled painter can choose how to make a person look based on their mood. An unskilled one only has one choice: a disproportional blobby thing. The same thing with a photographer. A skilled one can pick and choose. An unskilled one is left with a snapshot. I don't think that it's about dictating vision. It's about being able to make that vision a reality.

 

[Christie Photo]

...when it comes to photography as a visual art in the pursuit of fine art, one does not need to know them or should they ever be taught. This type of work should always be made from the core in the deepest sense.

This I gotta see! Would you post an example of this? Maybe one of your own images that you feel is successful... since you "come from the approach of photography as a visual art."

Pete

 

[mysteryscribe]

Would you be shocked if you posted a photograph here that you thought was pure intuitive "ART" and the other photographers here found all these "Rules" of composition that it conformed to. Most good art does.....Like it or not. Whether you had it in your "soul" or not.

"THE WORK ALWAYS SPEAKS FOR ITSELF...PERIOD" Whether it speaks to your personally is another thing. What it says to you, if it does, still another.

 

[JC1220]

MarkC, I have no issue with someone having training, espcially in the technical or skill side, without it or mastery of the technical one can not communicate their vision. Many of the photographers I think of as the greats, did have some form of training, many did not, and yes, I know most of their backgrounds quite well: Weston, Abbott, Walker, Callahan, HCB for those of the past; and contemporary: Smith, Chamlee, Provost, Bartels. But, the technical and skill have nothing to do with composition and stated "rules" of composition which are ideas.

When I say soul, it is not in terms of the religous, but in terms of ones deep inner core and how they relate to the world. And, you are right, it is certainly not about dictating ones vision, vision comes and evolves as a person grows and the way one looks and interacts with the world. You don't dictate that, it happens naturally in your work and how you transform that experience into a work of art.

I think we are getting off track of the orginal post a bit, vision is a topic all it's own, but important in its relation to composition. MarkC, I have enjoyed the discussion with you.

Christie, while it is difficult to discern tone form text at times, I do get the message that you are not being sincere, if you were I might consider it.

Mystery, shocked no, I would find it interesting though as I do not know rules of composition. When viewing others photographs I do not approach it as if it falls into one category or not, have rules or not; each photograph stands on its own as a whole to me and not evaluated on ideas.

If any of you are in the New England area I would more than happy to share my work, in person, and hopefully vise versa. I do not express what I do and how I work to try to argue or convert, just to share and explore. Let's agree to disagree at this point and hopefully we have all learned something.

"it is better to think than to do, better to feel then to think, but best of all simply to look" -Goeth