Composition vs Technique

[JC1220]

Wow, you must be in your 70's, at least to have the kind of experience you claim, 50 years in photography, 38 in television, a lawyer, a professor, very interesting, were you for the war before you were agianst it? Which is it?

You are clearly unfamiliar with the history of photography and its roots, I suggest The History of Photography, by Newhall as a starter, BTW it provides information well before the 60's.

YOU make assumptions about what I have written to fit your own arguement and take offensive of my expression of how one artist works and approaches photography which shows the typical response of one who belongs to clubs and who attempts to pidgeon hole what a photograph is with rules and definitions as their only means of understanding them and to satisfy their own ego's.

Wow, I wish Weston, White, Callahan, Caponigro(still alive thank god) belonged to clubs; photography would be so vastly different... pretty much a pile of subject oriented, superficial, cliched crap.

"When one sees the residuum of greatness before one's camera, one must recognize it in a flash. - Karsh

Hmmm, I don't think he is talking about consulting a rule book on proper portraits, he is talking about "seeing."

I wasn't calling you in particular uncreative, but I could see how you could take it that way, and it wasn't intended as a direction toward you. These discussion should be good natured, even if there is serious disagreement.

 

[Helen B]

I often get the impression that teaching composition is an act of utter desperation. It's brutally hammered then boxed up into something teachable and gradable instead of being allowed to grow freely and boundlessly.

The student, having suffered the teaching then requires payback and so inflicts the desperation and suffering on any convenient victim.



I try to make sure that my technique never fails my aesthetic purpose, and never overwhelms it.

Best,
Helen

 

[skieur]

How do you judge on technique. How does one judge on the shutterspeed and aperture used? Everything whether it be depth of field, motion blur, or creative under/over exposing is part of the composition..

Easily! If motion resulted in a soft or blurred subject then a faster shutterspeed, flash, or panning should have been used. If the depth of field is too shallow on the portrait taken with the 50mm at f1.8 then a smaller aperture should have been used.

The biggest problem with your statement you answered. "50 years or more". As in before the advent of digital aids. Technique I am sure played a very important role before the advent of Aperture priority metering and autofocus...

Nothing has changed. Whether you choose an f stop of 1.8 or the camera does it, the result on a fairly close shot is a shallow depth of field. Whether you choose a shutterspeed of 1/10 of a second or the camer does it will still result in the blurring of a moving subject. All that has really changed is simply a different approach to getting the settings that you may want for your subject.

Max said it: technique is the bee all and end all, but it has been proven time and time again that pointing and clicking is a perfectly viable technique, unlike how it was 50 years ago. This modern computer assisted brainlessness to me makes composition the critical part of the photo. The computer can't help with that...

Pointing and clicking is a perfectly viable technique for taking average quality snapshots not serious photos. The proof of that is the number of technically weak portraits due to poor lighting and exposure visible on all forums, the waterfalls without the most appropriate shutterspeed or blown out highlights, the sunsets with no detail in the foreground because of not using a neutral grad filter or not adjusting the exposure, snow photos with grey snow due to not setting the meter to compensate, wide angle lens distortion in scenes, etc. Again, nothing has changed in this regard in 50 years and this is technique or the technical aspects.

skieur

 

[Jon, The Elder]

If you look back over history you will find that the vast majority of recognised great photographers never belonged to any of these associations.
I think that says a lot about them. ;-)

I'm pretty sure they didn't belong to any forums either........

 

[skieur]

Wow, you must be in your 70's, at least to have the kind of experience you claim, 50 years in photography, 38 in television, a lawyer, a professor, very interesting, were you for the war before you were agianst it? Which is it?discussion should be good natured, even if there is serious disagreement.

Where my experience was different was having a mother who was an accomplished photographer. She started me very early. I started television in 1970 and had the opportunity to scriptwrite, produce, direct, and shoot a variety of work. At the same time, I was also doing multimedia productions and presentations involving my photography and computer graphics. Since I also had my degree, technical qualifications and teaching qualifications and spoke French I was asked to teach computer programs at a technical French university.

Was I for the war or against it? Which one?

You are clearly unfamiliar with the history of photography and its roots, I suggest The History of Photography, by Newhall as a starter, BTW it provides information well before the 60's. .

Despite my experience in photography, I am more interested in the future than the past. I have not hung onto black and white which I consider to be of limited value and usually poorly done by many current photographers with a few exceptions. I have made the change to digital and was using computers before most here were born.

YOU make assumptions about what I have written to fit your own arguement and take offensive of my expression of how one artist works and approaches photography which shows the typical response of one who belongs to clubs and who attempts to pidgeon hole what a photograph is with rules and definitions as their only means of understanding them and to satisfy their own ego's. .

You say that I make assumptions and then come out with much bigger assumptions. I started out in clubs as a preteen and teenager but got much too busy with all kinds of work in short order to even consider continuing work with them past age 17. That, as you surmised was a long time ago. I am not trying to "pigeon hole what a photograph is", I know what a photograph is. It has nothing whatsoever to do with my ego. It has to do with what I am paid to produce and I am definitely NOT a starving artist by any stretch of the imagination.

Wow, I wish Weston, White, Callahan, Caponigro(still alive thank god) belonged to clubs; photography would be so vastly different... pretty much a pile of subject oriented, superficial, cliched crap..

Well, all things are relative. Perhaps clubs in the U.S. do produce crap. I really don't know. I do know that I have seen some excellent work from Canadian clubs but then there is participation by some top pros.

"When one sees the residuum of greatness before one's camera, one must recognize it in a flash. - Karsh

Hmmm, I don't think he is talking about consulting a rule book on proper portraits, he is talking about "seeing."..

No, but he is certainly not talking about sloppy lighting, careless camera usage or ignoring composition either in the name of creativity. As a matter of fact, check out the importance he placed on technical excellence in camera, equipment and printing.

I wasn't calling you in particular uncreative, but I could see how you could take it that way, and it wasn't intended as a direction toward you. These discussion should be good natured, even if there is serious disagreement.

I was just covering the implication, if it was there. I was not assuming it was. I agree about keeping discussions good natured, despite disagreement.

skieur

 

[skieur]

I often get the impression that teaching composition is an act of utter desperation. It's brutally hammered then boxed up into something teachable and gradable instead of being allowed to grow freely and boundlessly.

The student, having suffered the teaching then requires payback and so inflicts the desperation and suffering on any convenient victim.



I try to make sure that my technique never fails my aesthetic purpose, and never overwhelms it.

Best,
Helen

Perish the thought, but I have to admit that I was never the typical teacher or professor during those periods. I tended to walk the tightrope between getting fired for not following the "program" and getting promoted for being creative and innovative (ironic, eh?) and in the end, both happened at various times but new opportunities always came my way, so I was able to be myself without concern and still move up the food chain in the area of multimedia.

skieur

 

[Mike_E]

Being one of the unwashed masses, I really don't care which is what so long as what I get back from the printer matches what I had in mind when I pressed the shutter button.

I seem to remember hearing about how you were supposed to kiss a girl back when I was a child. As it turned out things were self explanatory and all I really needed was the desire to make and be made happy, and practice.

 

[JC1220]

Skieur, what I can find common ground with you on is that the technical, the technique, is quite important and as Max stated it is "the voice." The technique should be so well learned that it becomes a non-issue, nor hinders ones way of working. I strongly belive this is where Adams work went south after the 40's.

And as clubs in general here and abroad, while I am sure good work is produced in many, I am with Groucho Marx.

 

[danir]

And as clubs in general here and abroad, while I am sure good work is produced in many, I am with Groucho Marx.

In that case; you are accepted.

 

[sabbath999]

Technique is the be-all-end-all. It is your vocabulary.

This is so correct that it is scary.

 

[Chris of Arabia]

Wonder what the OP makes of all this, he's not been back since #4. Probably overawed by it all...

 

[The_Traveler]

Vocabulary without something to say is empty.

 

[abraxas]

For me, composition is the 'everything', the hinge on which the technique swings. That's just my experience though and may not be right for generalization. Now that I'm working on technique I'm finding that photos I've composed to my taste years ago take on a deeper expression with my new skills.

It's hard for me to imagine it the other way around.

 

[Garbz]

Easily! If motion resulted in a soft or blurred subject then a faster shutterspeed, flash, or panning should have been used. If the depth of field is too shallow on the portrait taken with the 50mm at f1.8 then a smaller aperture should have been used.

That is an artistic decision and thus composition in my books.

Pointing and clicking is a perfectly viable technique for taking average quality snapshots not serious photos. The proof of that is the number of technically weak portraits due to poor lighting and exposure visible on all forums, the waterfalls without the most appropriate shutterspeed or blown out highlights, the sunsets with no detail in the foreground because of not using a neutral grad filter or not adjusting the exposure, snow photos with grey snow due to not setting the meter to compensate, wide angle lens distortion in scenes, etc. Again, nothing has changed in this regard in 50 years and this is technique or the technical aspects.

Read again. I didn't say it was the only technique. I said it is a viable technique. Just like stretching your hands infront of you and not holding the camera "properly" to take a self portrait is a viable technique. The proof, just look at all the wonderfully perfectly exposed photos of birds in the sunset which are easily photographed by point the camera at the bird and pushing the button.

What I am saying is 50 years ago you could judge a photo on technique in every detail, nowadays the only technique left is making sure you don't get an out of focus shot or motion blur when you don't want it. The camera is perfectly capable of doing wonders by itself in many situations. I am just arguing on the definition of the word technique here. I haven't seen anyone ever say "Well yes it's a wonderful little number with beautiful artistic direction, but I am sure it would be much more true to the art if the photographer had his camera manual instead of aperture priority with -1EV." "mmm yes quite right old chap. Cuppa tea?"

 

[rob91]

Vocabulary without something to say is empty.

I like that. I don't have much to say on this as I'm not too sure on the difference between composition and technique, but I'll throw in this semi-related quote from the great photographer Larry Fink: "Never once have I explored formalism for it's own sake."