Thinking beyond "The Rules"

[kkamin]

Btw, kkamin, where'vya been?

Little busy. Glad I could pop in and bounce some ideas around with you.

 

[pgriz]

By making it "easy" to get a decently-exposed and focused image, the manufacturers have made image-making accessible. However, there is no corresponding growth in understanding of the visual principles. One can argue that texting has been responsible for many more words written than ever before, but with little thought and even less style than ever before. Different medium, same problem. It takes time and effort to craft something of value. How many of the current crop of texters could craft a story that is interesting, intriguing and makes the reader want to read more? Very few, I'd image.

Unfortunately, because the mass of people don't even understand the attributes of what they are dealing with, they have no clue as to the effort required to make something of value. And when these clueless people show their "art" to other clueless people, should we be surprised that they get positive feedback? I think that's why we get so many newbies being shocked at the response they get from this forum - for once, they are getting slightly more educated feedback than they have been used to.

 

[The_Traveler]

I think the 'rules' are wrongly put because they are essentially unrelated pieces of information.

The real information that people should have is how most people see images and what clues they get from the images. That is where the 'rules' come from. That is why 'rules' can be broken; once you realize how people see and interpret things then you can use that as a lever on people's seeing to surprise them and interest them.

The photographer knows what is important as his mind strains out all the irrelevant parts of his visual field but when the information is presented in 2 dimension, the viewer must figure out from the visual cues, using his/her own experiences, what to look at and where.

The simplest example (from a set I'm working on)- and the one that can't be really changed into a rule - is that peoples' eyes go towards the brightest object - instinctively - and thus the brightest object in the field should be the centers of interest. Of course one can use that by having the field lighter (but without much content) and the object darker and thus the need to look into the dark makes the situation more interesting for the viewer.

Another example - we are socialized to expect certain aspect ratios through years are looking at them. If our image strays too far from those aspect ratios then the actual shape of the picture begins to assume certain importance. Think here of a panoramic image. The shape of the image reinforces the lines of the content - and it looks right.

People see everything, although they might not be conscious of it or realize the impact - but we should. The 'rules' are simplified versions of the results of the many and various cues that people get from images. These cues are, I think, in a clear order and related; unfortunately the rules aren't.

I'm working on a small article about the cues.

 

[The_Traveler]

I have a small proposition.
I am writing this 'essay' about the way people see images and I don't have enough good examples of my own to illustrate it.

I do have a lot of examples but many were cribbed from different sites without permission (can you picture me writing someone and saying can I use your picture as an example of what went wrong?) so I use them when I give a lecture but can't if I put this esay on the web.
(Some of the most egregious examples are from a local pumped up wedding photographer and he'd love to sue me for infringement.)

Would any of you be willing to look at the un-illustrated text and then send me pictures to use for both good and bad examples.
I would, of course give credit for all the good pictures and let the bad ones be anonymous.

Just send me a PM with a good email.

Lew

 

[2WheelPhoto]

One of our professors was quick to point out this quote:

“There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.”
Ansel Adams

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

So, why are you in school? LOL

 

[The_Traveler]

One of our professors was quick to point out this quote:

“There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.”
Ansel Adams

The unspoken part of that, which needs to be spoken, is that some people intuitively understand the concepts of color and composition while, to others, they must be pointed out and named. That's not a knock on those who need to be taught, just the differences between innate ability and acquired.

That kind of deeper understanding is what lets people understand the subtleties of art, wine, food - all that are unreachable without names being put to ideas and concepts.

"I don't know art but I know what I like"

We've all heard that and we've seen how people like things that are understandable within their own frame of reference and experience and reject other things. But enlarge that frame of reference with ideas and names that people can use to categorize these ideas and all of a sudden, people's range of things they like and appreciate gets larger.

 

[2WheelPhoto]

So, why are you in school? LOL

Trying to learn how to take pics, lighting, and even though I have a business and engineering major I'm attending an "elective" photo business class too.

Need all the help I can get, school, hanging around the pro's here and in their studios, strobist group, post-ho'ing on the TPF heh

 

[Bossy]

I went to a bunch of photo galleries in NYC yesterday. After seeing the images that sell for 4-36k, I'm pretty sure there aren't any rules and its all in who you know. Pretty depressing.

 

[bazooka]

This thread is a much needed breath of fresh air.

My experience is similar to as described above.... I "knew" what I liked but didn't know the elements of color contrast or tone contrast, or leading lines and such. I felt naturally that things off-centered we're usually more pleasing, but that's about as deep as I got without actually educating myself via books (many many books) and this forum.

I wonder if someone without any education and someone not "naturally inclined" as described above were put in an empty room with two photos which appealed to them but had very different elements, and maybe even two photos that didn't appeal to them, and they were tasked with trying to figure out why the two photos appealed and the other two photos didn't... I would like to think that this would be self-education and that they would come out after several hours with some very good points. Maybe they wouldn't find them all, but I bet they would emerge with a greater knowledge than when they went in.

 

[bazooka]

Or perhaps their appeals would change....

 

[The_Traveler]

I wonder if someone without any education and someone not "naturally inclined" as described above were put in an empty room with two photos which appealed to them but had very different elements, and maybe even two photos that didn't appeal to them, and they were tasked with trying to figure out why the two photos appealed and the other two photos didn't... I would like to think that this would be self-education and that they would come out after several hours with some very good points. Maybe they wouldn't find them all, but I bet they would emerge with a greater knowledge than when they went in.

This is why looking at photos, reading critiques, trying to critique and self-examination are as important as getting the technical skills down.

Inevitably, some significant percentage of people will realize they don't have any ability to 'see' stuff; either their own or other people's and they will either quit photography, just keep 'snapping' or, more annoyingly, will become pixel peepers - people who know everything there is to know about cameras, lenses, techniques but who couldn't make a meaningful picture to save their souls.

Oscar Wilde said that cynics were people who knew the price of everything but the value of nothing. Pixels peepers are that equivalent in photography.

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

I went to a bunch of photo galleries in NYC yesterday. After seeing the images that sell for 4-36k, I'm pretty sure there aren't any rules and its all in who you know. Pretty depressing.

So, are you saying you are a master of all the rules?

Or are you judging the work within your framework of what you understand?


(even though they are NOT rules, I will continue to use the term most here seem to innaccurately understand, which gives me a good indication of how little they are understood)

 

[cgipson1]

(even though they are NOT rules, I will continue to use the term most here seem to innaccurately understand, which gives me a good indication of how little they are understood)

HUH? Whut?

 

[pgriz]

I've attended several workshops on judging, and I have been participating in my club as a judge and the process of seeing, then putting your critique in words, is something that takes time and practice. There have been some very good threads on critiquing (one recently by Overread that had too few comments and view, in my opinion) and there needs to be a certain push to see the image as a whole, and not the individual components (be they technical or compositional). By coincidence, I was re-reading Freeman Patterson's book on seeing: Freeman Patterson : Photography and the Art of Seeing, and he emphasizes the "feeling" part of images, and the connection to the viewer. Part of his technique in workshops is to get people to describe what they are seeing and feeling in the images they are creating BEFORE clicking the shutter. This forces the photographer to confront the "message" before dealing with the technical aspects. It appears to me that we are dealing with a similar situation with "rules" - people want the formula, but don't stop to think if and why that formula is applicable.