At 16:12 3/12/02, Dan Mitchell wrote:
A general photography question -- I've seen many many places recommending
that the way to improve as a photographer is to take more photos, because
you only get better with practise. Sure, that makes sense -- but I've also
seen a lot of recommendations to shoot _fewer_ shots and spend more time
thinking about each one rather than just rattling off thoughtless snapshots.
[rest snipped out]
Dan,
Been watching this thread . . .
Visualization:
The fundamental purpose with practice is learning visualization, and it
must be done in an organized fashion. I critique every photograph; The
Good, The Bad and The Ugly. My criteria is how well it achieves what I
visualized, both technically (focus, exposure, etc.) and artistically (does
it convey what I want it to). What is "visualization?" It is being able
to envision the desired photograph in the mind, definitely before opening
the shutter, and eventually before picking up the camera and looking
through its viewfinder! I now visualize some landscape photographs at
locations with which I'm familiar before leaving home. Other times,
regardless of location or familiarity with it, I look and a photograph
instantly visualizes from the scene before me. If it's a location with
which I'm unfamiliar, I often must spend some time becoming familiar with
it. This doesn't need to take that long, but it's a very deliberate and
conscious effort to "see" what's there and consider composition first
(color, lines, shapes, vanishing points, significant object locations and
relationships between them, etc.). Does this always mean a complete mental
image of a finished photograph? For some, maybe. Mor me, not always,
especially when I'm not there, but somewhere else, usually at home. At the
least it contains all the elements and the underlying concept(s) essential
to making the photograph "work" (its key characteristics). It is verified
and "completed" when looking through the viewfinder when the photograph is
made.
First Principle #1:
Photographs are made, not taken. This goes to the core of learning
visualization. It is a deliberate process that takes control of everything
possible that can be controlled instead of blindly pushing a shutter
release and grabbing whatever just happens to be there randomly or even
semi-randomly. [Engineers call these "First Principles," Mathematicians
call them "Axioms" and Physicists call them "Laws of Nature."]
First Principle #2:
Photography is about light and nothing but light. It's the only thing that
passes through a lens aperture and past an open shutter to the film. It's
the only thing film was designed and intended to react to. When a
photograph is made, it is not objects that are photographed, it's light
radiated or reflected by the objects that is photographed. Someone will
undoubtedly get sticky about this and cite how IR and UV films have somehow
been excluded. IR and UV are electromagnetic radiation just below and just
above the visible spectrum. Same First Principle; just change the
phenomenon from "light" to "IR" or "UV" as appropriate.
Learning Visualization:
All photographs have a purpose defined by the photographer. How well they
achieve that purpose depends entirely on the skill of the
photographer. Learning how to visualize begins with deliberately thinking
about two essential questions and using some tools to help think about what
the image will be.
Essential Question #1: "Why am I making this photograph?"
The answer need not be that complicated, or have some deep, mystical
meaning (helps to impress some of *wannabe* Fine Art crowd though). Some
of my landscapes are purely representational, but there is some aspect
about the scene that *is* the purpose for making the representational
photograph of it.
Essential Question #2: "Who is the photograph for?"
A still photograph is a static two-dimensional image that can only convey
visual information to its viewer. The viewer's experiential frame of
reference is the sole basis on which a two-dimensional image is interpreted
by the viewer. Although its title (if given one) can be a cue, it is to
some extent a crutch. With the intended viewer(s), the very best
photographs do not need one. If the photographer's purpose for the
photograph is to succeed, it must convey its "message" in a manner the
viewer will comprehend using the intended *viewer's* experiential frame of
reference, which may or may not be the same (as comprehensive) as the
photographer's.
The answers to these two essential questions are used to define what's
required of the visualization (its specifications) and helps create
it. The visualization in turn defines the cameras, lenses, film, print
materials, etc., necessary to bring that visualization to fruition with a
photograph.
Basic Tools to Aid in Answering the Essential Questions:
Characteristics of Objects (a Taxonomy):
Aristotle defined "causes" to describe fundamental characteristics of
objects the universe around us. These can be used to help think about why
the photograph is being made and decide what to "celebrate" about the
subject material (with some examples of each).
(a) Material: What something is made of; its texture usually defines that
visually.
file:///G|/TripodWebSite/oly/gallery/om81.html
file:///G|/TripodWebSite/oly/gallery/om97.html
(b) Formal: Structure, shape and form.
file:///G|/TripodWebSite/oly/gallery/om17.html
file:///G|/TripodWebSite/oly/gallery/om103.html
(c) Efficient: How something came to be; the reason it was created and
"how" it was built (versus what it's made of).
file:///G|/TripodWebSite/oly/gallery/om72.html
file:///G|/TripodWebSite/oly/gallery/om136.html
(d) Final: Purpose or goal. What it currently does or intends to
do. How it interacts with its environment and how the environment
interacts with it.
file:///G|/TripodWebSite/oly/gallery/om67.html
file:///G|/TripodWebSite/oly/gallery/om151.html
Types of Imagery (a taxonomy):
I often use another set of tools in conjuction with the above. Aristotle's
"causes" are usually considered first, but it's not always a serial
process, and as the visualization develops, consideration of these often
becomes intertwined with it, especially in determining how best to
"celebrate" the desired "cause(es)" in a manner that will convey it to the
intended viewer(s). I classify visual imagery into the following (with
some examples of each):
(a) Representational: Could also be called "documentary" but that seems
ambiguous to me. Very straightforward and almost always static; what you
see is what it is.
file:///G|/TripodWebSite/oly/gallery/om22.html
file:///G|/TripodWebSite/oly/gallery/om80.html
file:///G|/TripodWebSite/zi/gallery/contax22.html
file:///G|/TripodWebSite/mamiya/gallery/mamiya01.html
(b) Romantic: In the same usage as for poetry or music, it tells a story
about the subject material. Although not required, anything that is
dynamic and conveys a sense of motion directly related to what the subject
material is easily "romantic."
file:///G|/TripodWebSite/oly/gallery/om125.html
file:///G|/TripodWebSite/oly/gallery/om132.html
file:///G|/TripodWebSite/mamiya/gallery/mamiya02.html
(c) Impressionistic: Conveys a feeling, emotion, or concept that need not
be directly related to the *specific* subject material.
file:///G|/TripodWebSite/oly/gallery/om73.html
file:///G|/TripodWebSite/oly/gallery/om103.html
file:///G|/TripodWebSite/mamiya/gallery/mamiya03.html
(d) Abstract: An abstraction of some facet of the subject material in
which what the subject material actually is does not matter (although that
may not be completely obscured). Usually deals with characteristics such
as shapes, colors, textures, and their relative positions/locations.
file:///G|/TripodWebSite/oly/gallery/om17.html
file:///G|/TripodWebSite/oly/gallery/om78.html
file:///G|/TripodWebSite/oly/gallery/om82.html
Compositional Tools:
First Principle #3:
Unlike other graphic arts, composition in photography is primarily a
"subtractive" process. It begins with all of reality and subtracts out
that which does not enhance or contribute to the purpose of the
photograph. One could argue that using a flash is "additive." I don't
think that way. It's subtractive. What is it subtracting? By adding a
light source, the visual *effects* of existing, ambient lighting is being
overwhelmed (or at least modified) and therefore some or all of these
effects are subtracted from the image, as if it didn't exist. The same
with using a backdrop; it subtracts what would be in the background if the
backdrop were not there.
There are other compositional guidelines about how to arrange and position
objects in a photograph to create a visually interesting image. Included
are methods to draw viewer attention where it's desired and/or draw it away
from where it's not desired. Rather than try to list them all here, see
the following:
file:///G|/TripodWebSite/art/artframe.html
These are not hard and fast "rules" but things that can be used
individually and in combination to make a photograph visually
interesting. Very few photographs will use *all* of them and one must look
to *see* what is present that can be easily employed. On more than one
occasion, an potentially distracting object/element and been used simply by
shifting location and changing perspective to make it contribute to the
purpose of the image.
As you "practice," experiment with all these things, and most important,
*use* them to reverse engineer photographs you like and photographs you
dislike. Learn from not only what you do, but others have done as
well. Make one step at a time and keep chipping away at adding additional
techniques. Every photograph I make is considered "practice" as part of
"continual improvement" in technique.
-- John
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