Circa 1990
I worked at newspapers for 10 years back last century. I went to college for that. I shot everything, and a lot of it. I'd shoot and develop 3 or 4 assignments a day, 6 or 7 days a week. Paying the bills.
So I learned what worked for me, if nothing else, from just pure brute force. And a lot of that meant learning the rules of composition, or at least being able to see the concepts while being a little fuzzy on their exact definitions.
I hear photographers say, "I'm an artist, a rebel. I don't need no stinkin rules holding me back."
I'm all for that. Stretch your vision, stand apart. That's the definition of art and I'll applaud with heart when you pull it off. We remember the people who can do it consistently. Strive for art, always.
But art ain't easy. If it gets too easy, they move the line and make it hard again. Art has to be risky, but my job was to come back with a good picture every time. That was the floor.
Plain old good pictures don't get enough love. And in this firehose of images we bathe in, they're vanishingly rare. My line is, strive for art, but settle for craftsmanship.
So I always try to plan out a picture. Here's the plan I mapped out while lining up the farmhouse shot in the next post. I've never tried to articulate a plan, but I've always wanted to, so here goes.
This isn't a great picture. It's not one I show a lot. But I think it's a good shot, a well-composed shot.
This is in central Washington state. Washington apples, Cascade hops, that's where they grow them. I go out there for the clouds. That doesn't always work out, but a lot of times it works out just right. The problem is, there's not much to put in front of those clouds, so I work with what I find.
You have an instant, a fraction of a second, to catch a viewer's eye with a picture. My first goal is to guide their eye to what I want them to see first and hopefully that will make them stay around to see what else is involved. If I can do that, my next goal is to move their eye around the frame in an orderly fashion. Make them look where I want them to look and keep them away from anything that might distract them. That's where rules and techniques come in.
Let's talk about the rule of thirds (ROT). Everybody knows what that is, and if you don't, you should. Go look it up. It's easy to learn and easy to see. It might be cliche and may not lead to art, but it gives you a sturdy platform for building a good image. When I'm lining up a shot I pretty much always look at ROT framing first, then make adjustments if necessary. I stayed with the ROT for this shot.
The ROT says your power areas in the frame are at the intersections around the inner ninth. Those are a viewer's natural entry points to a picture. So that's where I start, and I start with brights. In general, a viewer's eye will go first to the brightest part of the frame. I put the white farmhouse in the lower left ROT intersection, hoping to lure them there long enough to get them interested in taking a tour. I call that the bright hook and place it where it's easy to find.
I shoot a lot of power poles when I'm out in the farmland. Sometimes they're the only thing breaking up the landscape. They're handy for establishing a vanishing point, and while I used them that way in this shot, that wasn't a dominant element of the picture at all. In my plan, it would take some time to guide the viewer back there to the horizon, and if I kept their attention for that long, I'd consider that a win.
I used the foreground poles as frames. If I can hook you with the house, I try to keep you there with the frame of the 2 poles across the road. To make that easier, I built that inner frame along an ROT grid. I want you to go right in the front door.
If I can set the bright hook, now I try to move their eye. I want them to back out until they find that second inner frame defined by the 2 polls on this side of the road. That second frame's most important job is to bring the sky into play. And we have the ROT going for us in that frame as well.
Unless they're super dramatic, well-managed skies don't generally attract a viewer's eye. Bright ones can be very distracting to the point of ruining a picture. Most of the time your sky just regulates the weight in its part of the frame, maybe filling up its third, and the viewer will just take it for granted. Knowing that can play its own role in defining the overall viewing path.
If the sky is important in your shot, you have to lead the viewer to it. That's the purpose of that second inner frame. The sky needs to star in this image.
If the viewer stops there, I'm happy. They got what I came to tell them and I thank them for their time. But if I'm lucky, they'll ride that sky over the wire and into the vanishing point on the horizon. They've gone as far as the eye can see. Touchdown.
Miscellaneous, Best Practices and a Request at the End.
Light
I didn't talk about light. You should always talk about light, first thing. It was cloudy in the background, but enough sun for sharp shadows in the foreground. The light was very much behind me and my Canon Digic X processor figured out this overall exposure. I didn't change it much. If the foreground light had been any harsher at all, I would not have kept this shot. The best I could do here was to keep the light out of the way. It wasn't the star this time.
I go out looking for light. If I can find good light, I'll find something to bounce it off gracefully into my lens. Good light makes good shots and I seek it out. But a lot of times with light, you just get what you get and you are where you are. And if you do it enough, you'll find yourself there again. If bad light ruins a trip, fight it. Try to figure out one way, any way, to kinda, maybe make it work. Even if you fail, you'll learn things about that kind of light. If you do figure out a way, you'll have that tool anytime you need it. Maybe turn it into a technique.
Light is too big of a subject to cover here, but I want to say one more thing: learn the geometry of light. Light travels in a straight line and the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection. Incident light is tough to shoot with. Sometimes it can be part of a great plan, sometimes it's the only option. Whatever puts you there, you should know what you're looking at and know how to deal with it. Reflected light is much easier. It's what your camera's meter and processor were built to work with. Put the sun more or less behind you and that's one less thing you need to worry about.
Sunrises, sunsets, they're all just orange crap. We reached our quota long ago. Turn around and watch the reflections of a sunset. That's where the good shots are.
Less is More
That's as cliche as it comes, but it's true every time. Anything that doesn't help a shot, hurts, or is at least a hazard to your viewer's attention. Anything that doesn't help, crop it out, blur it out, put it in a shadow, move your feet, hide it behind something, remember to erase it in post, whatever. Figure out a way to either make it matter, or clean it up.
Level
Unless you make a conscious and reasoned decision not to, level up your shots. Out of level, out of plumb is distracting as hell. If that's your plan, go nuts. If not, level up. Second only to dynamic range, the viewfinder level overlay is the best thing that digital brought to photography.
Thumbnails
Look at your shot postage-stamp size. If all the right things in your plan pop in the right places at that size, all the better. Makes for a handy check and a good tie breaker.
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I got a million more, but that's all I can think of right now. Ideally, the intention of this post is to make this a conversation. Add your comments, ask questions, throw in a picture you like and walk us through it. I used to work on staffs. Even a small newspaper would have 3 or 4 photographers on staff. Different papers would send shooters to the same events. We talked to each other about photography all the time, and it was hardly ever about gear. (Eh, down on the list, anyway.) We mainly talked about pictures, angles, techniques, chemistry, light, art. I'd like to try that here.
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[Originally posted 22 July 2024]
