Vestal on composition
Filed in Art - July 28, 2007From chapter 23 of The Art of Black and White Enlarging (ISBN 0 06 181896 8)
People always want to be told how to compose pictures, so I should say a decent minimum about “composition”. The word means “what things are made of”.
The idea of composition as the good or bad arrangement of things with the boundaries of pictures has some descriptive truth: some arrangements do work better than others. But the idea has been blown up out of all proportion and used prescriptively, as if following “rules of thirds” or using “leading lines” would automatically solve the unpredictable problems of pictures not yet made. It doesn’t work. The whole idea is pernicious nonsense; and composition, used in that sense, is a dirty word.
The way to arrange pictures well is to pay attention to what you see when photographing and printing and to fill the pictures with things that are worth seeing. No rules apply. You will do best by ignoring all rules and making your own decision according to what you see and feel.
It is a surprisingly simple idea, really. To fill your pictures with things that are worth seeing. Some words not to lose. Definitely that.
I find the rule of thirds to be really effective. Your example pic makes use of it: the rightmost leaf is at a third, as is the apex of the other leaf.
Not sure why rule of thirds works so well, that’s something for the philosophers to discuss.
July 28, 2007 @ 2:22 pm
Interesting how your illustrating photo follows the rule of the diagonal… ;-)
July 28, 2007 @ 2:48 pm
Hmmm, in the context of the homepge it appeared square, with the right part hidden. Now I see it in full and it invalidates my previous comment :-)
July 28, 2007 @ 2:49 pm
That is probably the best definition of composition that I’ve ever seen: “what things are made of”. What you put into the frame that is important to you and to telling the story that you wish to tell. Excellent. Certainly, words not to lose!
July 31, 2007 @ 11:10 am
This provoked quite a bit of thinking on my part – I finally realised that the problem with this approach is understanding what is worth seeing. There is the vision of the artist.
As to the rules – they are the same ones taught in basic high-school art classes. Trouble is many more people pick up cameras that continue with brush & paint but don’t develop past the first lessons.
July 31, 2007 @ 1:19 pm
Martin,
I finally realised that the problem with this approach is understanding what is worth seeing.
I agree that that is the crux, but not that it is necessarily the problem. One way of interpreting this is to say that the important stuff is what you see/photograph – not what the club competition secretary happens to want to reward (insert own scenario to taste). Much photography, in terms of volume, seems to be about copying pictures that somebody else thought were important.
My understanding of what Vestal is saying is ‘go you own way’ and don’t follow conventions – whether they be expressed in terms of rules, or subject matter or anything else.
July 31, 2007 @ 3:27 pm
Derek/Stephane,
You didn’t think that this photo wasn’t carefully selected. Did you?
July 31, 2007 @ 3:28 pm
Colin,
I see where you’re coming from – “things that are worth seeing” being thus “things that you find important / want your audience to see”. I was approaching it from the viewer setting the importance.
I agree, “problem” was a poor choice of word in my original comment. “Challenge” is more what I was thinking.
July 31, 2007 @ 6:00 pm