The Visualization files linked from here will be MIA for a few days, as I shift the contents of this site around, setting up a new visual playspace.
The Digital Photograph Handbook by Simon Joinson
Reminds me that I need to find and get used to the 50 mm setting on the new camera. Joinson has a totally different take on things from Smith (below). Not only does he encourage cropping, he's fully in favor of altering images by, say, dropping in the sky from one shot into the foreground of another.
Joinson takes a more expansive view of the rule of thirds -- using it to define the horizon, up & down, etc.
Designing a Photograph by Bill Smith, 142 pages
By placing a camera between yourself and your subject, the experience changes radically. The photographer becomes an observer, no longer a participant. When the camera user attempts to be as much a participant as an observer, the image suffers. The responsibility and awareness of the photographer is to sense, to feel, and to capture on film the beauty and the emotion while being detached enough to view it in its entirety.
Scan the edges of the frame before clicking the shutter.
Figure & ground.
Look before you see.
As I look around a room or walk down a street, I constantly frame images in my mind.
Whenever I pick up a camera, I am aware of a certain electricity that seems to run through me. An inner strength seems to make me quicker, more intuitive, and more aware of what I see. At the same time, a certian deadening of my awareness filters out anything not relevant to the shot or scene before me. I cross streets and move through crowds with a total lack of conscious thought. To me, photography is a great amusement that generates a response unlike anything else.
Smith is a purist on, of all things, cropping. He feels you should crop with the camera, not afterward. In fact, he takes pride in composing the optimal border before pushing the button. Whew! That's certainly not how I view photography. My stance is "whatever it takes."
switching directories 9/15
