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pecuniumOr maybe not. I'm actually going to be talking about composition. There will be "photo jargon" which I'll offset in quotation marks.
Looking around flickr I, at least, am struck by the previews. For those who don't know, flickr has thumbnails of the pictures one posts. Members photostreams show the entire image. Sets, however, are given a different sort of thumbnail.
A square ones ( e.g. Galapagos).
Which is interesting. Most photographers don't work well in square. We tend to start in 35 (or these days, digital). We look at old prints from 4x5, and 8x10. The square formats (2 1/4, 6x6, 6x7) are harder to get a handle on. Grab an introductory photo text (I'll wait). Look at the chapter on composition, it will discuss the "rule of thirds" and the "points of interest" (which are the four corners of the center square, if one makes nine equal boxes... and yes, I know that's a convolute way to describe it, bear with me).libertango has an example of this in his portrait of Art Widener. Art's eye is in the upper right, "point of interest," and he's looking into the image.
This is considered canonically "strong" composition.
It's a good photo, and that aspsect of the composition is strong. The negaive space across the ceneter of the image makes one feel one is sitting across from the subject, which makes one examine him, as though he were actually threre (and it's one oflibertango's strengths as a photographer. His portraits engage the viewer, "drawing them into" the picture.
I break this rule, a lot. Maia's mother hates centered point of interest photography, and one of her more frequent critiques of my shots is, "the subject's in the middle."
Now, if oe looks at those pictures, the center of interest isn't plugged right in the middle like a bullseye, but it's not running around the edge of the middle third.
But the loss of the 1:1.5 aspect ratio of the 35mm format (and the 1:1.25 ratio of the larger formats) means the shooter has to deal with what feels a constrained area of work. Which leads to an abuse of the format.
What do I mean by abuse?
I mean that the photographer often includes a lot of extra space, so they will have room to crop the image to a more rectangular format. They get the advantage of the large negative (unless they have a lot of money to get a digital back for their 2 1/4... for my Hassleblad that's about $8,000 US) and the more forgiving enlargements.
But the format itself is interesting. Spanish Flower 2, Gleisarbeiter and Randy's Donuts.
A lot of my bird shots are shot rectangular, and then cropped square.
Which brings me to the beginning again.
Flickr crops sets to sq. thumbnails (and my flickr icon is such a squaring of a rectangle). It does so by grabbing the center of the image. What amuses me is that so many of the crops are decently built square format image.
Looking around flickr I, at least, am struck by the previews. For those who don't know, flickr has thumbnails of the pictures one posts. Members photostreams show the entire image. Sets, however, are given a different sort of thumbnail.
A square ones ( e.g. Galapagos).
Which is interesting. Most photographers don't work well in square. We tend to start in 35 (or these days, digital). We look at old prints from 4x5, and 8x10. The square formats (2 1/4, 6x6, 6x7) are harder to get a handle on. Grab an introductory photo text (I'll wait). Look at the chapter on composition, it will discuss the "rule of thirds" and the "points of interest" (which are the four corners of the center square, if one makes nine equal boxes... and yes, I know that's a convolute way to describe it, bear with me).
libertango has an example of this in his portrait of Art Widener. Art's eye is in the upper right, "point of interest," and he's looking into the image. This is considered canonically "strong" composition.
It's a good photo, and that aspsect of the composition is strong. The negaive space across the ceneter of the image makes one feel one is sitting across from the subject, which makes one examine him, as though he were actually threre (and it's one of
libertango's strengths as a photographer. His portraits engage the viewer, "drawing them into" the picture.I break this rule, a lot. Maia's mother hates centered point of interest photography, and one of her more frequent critiques of my shots is, "the subject's in the middle."
Now, if oe looks at those pictures, the center of interest isn't plugged right in the middle like a bullseye, but it's not running around the edge of the middle third.
But the loss of the 1:1.5 aspect ratio of the 35mm format (and the 1:1.25 ratio of the larger formats) means the shooter has to deal with what feels a constrained area of work. Which leads to an abuse of the format.
What do I mean by abuse?
I mean that the photographer often includes a lot of extra space, so they will have room to crop the image to a more rectangular format. They get the advantage of the large negative (unless they have a lot of money to get a digital back for their 2 1/4... for my Hassleblad that's about $8,000 US) and the more forgiving enlargements.
But the format itself is interesting. Spanish Flower 2, Gleisarbeiter and Randy's Donuts.
A lot of my bird shots are shot rectangular, and then cropped square.
Which brings me to the beginning again.
Flickr crops sets to sq. thumbnails (and my flickr icon is such a squaring of a rectangle). It does so by grabbing the center of the image. What amuses me is that so many of the crops are decently built square format image.
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no subject
Date: 2008-02-22 09:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-22 10:30 pm (UTC)One of the things I like about digital is the freedom from the paper. When I was doing B&W I tended to do my cropping in the enlarger, blowing up to 8x10 through the use of the head.
It made for some interesting images, but I think I was limiting myself; blinkered by the implication that I had to fill the full sheet.
With the digital, I have the screen as my palette, and I have been much more free with cropping to get the most out of the image. I've also been spoiled by having a Nikon which has a 100 percent viewfinder (just as my F3 does).
This has caused me problems with commercial printing (except with Robie's Camera in Lakeview, Wash) because they tend to blow the image up, just a touch, so things I had right where I wanted them to be, were getting clipped.
TK
Thanks
Date: 2008-02-23 03:36 pm (UTC)In fairness, lately I've been uploading whole images to Flickr, and then cropping there. Their cropping tool includes guide lines in thirds. My Obama rally set was largely (though not entirely) edited with thirds in mind, and they make it absurdly easy -- which is part of why that set is as strong as it is (IMHO).
And to not be too modest, I've been editing pictures longer than I've been taking them. My dad's friend Gerry would let me play in his darkroom when I was a kid, and I'd sneak into Midland's darkroom almost my entire senior year (which is the year Without Curfew).
Re: Thanks
Date: 2008-02-23 04:14 pm (UTC)4x4, after all, is the same ratio as 1x1.
TK