I would like to improve my compositional skills, suggestions for educational resources wanted

Is it interesting?

Does it have a clear subject?

Do I like it?

Hikari,

With regard to the four photos I posted above, and applying your three questions, I would evaluate them as follows:

The top two work okay. The bottom two fail in not being interesting enough or having a clear subject.

As to the third question, I liked all of them well enough when I tripped the shutter!

Cheers, Jock
 
Hey All,

When I look at your images I would ask you - obviously something caught your eye in each image - did you actually capture precisely what caught your eye? "Pretty" photography is not very hard - "aesthetic and meaningful" photography that you come back to is very hard. The chasm between principle and application is vast and nobody has ever or will ever build an easy bridge.

I spent an hour watching this and it is a truly great video. I will end up watching it more than once.

Scott Kelby's Crush the Composition - Google+ Photographers Conference - YouTube

It simply echos for a new generation and in a different media exactly what my favorite photographer Dorothea Lange said some time ago...

I realize more and more what it takes to be a really good photographer. You go in over your head, not just up to your neck.

and

Photographers stop photographing a subject too soon before they have exhausted the possibilities.

I too am working on this so I hope I don't sound harsh.

-Ed-

PS A couple "just my opinion" fast comments on your photos...

1) too much sky
2) too much tree on left and branch growing out of head of one goose, etc
3) I like this photo best but while it does capture a message for me the composition doesn't quite work. I don't know what to say specifically but the second quote by Dorothea says what I'm getting at. Maybe closer?
4) Hmmm ...
 
Ok, two suggestions... First, learn about the Rule of Thirds and the Golden Mean (Section). These principles are the basis for many effective compositions. Then decide if you are going to seek the action or wait for it to come to you. By this I mean do you intend to walk the streets in the hope that you will come onto something worthwhile or are you going to find somewhere with potential and wait for the elements to come together? I find the former results in more dynamic but looser compositions while the latter is more measured, more previsualised and results in tighter compositions but less variety. Personally I like to combine the two and work a fairly small area and the way people interact with it.

Get books of photographs taken by masters and study those. Go out and shoot and then study those. Learn to shoot full-frame where you only crop in the camera, but never in post. Learn the "rules" of composition and your photographs will look like everyone else's photographs that learnt the "rules" of composition. Your work will then have a really good shot to be mediocre.

Both good advice.

In art, which is pre-photography of course, the novice learned from the master often painting or carving side by side. Emulating the masters is the first step in learning to see how they see. From there your own style gradually emerges when you decide what is more attractive to you. So in saying this, find street or landscape or portrait artists whose work you enjoy.. and imitate bearing in mind that you are learning as you do so. Don't become sullen because your work doesn't feel original, original will come in time and with confidence. Hikari is right, in essence, there are no rules once you understand what you want to achieve so adhering to static rules [you should at least learn them but don't be confined by them] will make you the average shooter. The good photographers step beyond the rules. Also.. if you don't know how to use your camera to get that effects that you want, like motion blur of water in a landscape, like shallow dof in a portrait, then you need to look up instruction on that. Sometimes that is no more than a few google searches away, like "how to shoot fireworks".

Your photos above, while having some nice elements, really don't have any composition to them. Remember your camera frame is your picture frame, if you need to do a little crop to cut out a small distraction you didn't see on the edge of your image or maybe to get a better close-up because you had the wrong lens at the time, then fine, but don't base your shots on what you might be able to salvage later. Your perspective doesn't change by cropping an image, you just show less of it. The perspective has to be there to begin with, you have to frame it the way you want to see it even if that means laying on the ground or walking a hundred yards to the right or stepping down into the edge of the water to get the right elements framed. **Don't step off a cliff or anything!**

I see a lot of "how can I make this better" on here and the answer vacillates between tweaking color and contrast in post processing [which btw is the advice you want to get/give] or the less tasteful thing to say to someone, you should have asked yourself that when you took it rather than shooting on the fly and hoping to make something of it later. Mind you the latter is too rude and no one ever says it but we think it. And-- we all have done that but in essence it is being sloppy. Why bother if you aren't going to do your best. You know the polishing a t#rd thing. It's still a t#rd. Note here: Ask the advice of people whose work you admire.. it will help you to improve. If you ask those who are just as lost or learning like you then you won't progress. You always want to reach up :)

Last bit of advice is shoot shoot shoot, practice, daily or a few times a week. You only get out of it what you put into it. If you shoot once or twice a month don't expect great strides in your results but if you work on it constantly, you can be sure that your skill will evolve and a style will emerge. This all probably sounds more like a pep talk than actual help but really it isn't. If you need lessons in how to use your camera you can get a book or attend your class but seeing.. that is something you just need to keep working at, ever honing your vision.
 
Hi Jock

I like the sky in the first image and can see why you were drawn to capture it. Unfortunately the chopped trees are a distraction. I like the idea of the trees silhouetted against ths sky, but would have liked to see all of the trees.

The birds in the water ... tough one to make interesting. Too busy I think.

The third picture, I can see where you are going with it. Straight lines of the trees pointing up to the sky would have worked to draw your eyes to the sky but the fallen tree disrupts the flow and so spoils the picture.

Fourth one. Too dark in the foreground. Nothng really drawing your eyes in the background. So, for me, it doesn't work as it is.

Hope this criticism helps.
 
My two tips.

1) Buy "The Photographers Eye" by Michael Freeman. Available either as a book, ebook or app for your iPad. Read it several times as there's a lot to take in. I need to go through it again.

2) Turn your LCD (and EVF) to black and white mode (ie: the jpeg setting). You'll see a lot easier without the distractions of colours. Use the viewfinder to make shapes and patterns from the "subjects" in a scene.

Gordon
 
This is really an informative thread. Jock, thanks for starting it! The links on the posts are incredible.....spent quite some hours perusing.
One of the things that I try to make time for when visiting urban areas are the museums -- I try for an entire day spent on site.
Among my favs are the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, the Field Museum on the lakefront in Chicago and the Detroit Institiute of Art. I haven't had the pleasure of touring the big apple yet, but can see spending serious time there.

Best --Jim
 
The video linked above makes an important point about composition - when something in the scene moves you to take a picture, it can be difficult to truly "capture" it on your first shot. Move around, get closer/farther, check for extraneous elements that detract from the subject, etc. I know I've come home with plenty of shots where the camera didn't "see" what I saw, and since I didn't take the time to find it the result is just blah.
 
Does it have a clear subject?

Does a Rothko, a Pollock, a Hepworth, or even a Cezanne have a clear subject?

Photographs don't have to be executed with separate and different criteria to other media.

That's why the advice given elsewhere in the thread - to look at the work of acknowledged masters of many different media as an aid to learning - is so good.

My personal watchword before I press the shutter-release is to ask myself "What does this photograph do?".

That might seem a bit gnomic or cryptic at first sight, but it helps me know whether I'm taking a snap (and there's nothing wrong with a decent snap) or whether I'm trying to do something else - or whether I'm trying too hard.
 
I've been grappling with these aspects of photography as well.

What is a photograph?

Is it a window into a scene?

If it is a window, then the binding frame around the scene becomes restrictive. It also begs the question what's happening outside the frame? Why is one satisfied with just what is presented?

Can the photograph bleed out of the frame, into the observer's reality?

Is it an object in itself? I mean, is the photograph complete in itself, like a painting? Paintings can represent a scene, but one knows that there is no existing reality outside the frame, because the artist has painted only the frame presented.

I dunno. This stuff bothers me a lot.
 
Alexey Brodovitch taught several modern Masters e.g. Avedon, Irving Penn, Hiro. Brodovitch was famous for his bold sayings:

"If you see something you have seen before, don't click the shutter."

"What is a good photograph? I cannot say. A photograph is tied to the time, what is good today may be a cliché tomorrow. The problem of the photographer is to discover his own language, a visual ABC. The picture represents the feelings and point of view of the intelligence behind the camera. This disease of our age is boredom and a good photographer must combat it. The way to do this is by invention – by surprise. When I say a good picture has surprise value I mean that it stimulates my thinking and intrigues me. The best way to achieve surprise quality is by avoiding clichés. Imitation is the greatest danger of the young photographer."

The last quotation brings to mind the startling and original photographs of Eikoh Hosoe who has been an inspiration since my teenage years. Hosoe also learnt under Brodovitch.
 
I've heard Brodovitch's injunctions before, and while there's much to be said for originality (much!), he was also teaching at a time when the mass of photographs were invisible. By which I mean, it is now very easy to find images online, and millions if not billions of them ... accordingly, it becomes obvious very quickly (at least to me) that I'm not taking any photographs that haven't been already taken. Almost every photographic subject could be considered a cliché today.

This can be rather intimidating, dispiriting and discouraging.

How then can any of us manage to be "original"?

"Street photography" is a good example. How many more shots of random strangers in bleachy/sooty grainy black and white does the world need? How many more shots of people looking at their mobile 'phones while a figure on a billboard stares down at them? How many more homeless guys unconscious in an alley?


Well of course, the remarkable thing is that some people do manage it, so it can be done (you only have to look at Don Springer's work to see that).

So there's every reason to remain inspired and encouraged to make new photographs after all.

Phew ...
 
I keep harping that photography is a form of communications similar to writing, And yes billion of images now float around the internet and our universe of every possible subject, the rub is those billions of images are not yours. Similarly, we are flooded with electronic books, essays, poems, short stories, news and blogs ... billions of new combinations of the written word covering identical subject matter(s). Should we quit writing or even reading. Seems so silly to present such an idea, but so to for photography. Yes, the world is much more competitive than 20 years earlier and even more so than half a century ago. So we have to work harder to see beyond the obvious, to photograph a scene and make it successful and make it unique and make it our own. Fortunately, we have decades of trail blazers who have left behind a path of images for us to examine, learn, emulate and then move beyond.

If you are able to capture an image similar to a Brodovitch, an Adams, an Avedon, a Weston, a Duncan, et al, is a significant accomplishment. Equaling one of the greats, equaling a maestro of light and shadow, is well worth posting and sharing. While the image may not be 100% creatively original ... what is? (There is nothing new under the Sun.) Striving for, attaining and improving on one's personal best provides a meaning to human life and a damn good reason to keep shooting.

@ pdh, in no way is this meant to be a slam against you ... in the end you seem to have talked yourself out of your original statements.

Gary
 
A photograph is tied to the time, what is good today may be a cliché tomorrow.

I take this as a good thing. A photo that is tied to time is...timeless, unique, a record of a person, place, or event that will never occur in exactly the same manner again. Photography for the purpose of documentary will never run out of material.
 
Jock, that's the best freaking link I've seen a LONG time. I will get better after reading and re-reading that and studying every photo. I think I will take Gordon's advice from earlier in the conversation and switch the EVF to b/w to better focus on shapes and geometry.

I feel refreshed!
 
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